"Yon's a weel-kent trick in my trade," Pete remarked. "When it's no' convenient to be followed, ye send an inquisitive pairson off on anither road. But I would like to see if he has got rid o' the ither fellow."
They waited some minutes, but nobody else appeared, and Foster surmised that the first man knew the ground and the other did not. The fellow had vanished among the trees, but after a time they saw him again, crossing a belt of moonlight some distance in front, and Foster felt he must find out where he was going.
By and by the indistinct figure vanished again, and pushing on cautiously through the shadow, they came to a clearing at the foot of the range. Steep rocks rose above the narrow open space, but although the trail went no farther there was nobody about. Standing behind a fir trunk, Foster searched the edge of the bush, but saw nothing except a ruined shack and some ironwork sticking out of the snow. He could not examine the shack, because if the other man was near he would see him when he left the trees. After waiting a few minutes, he touched Pete and they turned back silently.
XXVI
THE REAL-ESTATE AGENT
Next morning Foster got up in the dark and walked briskly down the main street to the bridge. Lights were beginning to blink in the houses he passed and there was a pungent smell of burning wood. In front, the forest rolled upwards in a blurred, dark mass, but he could not see the mountains. The air was still and felt damp upon his skin, and he knew a sudden rise of temperature accounted for the obscurity. The main thing, however, was that there was nobody to watch him, and he set off along the road he had taken on the previous night.
He had some trouble to keep the trail when he plunged in among the trees, but day had broken when he reached the clearing, and a faint gray light shone through the haze. There was no obvious reason why the stranger's disappearance at the spot should interest him, but his suspicions were quickly excited and it looked as if the fellow had tried to make his acquaintance in order to learn his business in the town. He had come early, hoping to find footprints that might give him a hint, but was disappointed. There were a number of marks, but they had lost their sharpness and he could not tell which had been made recently.
In the meantime, the light was growing and he saw that the shack at the foot of the rocks had partly fallen down. Thick wooden beams and props lay beside the ironwork he had noticed on his last visit. It was obvious that he was looking at a mineral claim that had been abandoned after some development work had been done, while the trampled snow indicated that somebody had been removing the material not long since. Passing the heap of rusty iron, from which the snow was beginning to shrink, he found a narrow opening in the foot of the hill. This was a test adit, and the tilt of the strata indicated that its slope was steep. The stone that had been taken out showed that it did not penetrate far, and Foster saw no reason for entering.
He next studied the rocks, and although he saw no path, imagined that one could get up that way, but could not see why anybody should wish to do so, and the snow did not seem to have been disturbed. After a minute or two he turned back into the wood with a gesture of disappointment.
The man he had followed had apparently come there to meet somebody, but although the mine was conveniently near the town it was a cold and cheerless spot for a rendezvous, Foster surmised from this that secrecy was important, but after all there was nothing to indicate that the matter had anything to do with him. As he went back he heard a musical humming in the tops of the pines and a lump of wet snow, slipping from a branch, struck his face. The humming grew louder until the wood was filled with sound, and he began to feel clammy and hot. A warm Chinook wind from the Pacific was sweeping up the valley, driving back the frost.