One night when it was raining they sat beside their fire in a desolate gorge. A cold wind swept between the thin spruce trunks that loomed vaguely out of the surrounding gloom as the red glare leaped up, and wisps of acrid smoke drifted about the camp. There was a lake up the hollow, and now and then the wild and mournful cry of a loon rang out. The men were tired and somewhat dejected as they sat about the blaze with their damp blankets round them, but by and by Blake, who had been feeling drowsy, looked up.
"What was that?" he asked.
The others could hear nothing but the sound of running water and the wail of the wind. Since leaving the Indians they had seen no sign of life and believed they were crossing uninhabited wilds. Blake could not tell what had suddenly roused his attention, but in former days he had developed his perceptive faculties by close night watching on the Indian frontier, where any relaxing of his vigilance might have cost his life. Something, he thought, was moving in the bush and he felt uneasy. Then he rose as a stick cracked, and Harding called out as a shadowy figure appeared on the edge of the light. Blake laughed, but his uneasiness did not desert him when he recognized Clarke. The fellow was not to be trusted and had come upon them in a startling manner. Moving coolly forward, he sat down by the fire.
"I suppose you were surprised to see me," he remarked.
"That's so," Harding answered and added nothing further, while Benson, whose face wore a curious strained expression, did not speak.
"Well," said Clarke, who filled his pipe, "I daresay I made a rather dramatic entrance, falling upon you, so to speak, out of the dark."
"I've a suspicion that you enjoy that kind of thing," Harding rejoined. "You're a man with the dramatic feeling; guess you find it useful now and then."
Clarke's eyes twinkled, but it was not with wholesome humour. They were keen, but he looked old and forbidding as he sat with the smoke blowing about him and the ruddy firelight on his face.
"There's some truth in your remark and I take it as a compliment, but my arrival's easily explained. I saw your fire in the distance and curiosity brought me along."
"What are you doing up here?"