The Snowshoe Trail

by Edison Marshall

The story was very simple and short,—nothing particularly unusual in the North. His father had come early to the gold fields of Bradleyburg, and he had been one of few that was accompanied by his wife,—a tender creature, scarcely molded for life in the northern gold camps. Then there had been Rutheford, his father's partner, a man whom neither Bill nor his mother liked or trusted, but to whom the elder Bronson gave full trust. Somewhere beyond far Grizzly River, in the Clearwater, Bronson had made a wonderful strike,—a fabulous mine where the gravel was simply laden with the yellow dust; and because they had prospected together in times past, Bronson gave his partner a share in it.

They had worked for months at their mine, in secret, and then Rutheford had come with pack horses into Bradleyburg, ostensibly for supplies. He had been a guest at the Bronson cabin and had reported that all was well with his generous partner. And the next night he had disappeared.

Weeks were to pass before the truth was known. Rutheford did not return to the mine at all; he was traced clear to the shipping point, three hundred miles below Bradleyburg. And he did not go empty-handed. The pack horses had not carried empty saddlebags. They had been simply laden with gold. And Bronson never returned to his family in Bradleyburg.

There was only one possible explanation. The gold had represented the season's washings—an amount that went into the hundreds of thousands—and Rutheford had murdered his benefactor and absconded with the entire amount. No living human being except Rutheford himself knew where the mine lay; there was no way for Bronson's family either to reclaim the body or to continue to work on the mine. Search parties had sought it in vain, and the lost mine of the Bronsons became a legend, a mystery that had grown constantly more dim in the passing years.

"When I am gone," little Bill would whisper to his mother, as she knelt crying at his feet, "I will go out and find my papa's mine. Also I will chase down Rutheford, and track him all over the world until I find him, and make him suffer for all he has done!"

This was a northern child, and his baby eyes would gleam and his features draw, and then his mother, half-frightened, would try to quiet him in her arms. This was the North, the land of primitive emotions, take and give, receive and pay, simple justice and remorseless vengeance; and when the storm swept over the cabin and the snow deepened at the doorway, those terrible, whispered promises seemed wholly fitting and true.

"I'll follow him till I die, and he and his wife and his son will pay for what he has done to us."

But the years had come and passed, and Rutheford had not been brought to justice nor the mine found. It was true that in a past summer Bill had traced his father's murderer as far as the shipping point, but there all trace of him was irremediably lost. Bill had made many excursions into the Clearwater in search of the lost mine, all without success. He had had but one guide,—a hastily scrawled map that Bronson had once drawn for his wife, to show her the approximate position of the claim. There had been no hope of avenging the murder, but with each recurring spring Bill had felt certain of clearing up the mystery, at least of finding the mine and its wealth and the bones of his father. But the last days of his mother, gone at last to her old home in the United States, could be made easier; but his own future would be assured. But now, at thirty-two, the recovery of the mine seemed as far distant as ever. Devoting his life to the pursuit of it, he had not prepared himself for any other occupation; he had only a rather unusual general education, procured from the Bradleyburg schools and his winter reading, and now he was face to face with economic problems, too.

He would try once more. If he did not win, the dream of his youth would have to be given over. He had devoted his days to it; such a force as was about to send Virginia Tremont into the wilderness in search of her lover had never come up in his life. He sat dreaming, the ashes cold in is pipe.

He was called to himself by a distinct feeling of cold. The fire was out, the chill of the early midnight hours had crept into the room. The man rose wearily, then strode to the door for a moment's survey of the sky.