The Way of the Strong Part 3

At the creek Leo spoke quite seriously.

"Si-wash," he said, as they stood beside the frozen, snow-laden stream, "I am disappointed in you. I have brought you here to show you your grave. There it is--under the ice. If you don't hire yourself and dogs to me, if you don't accompany us to the coast, I'll drown you in the water under that ice, where it's so cold that all the fires of h.e.l.l, where your spirit will surely go, will never be able to thaw you out, though you remain there forever, as you undoubtedly will."

Si-wash both liked and feared Leo. But he hated cold water, in fact water of any sort, and feared talk of h.e.l.l still more; so there was no further discussion. Si-wash accepted his money in advance; and, nearly a month later, the travelers were scaling the perilous heights of the watershed which is really the roof of the northern world.

Once foot is set on the long winter trail, all rest of mind and body is left behind. Days and nights, alike, become one long nightmare of unease. Every hour of the day carries its threat of danger. Every foot of the way is beset by shoals for the feet of the unwary. And the night--the long northern night--is a painful dream crowded with exaggerated pictures of dangers so narrowly escaped during waking, and vivid suggestions of added terrors which the morning light may reveal.

It is called the Shawnee Trail; vain enough appellation. There is no trail; there never has been a trail; nor will there ever be a trail, so long as the northern winter holds its fierce sway in due season. It is just a trackless wilderness, claiming thoroughfare by reason of the impa.s.sability of the rest of the country in that region.

There is no room for life in such a world, for there is no rest or relief. Existence is an endless struggle against the overwhelming odds of an outlaw nature. The great white land is broken and torn. It rises and falls, or plunges precipitately in the manner of a storm-swept ocean; but ever the journeyer is borne upward, ever upward, to the barren crests of the watershed which dominate the melancholy spectacle of Nature's wasted endeavor.

For the most it is a silent land; nor is there movement to break the awesome stillness, unless it be the frequent presence of storm.

Otherwise the calm is like the silence of the grave, without a whisper to waken the echoes of the riven, age-worn crags, or a movement to stir the hidden valleys into a seeming of life. It is the stillness of outer darkness, lit only by a wintry sheen, like the death-cold stare of wide, unseeing eyes.

Such thoughts and feelings stirred the woman traipsing easily over the smoothly pressed snow-track left by the laden sled. She moved with the curious swing of the snowsh.o.e.r, leisurely, comfortably. The gee-pole in her hand was an unnecessary equipment, for her path was fully tested by those who understood far better than she the dangers of the road before them.

Audie's eyes were looking out ahead at the men and the dogs. She knew she had no other responsibility than to keep pace. For the rest she knew that the burden of their journey rested on shoulders more capable of bearing it. So her mind was given up to thoughts which could never enter the men's heads. And those thoughts were full of the unutterable desolation of this untamed world.

Si-wash headed the dogs. A great incline of smooth, soft snow mounted up to the crotch of a great hill, where twin peaks rose sharply, towering above, and a wide pathway was left between them. It was a beacon of the trail, marking one of the roughest stretches yet to be traveled. Beyond this, five miles further on, the scout had marked a camping ground.

Just now he was a little anxious in his silent Indian way, and the sign of it was in his furtive watchfulness, as he peered from the road to the burnished light of the desponding sun.

Leo, swinging along beside the sled, was quite unaware of his guide's unease. The monotony of progress left him free to think whithersoever his active brain listed. For the time it led him on, on into dreams of the future, a future than which he could imagine no other. His fortune, or that which stood for the foundations of it, lay strapped at the tail of the sled, and the knowledge of its presence, the sight of its canvas wrapping stirred him to a gladness which no monotony of the long trail could diminish. For him this was the moment of pa.s.sing, when the foundations had been carefully laid and the first scaffold pole was about to be set in place round the structure of fortune he intended to build.

The harsh voice of Si-wash struck unpleasantly on his ears.

"Look!" he cried, pointing at the drooping sun with a mitted hand. "It the be-d.a.m.n sun-dogs. Him look, an' look lak h.e.l.l. Him much be-d.a.m.n sun-dogs."

The man's irritability seemed quite uncalled for. The sun was s.h.i.+ning over the still world with its usual coppery splendor; a gleaming ball of ruddy fire centering a wide halo of brilliant light, which, in its turn, was studded with four magnificent jewels of light--the fiercely burning sun-dogs which Si-wash so bitterly cursed. But Leo understood the full significance of what he beheld. He, too, felt inclined to curse those ominous wardens of the ineffective northern sun.

"Storm," he said, as he came up beside the Indian.

"We camp. Five miles," said Si-wash presently. "Five mile, long piece.

Yes. Storm, him come quick."

The men moved on in silence, side by side. Audie had heard their talk.

She, too, had looked across at the stormy sun, but she had no comment to add.

They were nearing the summit of the hill. The laboring dogs moved with heads low, and lean quarters tucked well beneath them. Their pace was the same as ever, only their effort was greater. With each moment the gap came down towards them, and, at last, they trod the shoulder under foot. Then Si-wash's sharp command rang out, and the five great burden bearers of the north dropped in their traces, and sought their well-earned rest on the feathery softness of untrodden snow.

The men surveyed the view from the great height at which they stood.

For long moments no word was spoken. Then the Indian held up a warning hand.

"See, hark!"

A curious sigh, almost as if the great hill were s.h.i.+vering under the biting cold of the atmosphere, seemed to drift out upon the sparkling air. It died away, somewhere in the distance behind them.

Then Si-wash spoke again.

"We camp quick." He pointed away out at the far side of the valley confronting them. "We mak dat valley. See dat hill? We come so. We mak round it. It bad. So. Long, deep fall. Dogs haul 'em long side hill.

Very bad. So we mak 'em before storm. Good. After hill mush wood. Tall, big. It is we camp."

Without waiting for reply he turned to the dogs.

"Ho, you d.a.m.n huskies. Mus.h.!.+"

In a moment the dogs leaped at their traces, and the journey went on.

The end of the pa.s.sage came quickly; and, as it did so, and the scout took the first step of the descent, another sigh, longer drawn out this time, sharper, a sigh that spoke of restless discontent, shuddered down the mountain side and pa.s.sed on ahead of them. A moment later a tiny eddy of snow was caught up in its path and vanished amidst the sparkling air particles glistening in the sun.

Again the Indian's voice broke the silence. But this time it was to urge the dogs faster. He had said it was five miles to where they could camp in safety; and five miles, with a storm coming on, was, as he said, a "long piece."

But since the second breath had swept down the hillside a change seemed to have come over the aspect of the day. It was subtle. It was almost indescribable. Yet it was evident. It may have been that the air had warmed by a few degrees; it may have been that the sun's labored light had diminished. Certainly there was an added grayness settling upon the icy world. Yes. Something had certainly changed in the outlook, and it was a change which threatened, and told of the dread storm to come.

The dogs raced down the long hillside under the urgent commands of the Indian. A mile, one out of five to be accomplished, was devoured by scurrying feet. Then came the first real challenge of the storm. It was a swift, fierce blast which swept after them, as though enraged at the attempt to escape. In wanton riot it sent a dense flurry of snow like a fog whistling about them, and, for the moment, blotted out all view of the goal Si-wash had set for himself.

The men had no words, but their thoughts were sufficiently in common.

The swift-rising storm had banished every other consideration from their minds. Audie closed up on the sled, and her action spoke for itself.

Another blast rushed at the speeding travelers. It came across them.

For a moment it seemed to pause in its rush as though it had reached the object of its attack. It swung round in a fierce whirl, round and round in growing fierceness, picking up the snow and bearing it aloft in a gray fog, like fine white sand. It dashed it in the faces of the men, it beat fiercely upon the thick coats of the racing dogs, it swept it under the fur hood of the woman, and painfully whipped the soft flesh of her cheeks.

The hiss of its voice was not allowed to die out. Reinforcements rushed to its aid. They came with a long-drawn moaning howl sweeping down from the distant hill, now grown vague and shadowy behind them, and added to the rapidly growing fog.

Harshly above the howl of the storm Si-wash's voice shouted into Leo's ear.

"The gar-d.a.m.n blizzard. It h.e.l.l!"

But Leo made no response. He had no answer for anybody. All his mind was centered upon the goal he longed for. Just now the woodland bluff, Si-wash had spoken of, seemed the most desirable thing in the world. He was not thinking of life or death. They were considerations that never troubled him. He was thinking of what the wrecking of their transport might mean to him.

Si-wash, being only a half-civilized savage, was thinking of those things which did not trouble his white companion; and, being simply human, he thought of the woman, the burden of whose presence he had deplored.

He turned and shouted at her to come up abreast of them, fearing a stumble might mean death to her in the storm; and in the same breath, the same tone, he hurled a string of blasphemous commands at his dogs.

Almost blinded by the whipping snow, Audie staggered to the side of the Indian. So cruel was the buffeting of the storm she would have fallen, but for the timely succor of the man's outstretched hands. Already the downward rush was left behind, and the level of the valley was under their feet. Ahead of them, lost in the gray of the storm lay the incline which was to lead them to the treacherous shoulder of the hill they had yet to pa.s.s. Neither dogs nor men could see it, and their only guidance was the wonderful instinct of the savage brain of the Indian.

With unerring judgment he led the way, faltering not even for a second in his decisions; and soon, far sooner than seemed possible, the tautened traces, and crouching gait of the dogs, told that his judgment had not erred. The ascent had begun.

The steady pull went on for an hour; a grinding, weary labor in which every inch of the way was only accomplished under the cruel las.h.i.+ng of a merciless wind, and with eyes more than half blinded by the powdered snow. The wind seemed to attack them from every side; now from ahead; now from behind. Now it whistled down the hillside on their right; now it came up with a vicious scream from the depths of the canyon which dropped away beside them on the left of the harsh, hummocky path. The heavy wrappings of furs about their mouths were a ma.s.s of ice from the frozen moisture of their hard breathing, while the dense h.o.a.r-frost on their lashes had to be wiped away lest their lids froze together as their watering eyes blinked under the force of the wind. It was such a journey as matched the sterile land through which they were pa.s.sing; such a journey as only the hardened folk of the northern world could dare to face.

At last the ascent was accomplished, and with the relaxing of effort came the first warning of the dangers with which they were surrounded.

It was the horror-stricken cry of the woman. In the blinding snow she had approached the edge of the path too nearly. Her feet shot from under her, and, for a moment, absolute destruction threatened. Again came the prompt succor of the Indian. Again he clutched her, and held her. Then he gathered his strength for an effort, and the next moment she was sprawling in safety at the feet of her lover.

"Ho, you d.a.m.n-fool woman!" Si-wash cried, in a manner that merely expressed his own fears, and had no insult in it.

Leo helped Audie to her feet. A moment later his deep voice shouted above the howling of the wind.