XXIII
I hurried back down the river-trail until I reached the ridge. Here I quitted the way I had come and climbed away over the hills toward the sea. My plan was to step aboard the Wanderer while Brack was absent, and without being seen by any of his men. Hence, I gave the cove where I had struck down Barry a wide berth. In fact, I did not follow the windings of the fiord at all but struck straight across the rough country toward where I judged the sea to be.
I got lost twice. Once I found myself turning toward the fiord and once I had circled back toward the lake. It was well into the afternoon when I found the rough seacoast and following it southward came to the mouth of the fiord and, from a hilltop looked down upon the Wanderer at anchor.
I saw now why my first impression of the morning had been that the yacht was surrounded by mountains. This was nearly so. The hills, one of which I was lying on, walled the fiord in on both sides, while across its mouth, shutting it in from the sea and leaving only a narrow channel on either side, lay a narrow, crescent-shaped island consisting of a fir-covered hill of equal height to those of the mainland.
The Hidden Country! It was the inevitable name for the region.
Small wonder that Kalmut Fiord was not on the maps. It lay behind its crescent-shaped island securely hidden from all the world. Outside, the dun, gray North Pacific heaved and murmured, a part of the busy world. Somewhere on its restless water ships were sailing, men were active in the doings of our day and age. But in the hidden country behind the island there was no such suggestion.
The fiord lay hill-ringed and calm, a part of the world, and yet not of it. Its green Spring foliage, delicate, masking gray hills and black cliffs, its quiet blue water, its virgin beaches, its very air, all were heavy with the primitive’s eternal calm.
As I looked about I saw that the heights immediately about the fiord were in reality but foot-hills of a great valley. And the valley was ringed in by a mountain range. West, north, east—everywhere save toward the open sea southward—a curving wall of towering mountains shut it in. There was snow on most of the peaks, and others were wrapped in wisps of clouds. One great narrow gash, seeming to cleave the range down to sea level, was visible in the west. Save for this, the Kalmut Valley seemed a spot walled in by frowning stone.
The colossal scheme of the scene left me awed. The sense of the primitive which dominated it all held me spellbound. We had left the world with which I was familiar. This was the sensation that crept over me. We were in a new world—no, an old one, so old that modernity had nothing in common with it. Skin-clad, white-skinned vikings, might have stepped out on those moss-clad rocks and have fitted perfectly into the picture. But not the Wanderer, not its personnel—save Brack. Yes, Brack and that valley belonged together.
I shuddered and turned toward the yacht.
Brack’s boat was gone. That was good. But I looked in vain for some sign of life aboard. Apparently the Wanderer was deserted. I waited in hope that some one might appear on deck and in response to my hail send over a boat, but after half an hour I gave this up. I was rested now from the unaccustomed strain of hill-climbing, and I was determined to reach the yacht.
The Wanderer’s anchorage was probably two hundred yards from the shore on which I was lying and I had never been but a poor swimmer. But from an out-jutting point of the island it was but half that distance and to the island I turned my attention.
The channel separating the island and the mainland was about fifty yards wide. I swam it, after having divested myself of shoes and coat, ran along the island to the point nearest the yacht and plunged in again. The water of the fiord was like ice, and I had not swum far before my teeth were chattering. I was tempted to shout and call for help, but the caution which that day had instilled in me prevented this and I kept on in silence.
No one saw me as I came climbing up the Wanderer’s starboard sea-ladder. My flesh, my bones, my marrow, were aching with the torture of cold. I staggered stiffly across the deck and rounded the main cabin. There I came upon Freddy Pierce in a deckchair disconsolately rolling a cigaret.
We did not speak for some time.
At my appearance the paper fluttered from Pierce’s limp hand, the tobacco dribbled unnoticed from the bag onto the deck and by this I knew that the sight of me must have appalled him. He stared at me, his lips opening and closing, and I stared back, uttering no word, as men do in moments when words are too slow a means of expression. I was freezing; I was near to collapsing; but at the sight of Pierce’s appalled countenance my body seemed forgotten.
“Brains!” exploded Freddy at last in agony. “What the ——! Ain’t she with you?”
“No,” I said, “she is not with me.”
Pierce rose from the deck chair, his boyish, freckled face white and sickly for the moment.
“Mean to say—” he licked his dry lips—“mean to say you ain’t seen her?”
“I haven’t seen her.”
“He said—Cap’ Brack said—you’d stayed up there with the men, and that you suggested Miss Baldwin’d like to come up and take a look.”
“‘Brack said?’” My mind refused to comprehend fully the significance of Pierce’s bare words.
“Eyah. He said that the second time he was down—for lunch. Said you were up there. And Miss Baldwin got in the boat with ’em and went up there, thinking to meet you. Brains—Mr. Pitt!” he cried, springing forward and grasping my arms, “what’s come off? What’s Brack been pulling? Didn’t you send that word to Miss Baldwin at all?”
“No.”
I turned to go to my stateroom. I was like a man in a dream.
“Brains!” he whispered in agony, “didn’t you hear what I said? She went away with Brack in a boat, and he lied about your being where they was going.”
I released myself from his grasp.
“Yes, I heard. I must get a dry change.” I went straight to my room, Pierce following on my heels.
“Freddy,” I said, as quietly as I could, “you had better get up to your wireless and send word to any ship within call to relay word to the nearest authorities that we need help.”
He merely stared at me without moving.
“Go on,” I said. “Send that message at once.”
“Aw, Brains,” he said gently. “Where’s your thinker; you know better’n that.”
“Do as I tell you. Don’t wait to hear the story; start your wireless at once.”
“You’re up in the air forty miles,” was his reply. “If you wasn’t you’d know that Brack’d never leave me here on the yacht without putting the wireless out of business.”
“What!”
“Yep. When they all turned up missing this morning, you with ’em, and there hadn’t been anything said about it, I began to feel kind of cold below the ankles and I sneaked up to slip some juice into the air and try to put the revenue-cutter, Bear, hep to something doing here. She ought to be down this way just now. Well, nothing doing. The whole works are gone; Brack’s put the wireless outfit on the bum.”
Somehow I managed to be calm.
“Where’s Wilson?”
Pierce’s face clouded.
“A dirty shame! Wilson’s laid up. Garvin’s gun went off accidentally when they were coming on board and the bullet went through Wilson’s leg below the knee.”
“Riordan?”
“He’s left in charge; yep. Chanler’s keeping him in his room to talk to. The nigger’s here, too. He had a row with Garvin last night and they left him behind to do scullion work. Simmons is sleeping.”
“Chanler?”
“He’s coming around. Cold sober, but shaky.”
“Dr. Olson?”
“Went back with Brack on the second trip. Brack had him take his case and a lot of stuff, too.”
“You mean that the captain came after Dr. Olson?”
“Yep. And Miss Baldwin. He made two trips, you know. First he came back early in the morning for breakfast, and said they’d found the mine, and you were staying up there to look around. He said we’d all go up after awhile. Then they went away. At noon they came back again. Then was when Doc’ Olson and Miss Baldwin went with him. I tried to horn myself in but he details me to split the watches with Riordan and tells Riordan to see I stay on board. She—Miss Baldwin—asked if I couldn’t go along, and he said no. Then she got into the boat, like she didn’t know whether she wanted to or not, and they pulled away. And, Brains, I’m afraid—I got a hunch he’s got her going south.”
“Got who? Going where?” I asked, not comprehending his slang.
“Got Miss Baldwin—going south. You know: falling for him.” Then as my expression continued to betray my lack of comprehension, “Brack can fool any woman, and he’s got her charmed.”
The pistol which the old miner had given me came to sight at that moment as I undressed, and Pierce gasped.
“You—packing a gat’!” he exclaimed. “What’s happened? Where have you been if you haven’t been up there with the crew?”
I continued my dressing without replying. When completed I again placed the pistol out of sight within my shirt.
“We’ll go and see Wilson,” I said. “Then I’ll only have to tell my story once.”