CHANCE HEARD IN THE NIGHT
Before sunrise the five beings whose lives were so intimately intertwined and yet who were held by constraint one from the other, took up the trail. There was but one way to go and this fact alone held them together; they must keep close to the lake shore for upon the right the mountains swept upward in a series of cliffs and into a frowning barrier. Marshall Sothern and Ernestine, walking together in the rear, spoke little as the day wore on. Max, Drennen and Kootanie George, ahead, spoke not at all. In silence, never the elbow of one touching the coat of another, the three men felt and manifested the jealous rivalry which all day fought to place each one ahead of the others. George, fleeced as Drennen had been and at a time when the Canadian's soul had listened avidly to the voice of his wrath, embittered as Drennen was by the act of a woman, was scarcely less eager to be first than Drennen himself. And Max, reading the signs, grew watchful as his own eagerness mounted.
Before night they found the trail which Drennen knew that, soon or late, he would come upon. Here, perhaps a week ago, certainly not more than ten days ago, two or three men and one woman had passed. They had had with them two or three pack animals and the trail, coming in abruptly from a cañon at the westward, was plain.
At nightfall they were at the foot of the sixth of the nine lakes, the broad trail running on straight along its marge. The fathomless, bluish water, looking in the dusk a mere rudely circular mirror which was in truth a liquid cone whose tip was hidden deep in the bowels of earth, lay in still serenity before them. On all sides the cliffs, sheer falls half a thousand, sometimes quite a thousand feet high, seemed actually to stoop their august, beetling brows forward that they might frown down upon their own unbroken reflections. There would be a pass through the mountains at the northern end of the lake, a deeply cleft gorge, maybe, but from here, with the first dimness of the new night upon everything, there seemed no way through.
Each man, the silent meal done, threw his bed where he saw fit, apart from the others. Sothern, having aided Ernestine, telling her good night and receiving a wan smile of gratitude, went back to the fire where Max was brooding. The lieutenant looked up, glad of the companionship. The two men from silence grew to talk in low voices. Max had something he wanted to say and the opportunity for saying it seemed to have come. He looked about him, saw Drennen's form and George's through the trees, saw where Ernestine was stamping out the glowing embers of her fire, and began to speak. Something else he saw and forgot, its being of no importance to his brain. It was merely the pipe which Drennen had laid upon a stone near the camp fire and had left there when he had gone away.
But Drennen, being in no mood for sleep, missed his pipe. Coming back toward the fire a little later it happened that he approached behind the two men's backs and in the thick shadows. It happened, too, that they were very deep in their own thoughts and conversation and that they did not hear him until he had caught a part of their talk. After that Drennen, grown as still as the rocks about him, listened and made no sound. He had caught the words from Max:
"…a man named Drennen; an embezzler. Not a common name, is it? I've a notion that this David Drennen is the son of that John Harper Drennen."
Drennen, listening, got nothing from this, but stood still, frowning and wondering. His eyes, upon Max's face outlined by the fire, took no note of Sothern's.
"We've got the report," went on Max thoughtfully, "that the other Drennen, John Harper Drennen, is somewhere in this country. Lord," and he laughed softly, "it would be some white feather in my cap if I could bring the old fox in, wouldn't it, Mr. Sothern? He's given the police the slip for a dozen years."
Now, Drennen, with a quick start of full understanding, looked anxiously at the old man. Sothern's face stood in clear relief against the fire. There came no change into it; he looked gravely at Max, drew a moment contemplatively at his pipe, and then in a voice grave and steady answered: