"Unhealthy? It don't say a thing. Avoid Bell River, or you'll regret it. They're devils let loose. I tell you right here you'll need an outfit of half a hundred to pass safe through that country. They got a taste for white man's outfit now. Time was when they fancied only neche scalps. It's not that way now. No, sir. I'm figgering now how long we'll be safe here, in this Fort. There's just two hundred and odd miles between us, and—— Say, when do you figger you're making that way? Fall?" Kars nodded. "The time they got Allan. Don't do it. I warn you solemnly. And I guess I—know."
Murray's warning was delivered with urgency. There was no mistaking its sincerity. He seemed to have risen above his antipathy for this man. He seemed only concerned to save another from a disaster similar to that which had befallen his partner.
Kars thanked him and held out one powerful hand.
"I'm obliged," he said, in a sober way as they gripped hands. "I've had full warning, and, maybe, it's going to save me trouble. Anyway if my way does take me around that region, and I get my medicine, well—I guess it's up to me. Good-night, Murray. Thanks again. I'll be off before you're around to-morrow morning. So long."
Murray McTavish accompanied his visitor to the door. There was no more to be said. His smile returned as he bade him farewell, and it remained for a few moments as he stood till the night swallowed up the departing figure. Then it died out suddenly, completely.
CHAPTER X
THE MAN WITH THE SCAR
Two men moved about slowly, deliberately. They were examining, with the closest scrutiny, every object that might afford a clue to the devastation about them. A third figure, in the distance, was engaged similarly. He was dressed in the buckskin so dear to the Indian heart. The others were white men.
The scene was complete in horror. It was the incinerated ruins of a recently destroyed Indian encampment, set in the shadow of a belt of pine woods which mounted the abrupt slopes of a great hill. The woods on the hillside were burnt out. Where had stood a dense stretch of primordial woodland, now only the skeleton arms of the pines reached up towards the heavens as though appealing despairingly for the vengeance due to them.