CHAPTER XVIII
THE BACK TRAIL
Blake and his friends spent three weeks at the Hudson Bay post, and throughout the first fortnight an icy wind hurled the snow against the quivering building. It was dangerous to venture as far as a neighboring bluff, where fuel had been cut; Benson and the agent, who were hauling cordwood home, narrowly escaped from death one evening in the suddenly freshening storm. None of the half-breeds could reach the factory, and Robertson confessed to some anxiety about them. There was little that could be done, and they spent the dreary days lounging about the red-hot stove, and listening to the roar of the gale. In the long evenings, Robertson told them grim stories of the North.
Then there came a week of still, clear weather, with intense frost; and when several of the trappers arrived, Robertson suggested that his guests had better accompany a man who was going some distance south with a dog team. He could, however, spare them only a scanty supply of food, and they knew that a long forced march lay before them when they left their guide.
Day was breaking when the dogs were harnessed to the sled, and Harding and his companions, shivering in their furs, felt a strong reluctance to leave the factory. It was a rude place and very lonely, but they had enjoyed warmth and food there, and their physical nature shrank from the toil and the bitter cold. None of them wished to linger in the North—Harding least of all—but it was daunting to contemplate the distance that lay between them and the settlements. Strong effort and stern endurance would be required of them before they rested beside a hearth again.
There was no wind, the smoke went straight up and, spreading out, hung above the roof in a motionless cloud; the snow had a strange ghostly glimmer in the creeping light; and the cold bit to the bone. It was with a pang that they bade their host farewell, and followed the half-breed, who ran down the slope from the door after his team. Robertson was going back to sit, warm and well-fed, by his stove, but they could not tell what hardships awaited them.
Their depression, however, vanished after a while. The snow was good for traveling, the dogs trotted fast, and the half-breed grunted approval of their speed as he pointed to landmarks that proved it when they stopped at noon. After that they held on until dark, and made camp among a few junipers in the shelter of a rock. All had gone well the first day; Harding's leg no longer troubled him; and there was comfort in traveling light with their packs on the sled. The journey began to look less formidable. Gathering close round the fire, they prepared their supper cheerfully, while the dogs fought over scraps of frozen fish. Harding, however, had misgivings about their ability to keep up the pace; he thought that in a day or two it would tell on the white men.
They slept soundly, for the cold has less effect on the man who is fresh and properly fed. Breakfast was quickly despatched, and after a short struggle with the dogs they set out again. It was another good day, and they traveled fast, over a rolling tableland on which the snow smoothed out the, inequalities among the rocks. Bright sunshine streamed down on them, the sled ran easily up the slopes and down the hollows, and the men found no difficulty in keeping the pace. Looking back when they nooned, Harding noticed the straightness of their course. Picked out in delicate shades of blue against the unbroken white surface surrounding it, the sled trail ran back with scarcely a waver to the crest of a rise two miles away. This was not how they had journeyed north, with the icy wind in their faces, laboriously struggling round broken ridges and through tangled woods. Harding was a sanguine man, but experience warned him to prepare for much less favorable conditions. It was not often the wilderness showed a smiling face.
Still, the fine weather held, and they were deep in the timber when they parted from their guide on a frozen stream which he must follow while they pushed south across a rugged country. He was not a companionable person, and he spoke only a few words of barbarous French, but they were sorry to see the last of him when he left them with a friendly farewell. He had brought them speedily a long distance on their way, but they must now trust to the compass and their own resources; while the loads they strapped on were unpleasantly heavy. Before this task was finished, dogs and driver had vanished up the white riband of the stream, and they felt lonely as they stood in the bottom of the gorge with steep rocks and dark pines hemming them in. Blake glanced at the high bank with a rueful smile.
"There are advantages in having a good guide," he said. "We haven't had to face a climb like that all the way. But we'd better get up."
It cost them some labor, and when they reached the summit they stopped to look for the easiest road. Ahead, as far as they could see, small, ragged pines grew among the rocks, and breaks in the uneven surface hinted at troublesome ravines.
"It looks rough," said Benson. "There's rather a high ridge yonder.
It might save trouble to work round its end. What do you think?"
"When I'm not sure," Harding replied, "I mean to go straight south."
Benson gave him an understanding nod.
"You have better reasons for getting back than the rest of us; though I've no particular wish to loiter up here. Break the trail, Blake; due south by compass!"
They plunged deeper into the broken belt, clambering down ravines, crossing frozen lakes and snowy creeks. Indeed, they were thankful when a strip of level surface indicated water, for the toil of getting through the timber was heavy.
After two days of travel there was a yellow sunset, and the snow gleamed in the lurid light with an ominous brilliance, while as they made their fire a moaning wind got up. These things presaged a change in the weather, and they were rather silent over the evening meal. They missed the half-breed and the snarling dogs, and it looked as if the good fortune that had so far attended them were coming to an end.
The next morning there was a low, brooding sky, and at noon snow began to fall, but they kept on until evening over very rough ground, and then they held a council round the fire.
"The situation requires some thought," Blake said. "First of all, our provisions won't carry us through the timber belt. Now, the shortest course to the prairie, where the going will be easier, is due south; but after we get there we'll have a long march to the settlements. I'd partly counted on our killing a caribou, or perhaps a moose, but so far we've seen no tracks."
"There must be some smaller animals that the Indians eat," Benson suggested.
"None of us knows where to look for them, and we haven't much time to spare for hunting."
"That's so," Harding agreed. "What's your plan?"
"I'm in favor of heading southwest. It may mean an extra hundred miles, or more, but it would bring us nearer the Stony village, and afterward the logging camp on the edge of the timber, where we might get supplies."
"It's understood that the Indians are often half starved in winter," Benson reminded him. "For all that, they might have had good luck; and, anyway, we couldn't cross the prairie with an empty grubsack. My vote's for striking off to the west."
Harding concurred, though his leg had threatened further trouble during the last day or two, and he would have preferred the shorter route.
"What about the petroleum?" Blake asked.
"We can't stop to look for it unless we can lay in a good stock of food, and I don't suppose we could do much prospecting with the snow on the ground," Harding paused with a thoughtful air. "When we reach the settlement I must go home, but if the money can be raised, I'll be back as soon as the thaw comes, to try for the oil, Clarke's an unusually smart man, and there's no doubt he's on the trail."
"We'll raise enough money somehow," Benson declared.
Harding smiled.
"Yes, we'll raise the money somehow," he agreed. "It has been my experience that when you want a thing badly enough, there's always some way to get it."
He knocked the ashes out of his pipe, and stood up, stretching and yawning.
"Right now I want sleep," he said.
When dawn came the next morning, it was snowing hard, and for a week they made poor progress, with a bitter gale driving the flakes in their faces. Each day the distance covered steadily lessened, and rations were cut down accordingly. Harding's leg was getting sore, but he did not mean to speak of it unless it became necessary. They were, however, approaching the neighborhood of the Indian village and Blake began to speculate upon the probability of their finding its inhabitants at home. He understood that the Stonies wandered about, and he realized with uneasiness that it would be singularly unfortunate if they were away on a hunting trip.
At last, after spending all of one blustering day laboriously climbing the rough but gently rising slope of a long divide, they camped on a high tableland, and lay awake, too cold to sleep, beside a sulky, greenwood fire. In the morning it was difficult to get up on their feet, but as the light grew clearer, the prospect ahead of them seized their attention. The hill summits were wrapped in leaden cloud, but a valley opened up below. It was wider and deeper than any they had come across since leaving the factory, the bottom looked unusually level, and it ran roughly south.
They gazed at it in silence for a time; and then Harding spoke.
"I've an idea that this is the valley where Blake fell sick, and it's going to straighten things out for us if I'm right."
"That's so," Benson agreed, "We would be sure of striking the Stony village, and we could afterward follow the low ground right down to the river. With the muskegs frozen solid, it ought to make an easy road."
Blake was conscious of keen satisfaction; but there was still a doubt.
"We'll know more about it after another march," he said.
No snow fell that morning, and as their packs were ominously light they made good speed across the hill benches and down a ravine where they scrambled among the boulders of a frozen creek. It was a gray day without the rise in temperature that often accompanies cloudiness, and the light was strangely dim. Rocks and pines melted into one another at a short distance, and leaden haze obscured the lower valley. Blake was becoming sure, however, that it was the one they had traveled up and, dispensing with the usual noon halt, they pushed on as fast as possible. All were anxious to set their doubts at rest, for there was now a prospect of obtaining food and shelter in a few days; but they recognized no landmarks, and with the approach of evening the frost grew very keen. The haze drew in closer, and the scattered pines they passed wailed drearily in a rising wind. The men were tired, but they could see no suitable camping place, and they pushed on, looking for thicker timber.
It was getting dark when a belt of trees stretched across the valley, and they decided to stop there. Benson, leading the way, suddenly cried out.
"What is it?" Harding asked.
Benson hesitated.
"Well," he said, "the thing doesn't seem probable, but I believe I saw a light. Anyway, it's gone."
They stopped, gazing eagerly into the gloom. A light meant that there were men not far off, and after the grim desolation through which they had traveled all were conscious of a longing for human society. Besides, the strangers would no doubt have something to eat—they might even be cooking a plentiful supper. There was, however, nothing to be seen until Blake moved a few yards to one side. Then he turned to Benson with a cheerful laugh.
"You were right! I can see a glimmer about a mile ahead. I wonder who the fellows are?"
They set off as fast as they could go, though traveling among the fallen branches and the slanting trees was difficult in the dark. Now and then they lost their beacon, but the brightening glow shone out again, and when it was visible Blake watched it with surprise. It was low, hardly large enough, he thought, for a fire, and it had a curious irregular flicker. Drawing nearer, they dipped into a hollow where they could distinguish only a faint brightness beyond the rising ground ahead. They eagerly ascended that, and reaching the summit, they saw the light plainly; but it was very small, and there were no figures outlined against it. Benson shouted, and all three felt a shock of disappointment when no answer came to them.
He ran as fast as his snowshoes would let him, smashing through brush, floundering over snowy stories, with Blake and Harding stumbling, short of breath, behind; and then he stopped with a hoarse cry. He stood beside the light; there was nobody about; the blaze sprang up mysteriously from the frozen ground.
"A blower of natural gas!" Harding exclaimed excitedly. "In a sense, we've had our run for nothing, but this may be worth a good deal more than your supper."
"If I had the option, I'd trade all the natural gas in Canada for a thick, red, moose steak, and a warm place to sleep in," Benson said savagely. "Anyway, it will help us to light our fire, and we have a bit of whitefish and a few hard bannocks left."
Blake shared his comrade's disappointment. He was tired and hungry, and he felt irritated by Harding's satisfaction. For all that, he chopped wood and made camp, and their frugal supper was half eaten before he turned to the optimistic American.
"Now," he said, "maybe you will tell us why you were so cheerful about this gas."
"First of all," Harding answered good-humoredly, "it indicates that there's oil somewhere about—the two generally go together. Anyway, if there were only gas, it would be worth exploiting, so long as we found enough of it; but judging by the pressure there's not much here."
"What would you do with gas in this wilderness?"
"In due time, I or somebody else would build a town. Fuel's power, and if you could get it cheap, you'd find minerals that would pay for working. Men with money in Montreal and New York are looking for openings like this; no place is too remote to build a railroad to if you can ensure freight."
"You're the most sanguine man I ever met," Blake commented. "Take care your optimism doesn't ruin you."
"I wonder," Harding went on, "whether Clarke knows about this gas? On the whole, I think it probable. We can't be very far from the Stony camp, and there's reason to believe he's been prospecting this district. It's oil he's out for."
"How did the thing get lighted?" Benson asked in an indifferent tone.
Harding smiled as he gave him a sharp glance. He had failed in his search for the gum, and he did not expect his companions to share his enthusiasm over a new plan. They had, however, promised to support him, and that was enough, for he believed he might yet show them the way to prosperity.
"Well," he said, "I guess I can't blame you for not feeling very keen; but that's not the point. I can't answer what you ask, and I believe our forest wardens are now and then puzzled about how bush fires get started. We have crossed big belts of burned trees in a country where we saw no signs of Indians."
"If this blower has been burning long, the Stonies must know of it," Blake said. "Isn't it curious that no news of it has reached the settlements?"
"I'm not sure. They may venerate the thing; and, anyway, they're smart in some respects. They know that where the white men come their people are rounded up on reservations, and I guess they'd rather have the whole country to themselves for trapping and fishing. Then, Clarke may have persuaded them to say nothing."
"It's possible," Blake agreed thoughtfully. "We'll push on for their camp the first thing tomorrow."