The Way of the Strong Part 7

He remained for one brief moment while he made a rough estimate of the distance he had yet to go; then, without wasting a precious moment, he dropped upon the first rugged step of the descent. The work was harder than might have been expected, far harder. And the rope he had brought with him frequently stood him in good stead while making those big drops, which, from the distance, seemed so insignificant and easy. But it was never his way to consider difficulties seriously until he found himself in their midst. At all times the needs of the moment were sufficient, and he was firm in the belief that there was no difficulty in human life where an advantageous way out did not lay waiting for the seeker. His mood was the dogged persistence which urges a man on without consideration or thought for anything else in the world but his own all-mastering purpose.

It was this mood which had first driven him to the northern wilderness, where he hoped to acquire the necessary foundations for his fortune in the least possible time. It was this intensity of purpose which had blinded him to the possibilities of burdening himself with the care of a woman. It was this crude driving force which, in face of stupendous difficulties, not to say impossibilities, had decided him to return on foot to Sixty-mile Creek. These things were part of the man. He could not help them.

So it was in the case of his search for this mysterious camp. He was urged to make it, irresistibly urged, and he could have given no definite reasons for his actions.

Slowly there came a change in the man's whole att.i.tude. It was a subtle change, and one wholly unrealized by himself. As he gained way over the broken path before him a strange eagerness became apparent in all his movements, in his expression, in the quick, searching glance of his eyes. The deliberate manner in which he had made the ascent now gave way to an impatient eagerness which frequently placed him at considerable risk, and even peril. Often, where the slower process of the rope's a.s.sistance would have been safest, he trusted to hands and feet, and even to a jump, with a considerable uncertainty as to where he was going to land. But he took the risks, urged on by this strange, unacknowledged desire to reach his destination quickly.

The broken hill was left behind him after less than an hour's hard struggle; and when, at last, he stood upon the comparatively smooth upland, with the distant fringe of woodlands high up above him, he realized that his estimate, as had been Si-wash's, of the distance, was considerably at fault. He had still full three miles to go amidst the hills and valleys made by snow banks swept up by the storm, before the mystery of that thread of smoke could be fully solved.

But the way was easy, and he hurried on. The brief day was pa.s.sing rapidly. Strangely enough all thought of time had pa.s.sed from him. It no longer occurred to him that he had to return to his own camp to make his preparations for his contemplated journey back to the creek. He had become solely absorbed with the quest in hand. That, and that alone, seemed to matter.

Half an hour's tramping brought him within full and intimate view of the edge of the woods; and, as he drew near, a further change crept into his manner. Once he paused, more than half hidden by a snow bank, and gazed up at the towering crests of the aged pines. He was impressed. These woods were of far greater extent than those which had served him as a shelter from the storm. They towered dizzily, and spread out an immense distance along the sides of the two mountains, between which they had seemed so pinched; and somehow their immensity depressed him with a feeling of the smallness of human life.

It was from this moment that the fresh change in him took place. He left the shelter of the snow bank with a curious crouching gait, and eyes furtively watchful. The reason of the change was quite unapparent, even to himself. He knew that he was searching for a sight of fellow-creatures; but what he did not know was that it was inspired by an active instinct to avoid contact.

He crept on from the shelter of one snow bank to the shelter of another. He moved along over the shallows of snow so that his moccasined feet gave out no sound. And his whole progress bespoke an almost frantic desire that his approach should not be witnessed from the woods.

Nearer and nearer he drew, and, as the shadows came down toward him, his pace increased almost to a run. Finally the last sheltering snow bank was left behind and a low broken scrub replaced it. He breathed a deep sigh; the sigh of a man who is relieved beyond words. The gray, familiar gloom of the forest overshadowed him, and he was content. Just for a few moments he paused for breath. Then his restless spirit urged him on, and, plunging forward, the solemn twilight of the forest swallowed him up.

For quite a while he hurried on like a flitting shadow in the midst of a world of shadows. Then, finally, he paused listening. The grave-like silence was quite unbroken by any sign of life. Nothing came to him stirring the echoes of that ages-old world. He strained hard for some familiar sound that might guide him to the spot where the mysterious camp lay. But no such sound was forthcoming.

CHAPTER V

THE SHADOW OF DEATH

A deep stillness prevailed while the man stood in profound contemplation of the figure beneath the covering of furs. The silent woods suggested the calm of a shadowed sepulcher. The shrouded figure lying at his feet completed the suggestion.

Tug's eyes, if unsympathetic, were at least anxious. The sunken features of his companion filled him with a curious feeling of superst.i.tious awe at the stealing, subtle approach of death. Death, in the abstract, had no terrors for him. The sight of a life suddenly jolted out of earthly existence would have disturbed him not at all; but this steady march, this almost imperceptible progress, stirred those feelings of superst.i.tion which underlie all human life.

He noted the hungry shadows of an unearthly blue which surrounded the sunken eyes, and filled the hollow sockets. The greenish tinge in the pallid flesh revolted him; the lips, so drawn, with all their ruddy ripeness gone, left him with a feeling of positive nausea; while the utter helplessness in the way the trunk collapsed beyond the rough pillow supporting the lolling head, left him shrinking at the thought of the speeding life whose ebb he was powerless to check.

Well enough he knew that death was hovering well within sight. Poor Charlie, the companion of his fortunes, was rapidly pa.s.sing away. There was no help he could bestow, no real help. All he could do was to minister to each whim expressed in the thin, struggling voice; for the rest the march of Death must go on. For many days the end had been steadily approaching, and now the icy breath in the shadow of Death's hovering wings seemed to add a chill to the wintry air, and freeze up the heart in his own robust body.

Tug's expression was one of hopeless incompetence. He wondered, as he had wondered for days, what he could do to help the sufferer. He knew that pneumonia had laid its clutch upon the poor wretch's lungs, and all treatment for it was a riddle to which he found no answer.

His eyes lifted from the dying man, and he stared about him vaguely.

They took in the squatting dogs, reveling in the comfort of the flickering firelight, well sheltered from the breath of winter by the canvas screen he had erected to shelter his sick companion. The sight of these luxuriating beasts annoyed him; and, with a vicious kick at the nearest, he sent them scuttling into the background.

Then he glanced at his diminished store of wood. Here lay the only service his helplessness permitted his thought to rise to. Yes, he could still strive to keep the cold, that stealing cold which Charlie had cried out against so bitterly, that cold which he had declared had eaten into his very bones, from his dying friend. So he moved over to the pile and replenished the fire with liberal hand, till the last stick in his store had found its way to the hungry flames. Then, with a curious patience, almost gentleness, he once more tried to administer the fragrant, but less savory soup, which was always kept simmering in the boiler on the fire.

It was curious to watch this powerful specimen of virile, unsympathetic manhood endeavoring to a.s.sume the indescribable gentleness of the nurse. It fitted him as ill as anything well could, yet he did his best. And no one knew better than he that his patient was beyond such clumsy, well-meaning efforts. The lips remained closed, as did the sunken eyes, and no words of rough encouragement seemed to penetrate to the dull brain behind them.

At last Tug put the pannikin aside, and dropped the tin spoon with a clatter. He could do no more. Again he rose to his feet and stood helplessly by.

"Poor devil," he muttered. "His number's plumb up."

At the sound of his voice there came a slight movement of the lolling head. Then the great eyes opened slowly, and stared up at the muttering man in an uncanny, unseeing fashion.

"Sure."

The one word, spoken in the faintest of whispers, told Tug that the dying man's intellect remained unimpaired, and the knowledge left him annoyed with himself that he had spoken aloud.

"I'm kind of sorry, Charlie," he blundered. "I didn't just guess you could hear."

"I've--known it--days." The other struggled painfully with his words.

Tug had no answer for him, and Charlie went on in his halting fashion.

"It--don't--matter. I was thinking of my--folks."

"Sure. I know." Tug sighed in a relief he could not have explained.

He waited.

For some time the sick man made no answer. It almost seemed as if his straining intellect had been overtaxed, for the glazing eyes remained immovable, and, to the waiting man, he might have been already dead.

He bent over him, his anxiety driving him to rea.s.sure himself. It was his movement that again broke the deathly spell. Slowly a gleam of intelligence struggled into the staring eyes, and the man's lips moved.

"It's my share--my--share--of the gold." He gave a short quick gasp. "I want them--to--have--it. It--was--for them."

Tug nodded.

"I know. You always said you wanted it for your folks. I'll--see they get it. Is--there anything else?"

"No. Say----"

Tug waited. As the silence remained he urged the dying man.

"Yes?"

"It's no good. They--they--won't--get--it."

"What d'you mean--they won't get it?" Tug's face flushed. He felt that his promise was doubted. A promise given in all good faith, and under the spell of that dreadful thrill, which never fails to make itself felt in a promise to the dying. "I've given my word. Isn't that sufficient?"

"Sure. But----" The man broke off gasping.

After a while the struggle eased and his whispering voice became querulous.

"It's--it's--cold. The--the fire's going--out."

Tug glanced quickly at the fire. It was burning brightly. Then he remembered he had used up the last of the fuel.

From the fire he turned to the dying man again. He understood. It was the march of Death, that cold he complained of. His hard face struggled painfully for an expression of sympathy.