“You can stay at the first cabin till I come,” he said. “Unless you got a better plan; unless you aim to hit the long trail by your lonesome. They ain’t a ghost of a chance anybody will come in there after the first snowfall.”
“I’ll be there,” Goodrich said unhesitatingly.
“All right,” the man nodded. “Can you remember what I told you about the way?”
“I got a picture of it in my mind,” Goodrich declared.
“If you’re a woodsman you’ll find it, I guess,” the other said. “It’s going to be daylight soon. Better beat it. Good luck.”
He thrust out his hand. The hearty pressure of his grip conveyed to Bill Goodrich a great deal more than words could have done. Goodrich was almost gay as he drove the cedar dugout up the narrowing river, and the rising sun flooded the closing valley with warmth and light. He didn’t quite fathom the man’s readiness to shoulder a dubious load. But it showed that his heart was in the right place, Bill Goodrich said to himself. He was a little puzzled, too, by the quickness with which the man had grasped the situation. But it was a generous impulse for which Goodrich was deeply grateful.
He reached the big falls in time, hauled the dugout far into a deep thicket. Then he took a pack and bore on till he found the smaller creek and ultimately the blazed line. He had some difficulty locating the cabin, even though each mark stood in his mind’s eye like a beacon. But he found it eventually. And when he stood under its roof and slipped the pack from his shoulders it was like getting home.
The law would never come at him there. He was high in one of the ruggedest sections of the coast range. He could win back his health, grow a beard and mustache. When he went out among men again, with time to dim their recollection, no one would know him. A man could live in the hills a long time, if he were at home there.
He recalled Simon Gun-a-noot. Simon had been accused of killing a man. And Simon was a Northern Indian who feared the white man’s legal processes. So Simon had taken to the mountains and stayed there. For thirteen years the constable had hunted Simon Gun-a-noot. The chase cost the province thirty thousand dollars. And Simon had hunted and trapped in the highest and loneliest ranges until he learned that he was sure of acquittal if he gave himself up. The case of Simon Gun-a-noot comforted Bill Goodrich. He, himself, did not mean to be caught. He was no criminal. He felt no prickings of conscience. What he had done he had to do. There had been no way out of that clash save the way he had taken.
The cabin was roomy, built of heavy logs, roofed with split cedar shakes, tight, dry, and warm, with a rough fireplace at one end in lieu of a stove. The door was heavy, hand-hewed planks, oddly fitted with a heavy bar to be set in place from within. It stood on a narrow bench with a small spring bubbling out of a cliff that rose sheer behind. The front view commanded every possible approach. And it was very hard to find. To Bill Goodrich it seemed made to order for security. One man could hold that place against a dozen, if occasion arose.