XXVII
The same rifle shots that brought bad dreams to Bill had a much more lucid meaning for Joe Robinson and Pete the Breed, the two Indians that were occupying Harold's cabin. The wind bore toward them from Harold's new abode, the rifle was of heavy caliber, and the sound came clear and unmistakable through the stillness. They looked from one to the other.
"Four shots," Pete said at last. "Lounsbury's signal."
Pete stood very still, as if in thought. "Didn't come heap too quick," he observed. "One day more you and me been gone down to Yuga—after supplies."
"Yes—but we can't go now." Joe's face grew crafty. The wolfish character of his eyes was for the moment all the more pronounced. There was a hint of excitement in his swarthy, unclean face.
"That means—big doin's," he pronounced gravely. "We go."
Pete agreed, and they made swift preparations for their departure. Some of these preparations would have been an amazement to the white woodsmen of the region,—for instance, the slow cleaning and oiling of their weapons. The red race—at least such representatives of it as lived in Clearwater—was not greatly given to cleanliness in any form. It was noticeable that Joe looked well to see if his pistol was loaded, and Pete slapped once at the long, cruel blade that he wore in his belt. Then they put on their snowshoes and mushed away.
There was no nervous waiting at the appointed meeting place,—a spring a half-mile from Bill's cabin. Harold Lounsbury was already there. The look on his face confirmed Joe's predictions very nicely. There would, it seemed, be big doings, and very soon.
A stranger to this land might have thought that Harold was drunk. Unfamiliar little fires glittered and glowed in his eyes, his features were drawn, his word of greeting was heavy and strained. His hands, however, were quite steady as he rolled his cigarette.
For all that the North had failed to teach him so many of its lessons Harold knew how to deal with Indians. It was never wise to appear too eager; and he had learned that a certain nonchalance, an indifference, gave prestige to his schemes. The truth was, however, that Harold was seared by inner and raging fires. He had just spent the most black and bitter night of his life. The hatred that had been smoldering a long time in his breast had at last burst into a searing flame.
There was one quality, at least, that he shared with the breeds; hatred was an old lesson soon learned and never forgotten. He had hated Bill from the first moment, not only for what he was and what he stood for—so opposite to Harold in everything—but also for that first mortifying meeting in his own cabin. He felt no gratitude to him for rescuing him from his degenerate life. The fact that Bill's agency, and Bill's alone, had brought Virginia to his arms was no softening factor in his malice. Every day since, it seemed to him, he had further cause for hatred, till now it stung and burned him like strong drink, like live hot steam in his brain. In his inner soul he knew that Bill had endured tests in which he had failed, and he hated him the worse for it. He had sensed Bill's contempt for him, and the absolute fairness with which the woodsman had always treated him brought no remorse. Bill had found the mine for which he sought, to which, by the degenerate code by which he lived, he felt he had an ancestral right.
Ever since he had gone down into that darkened treasure house he had known in his own soul, late or soon, his future course. The gold alone was worth the crime he planned. And as a crowning touch came the events of the day and night just passed.
He had had no desire for Bill to return to the cabin alive. It would have been a simple way out of his difficulties for the woodsman to fall and die in the snow wastes of Clearwater. For him to lie so still and impotent in the drifts would compensate for many things, and in such a case he would never have opportunity to record the finding of his mine. The only imperfection, in this event, was that it deprived Harold of his personal vengeance, and magnanimously he was willing to forgo that. It wouldn't be his pleasure to see the final agony, the last shudder of the frame,—but yet at least he might see much remnants as would be left when the snow had melted in spring.
Every event of the day had pointed to a successful trip, from Harold's point of view. He had known that Bill couldn't make it through to his Twenty-three Mile cabin after the Chinook wind had softened the snow. The bitter night that followed would have likely claimed quickly any one that tried to sleep, without blankets, unsheltered in the snow fields. And when Virginia had gone out to save him and had brought back the blind and reeling man, his first impulse had been to leap upon him, in his helplessness, and drive his hunting knife through his heart!
It wouldn't, however, had been a wise course to pursue. He didn't want to lose Virginia. He flattered himself that he had been cunning and self-mastered. He had watched Virginia's tender services to the woodsman, and once he had seen a luster in her eyes that had seemed to shatter his reason. And he knew that the time had come to strike.
He felt no remorse. The North had stripped him of all the masks with which civilization had disguised him, and he was simply his father's son.
This was a land of savage and primitive passions, and he felt no self-amazement that he should be planning a murderous and an inhuman crime. He had learned certain lessons of cruelty from the wilderness; the savage breeds with whom he had mingled had had their influence too. Bill, born and living in a land of beasts, had kept the glory of manhood; Harold, coming from a land of men, had fallen to the beasts' own level. And even the savage wolf does not slay the pack-brother that frees him from a trap! Besides, his father's wicked blood was prompting his every step.
He threw the cigarette away and glanced critically at the rifles of his two confederates. The breeds waited patiently for him to speak. "Where's Sindy?" he asked at last.
They began to wonder if he had called them here just to ask about Sindy, and for an instant they were sullenly unresponsive. But the heavy lines on their master's face soon reassured them. "Over Buckshot Dan's—just where you said," Joe replied.
"Of course Buckshot took her back?" The Indians nodded. "Well, I'm going to let him keep her. I've got a white squaw now—and soon I'm going out with her—to the Outside. But there's things to do first. Bill has found the mine."
The others nodded gravely. They expected some such development.
"And Bill is as blind as a mole—got caught in a cabin full of green-wood smoke. He'll be able to see again in a day or two. So I sent for you right away."
The breeds nodded again, a trifle less phlegmatically. Perhaps Pete's eyes had begun to gleam,—such a gleam as the ptarmigan sees in the eyes of the little weasel, leaping through the snow.
"The mine's worth millions—more money than you can dream of. Each of you get a sixth—one third divided between you. You'll never get more money for one night's work. More than you can spend, if you live a hundred winters. But you agree first to these terms—or you won't know where the mine is."
"Me—I want a fourth," Joe answered sullenly.
"All right. Turn around and go home. I don't want you."
It was a bluff, but it worked. Joe came to terms at once. Treacherous himself and expecting treachery, Harold wisely decided that he wouldn't divulge the location of the mine, however, until all needed work was done.
"As soon as we've finished what I've planned, we'll tear down his claim notices and put up our own, then go down to the recorder and record the claim," Harold went on. "Then it's ours. No one will ever guess. No one'll make any trouble."
Joe's mind seemed to leap ahead of the story, and he made a very pertinent question. "The white squaw. Maybe she'll tell?"
Harold glared at him. The man inferred that he couldn't master his own woman. "Didn't you hear me say she was my squaw? I'll tend to her. Besides—the way I've got it planned, she won't know—at least she won't understand. Now listen, you two, and don't make any mistake. I've got to go back to the cabin now—try to be there before they wake up. They're both tired out from a hard experience yesterday—and, as I told you, Bill's as blind as a gopher.
"Both of you are to come to the cabin, just about dark. You'll tell me you have been over Bald Peak way and are hitting back toward the Yuga village. Bring along a quart of booze—firewater—and maybe two quarts would be better. We'll have supper, and you'd better bring along something in your pocket for yourselves. It will put the girl in a better mood. And now—you see what you've got to do?"
Neither of them answered. They could guess—but they didn't conceive of the real brilliancy of the plan.
"If you can't, you're dummies. It's just this"—and Harold's face drew into an unlovely snarl—"sometime in the early evening give Bill what's coming to him."
"Do him off——?" Joe asked stolidly.
"Stamp him out like I stamp this snow!" He paused, and the two breeds leaned toward him, waiting for the next word. They were not phlegmatic now. They were imbued with Harold's own passion, and their dark, savage faces told the story. Their features were beginning to draw, even as his; their eyes were lurid slits above the high cheek bones.
"Make it look like a fight," Harold went on. "Insult him—better still, get in a quarrel among yourselves. He'll tell you to shut up, and one of you flame up at him. Then strike the life out of him before he knows what he's about. He's blind and he can't fight. Then go back to my cabin and hide out."
"No food in cabin," Joe objected. "Get some from you?"
For a moment Harold was baffled. This was a singularly unfortunate circumstance. But he soon saw the way out. "So you've used up the supplies, eh? Got any booze——?"
"Still two bottles firewater——"
"Good. The trouble is that there's no food at Bill's cabin, either—not enough to last a day. Bring what you have for your supper to-night, or as much of it as you need—and after you're through with Bill go back to your cabin and get what you have left——"
"There won't be none left——"
"Are you so low as that? Then listen. Do you know where Bill's Twenty-three Mile cabin is?"
Pete nodded. Joe made no response.
"Then you can find it, Pete. I haven't any idea where it is myself. It's only a day's march, and he's got it packed with grub. You hide out there, and the little food we have left in the cabin'll be enough to take us down there too—the woman and I—we'll follow your snowshoes tracks. Then we'll make it through to the Yuga from there. And if we have to, we can go over to a grizzly carcass I know of and cut off a few pounds of meat—but we won't have to. We'll join you at the Twenty-three Mile cabin to-morrow night."
Pete the breed looked doubtful. "Bear over—east?" he asked.
"Somewhere over there," Harold replied.
"Don't guess any bear meat left. Heard coyotes—hundred of 'em—over east. Pack of wolves came through too—sang song over there."
Harold could agree with him. If indeed the wolves and the coyotes had gathered—starving gray skulkers of the forest—the great skeleton would have been stripped clean by now. However, it didn't complicate his own problem. The Indians could get down to the Twenty-three Mile cabin with the morsel of food they had left—he and Virginia could follow their trail with the fragment of supplies remaining in Bill's cabin.
"You can go from there to the Yuga and hide out," Harold went on. "I'll go down to the recorder's office with the woman. Don't worry about her, I'll tell 'em that you were two Indians from the East Selkirks, give 'em a couple of false names and send 'em on a goose chase. It's simple as day and doesn't need any nerve. And if you've got it through your heads, I'm going back to the cabin."
They had it through their heads. The plan, as Harold said, was exceedingly simple. They digested it slowly, then nodded. But Pete had one more question—one that was wholly characteristic of his weasel soul.
"What do you want us to use?" he asked. "This?" He indicated the thin blade at his thigh. "Maybe use rifle?"
Harold's eyes looked drowsy when he answered. Something like a lust, a desire swept over him; this question of Pete's moved him in dark and evil ways. "Oh, I don't know," he replied. "It doesn't much matter——" He spoke in a strained, thick voice that was vaguely exciting to the two breeds. For a few seconds he seemed to stand listening, rather than in thought, and he continued his reply as if he were scarcely aware of his own words. It was as if a voice from the past was speaking through his lips. The words came with no conscious effort; rather were they the dread outpourings of an inherent fester in his soul. His father's blood was in the full ascendancy at last.
"There's an old pick on the table—Bill had it prospecting." he said.