And Chilcoot laughed. Even he found the frank admission of the red-headed creature’s weakness irresistible.
CHAPTER V
THE HOUSE IN THE VALLEY OF THE FIRE HILLS
Squat, broad, watchful Chilcoot Massy was standing on a crazy, log-built landing which the years had rotted and clad with dank mosses and leathery fungus. His deep-set eyes were full of wondering curiosity. For the moment his work was standing guard over the canoe which was moored to the landing, and which was the only means by which he and his companions could hope to return in safety to Buck Maberley and the rest of the outfit encamped three weeks’ journey away below the Falls of the Hekor River.
Bill Wilder and Red Mike had been away a full hour or more. They had gone to search the woods which came down almost to the water’s edge. They had gone to reconnoitre the crowning discovery which the search behind the Falls had yielded them.
Chilcoot had spent his time usefully. With his friends’ going he had turned his attention first to the human signs about him. They had not been many, but they had been such as he could read out of his wide experience. The rusted mooring rings on the landing told of comparatively recent use. The moss and fungus had been trodden by other feet than his own and those of his companions. Then, on the bank, there were the ashes of camp fires, and a certain amount of litter which camping never fails to leave behind it. There was no doubt in his mind. For all the landing was more or less derelict, it was still a place of call for those who used this hidden waterway.
Chilcoot regretted not one moment of the labours of the past three weeks. The portage up the canyon of the Falls of the Hekor River had been gruelling. But compensation had awaited them. The grandeur of the scene, the immensity of the Falls had been something overwhelming. He had seen nothing comparable with either. Then had come the journey up the wide river above them, and ultimately the lake supported high up in a cup formed by the snow-clad hills. He had felt, if no other purpose had been achieved, the wonders of this rugged hill country were amply worth while. But the ultimate discovery of the hidden channel, debouching into the lake through a narrow, twisted canyon cut through the walls of the surrounding hills, which had brought them to the strange, super-heated, mysterious Valley of the Fire Hills, had changed his entire estimate of the reckless journey upon which Wilder had embarked. Out of his long experience of the northern world he realised that here was a discovery of real importance.
First it had been the curious black sand bed, over which the sluggish, oily waters of the creek flowed, that had caught and riveted his attention. Then had come the black slopes of the three smoking hills. But, at last, when they reached the human construction of the lumber-built landing, and glimpsed the lofty watch tower, erected within the heart of the woods just inland of it, he realised something of the real meaning of the thing they had chanced upon. There was nothing of Indian or Eskimo about the landing. No watch tower such as they had sighted above the tree-tops owed its origin to savage ideas of defence or construction. No. Here was habitation deeply hidden with more than native cunning. Here was something which pointed, in conjunction with the curious features of the creek, to whiteman enterprise of some serious commercial value. So, in an atmosphere of suffocating humidity, he was waiting, keeping guard upon the canoe, lest, as in the past, they were to find themselves again in hostile territory.
Having explored the signs about him he remained gazing down upon the black sand bordering the sluggish waters, and thought and speculation ran on while he searched as far as he could see up and down the creek. Was he dreaming? Was it all fancy? Would he waken presently to the rock-littered country of the “barrens” on Loon Creek?
No. He gazed out at the distant smoke cloud overhanging the valley, and shook his head in answer to his unvoiced questions. No. There was no fancy to any of it. It was real. Amazingly real. The valley was no magic, but a substantial reality of Nature.