"Much of what lies back of most desperate acts," he said. "Guess the Bell River folk have got something other folk need, and the other folk know it. I allow the Bell River folk don't figger to hand over to anybody. Maybe it's hunting grounds, maybe it's fishing. Can't say. But you see this crowd are traveling Indians, or were," he added drily. "We're within twenty miles of Bell River. If they were traveling, which the remains of their teepees make them out to have been, then I guess they weren't doing it for health. More than likely it was robbery of some sort. Well, I guess they were up against a proposition, and got it—plenty. It's going to snow. What are you figgering?"
Kars searched the gray skies.
"We'll make Bell River."
"I guessed you would. Maybe some folks would say it's you that's crazy. Ask Peigan."
Bill laughed. His clever face was always at its best when his twinkling eyes, as it were, bubbled over.
The men moved on towards their camp.
The threat of the sky added to the gloomy nature of the crudely rugged country. On every hand the hills rose mightily. Dark woodlands crowded the lower slopes, but the sharply serrated crests, many of them snow-clad, left a merciless impression upon the mind. The solitude of it all, too, was overpowering.
The long summer trail lay behind them, all its chances successfully taken, all its many dangers surmounted. The threat of the sky was real and they had no desire now to fall victims to a careless disregard of ordinary climatic conditions.
Kars' calculation had been carefully made. His plans were laid so that they should reach the upper stream of the Snake River, where his river depot had been established, and his canoes were awaiting them, with at least three weeks to spare before the ice shut down all traffic. The outfit would then have ample time in which to reach the shallows of Peel River, whence the final stage of the journey to Leaping Horse would be made overland on the early winter trail.
Peigan Charley joined them at the camp. The man came up with that curiously silent, almost furtive gait, which no prairie Indian, however civilized, ever quite loses. It comes from long years of moccasin use, and an habitual bent knee walk. Peigan Charley considered himself unusually civilized. But it was for his native abilities that Kars employed him.