Down on the flat, just back from the river bank, I made out a clutter of small log buildings enclosed within a stockade. In the center of the enclosure a half-dozen men busied themselves about the gaunt walls of a larger building. Logs and poles strewed the ground about its four sides. The ring of axe-blades on timber came floating up to us. I saw nothing amiss.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Nothing that matters greatly,” Barreau replied. “Only that ruin you see was a fine upstanding storehouse when I left here in the early spring. It seems to be undergoing a process of regeneration, for which I cannot account. Likewise, I see no trace of a stable which stood at the west end of the stockade. There are no men missing, by my count, so I dare say no great thing has happened. Anyway, this is the end of our trail for a while. We may as well get down there. I am a bit curious to know the meaning of this.”
Presently we were dismounting within the stockade. And as we greeted the men who stopped their work to hail us, it was plain what form of disaster had overtaken the Montell establishment. The standing walls of sixteen-inch logs were smoke-blackened and scorched by fire. The inside was gutted to the floor-joists; the roof gone. A pile of charred poles and timbers laid to one side testified mutely to cause and effect.
“Well, Ben,” Barreau addressed one man who came forward. “How did it happen?”
“She burned, that’s all. ’N’ the stable, too,” Ben made laconic answer. He drew a plug of tobacco from his hip pocket, looked it over with a speculative eye, bit off a piece, and returned it to the pocket. As he masticated the piece contemplatively, Barreau watched him with a whimsical smile. “Yes, sir,” he went on, “she took fire in the night, with the boys sleepin’ in the doghouse, an’ me in the front part uh the store. It started to rain pretty tol’able hard, or I reckon there wouldn’t be nothin’ left but a pile uh ashes.”
“In the night, eh?” Barreau repeated thoughtfully. The three of us walked around the building and peered in through a charred doorway.
“Quite so,” Barreau continued. “Save anything? There wasn’t much to save, I know.”
“Most all the stuff,” Ben replied. “Injun name uh Tall Trees drifted in day after yuh all left. He traded out most everythin’ we could spare. An’ the pelts was easy to get out. Some grub was burned. Not much, though. We got plenty left.”
“A very nasty thing, fire,” Barreau commented. “How do you think it started, Ben?”