"It is happening again this year," he said. "The forests to the north and west are afire. It will not come near Five Fingers, but it makes my heart ache to know that a world is being turned dead and black because of someone's carelessness!"
So it was the fire which gave Mona an excuse for what was lacking in her eyes when she went to help Josette with the breakfast. And it was this same fire, with its thickening gloom of smoke, which helped her through the day. For to Mona a living tree had life and soul, and to see trees destroyed in countless thousands was a tragedy in her life only a little less terrible than the plague of smallpox which had once cast its shadow upon Five Fingers.
She went to Simon's cabin as soon after breakfast as she could make an excuse, and there she met Carter. Her first glimpse of him filled her with uneasiness and dislike. He was a hawk-nosed, shifty-eyed man in whom nature seemed to have sacrificed every softening quality to an uncompromising sense of duty, and his eyes rested upon her face so intently as Simon introduced them that she felt her heart tremble. But if he knew of her previous visit to Simon's cabin, or of her meeting with Peter, he gave no evidence of it, and after a casual remark or two about the fire he left her alone with the Scotchman.
A worried look was in McQuarrie's eyes.
"I've found out more about Carter," he said. "He is the best man in this division and is never sent out on minor affairs. Leaving us so quickly right now shows how clever he is. He doesn't want to create suspicion. He dropped in to ask me the best trail northwest, and says he is going to leave in half an hour to make a report on the fire. That's another lie. In the woods he is like a cat, and he won't go half a mile from the settlement. He is wondering where Peter is, and if he once gets on his trail——" Suddenly he drew his hands together, and a grim smile gathered about his mouth. "If Carter goes to that fire, I'm going with him!" he exclaimed. "Five Fingers is interested, and he cannot very well turn me down."
In a few words Mona told of Peter's visit; and then, standing so near that he could not avoid the directness of her eyes, she gave low voice to her suspicion that either he or Peter was planning to kill Aleck Curry.
The effect of her words on Simon startled her. He stood dumb, staring at her. Then one of his bony hands reached out and rested on her shoulder. Its fingers hurt her. "Don't even whisper that anywhere—but here," he said. "You understand? Don't! Peter won't kill him. And I'm not worrying about Aleck Curry now. It's Carter."
He left her without another word, and went out to overtake Carter. There was something so grim and foreboding in his movement that it chilled her, and as she dropped a few steps behind him she noticed his boots. At midnight she had seen them in his cabin, clean and freshly oiled. Now they were frosted with half-dried mud to their tops. His sourness, the harshness of his fingers on her shoulder, his silence now and the aggressive hunch of his shoulders, together with the mud on his boots, tightened her breath. Had Simon already accomplished the thing she feared? Was that why he was so anxious to follow Carter, go with him—get him away from Five Fingers? She ran up to him, meaning to demand the truth.
He anticipated her intention and spoke almost roughly. "Don't ask questions, Mona. Carter has stopped, and is looking. Go home—and stay in if you can't keep control of yourself."