The Way of the Strong Part 6

"I mak 'em long piece way. No plenty wood. I mak 'em mile--two mile."

Si-wash held up two fingers.

Leo looked up quickly at this breaking of the silence.

"Sure," he said. "Wood scarce."

Si-wash nodded.

"Plenty scarce." Then after a long pause: "Other man find him. Burn 'em all up."

Leo eyed his companion. Then he grinned unpleasantly.

"Guess there's only one d.a.m.n-fool outfit on this trail--hereabouts----"

The Indian went on smoking, and nearly a minute pa.s.sed before he shot a quick, sidelong glance at his white friend.

"No. Two," he said; and the inevitable two fingers were thrust up again before Leo's eyes.

It was the white man's turn to pause before replying now.

"Two?" he said, half incredulously.

The Indian nodded, and again held up two fingers.

"How d'you know?" Leo's question came sharply.

"Smoke," returned the Indian; and his one hand described a series of circles upwards.

"You mean--a camp fire? Where?"

Leo was more than interested.

"So. Back there. Big piece. One--two--three mile." Si-wash held up three fingers in deliberate succession.

Leo's interest seemed to suddenly die out. He had no further questions to ask; and, a moment later, he leaned forward and knocked the ashes from his pipe. Then he rose and moved over to the sled. Here he sat down and supported his back against an iron strut, and stretched his legs out beside the fire. In a few moments he was asleep.

Si-wash remained where he was. He made no preparations for sleep; but he slept, every now and then waking up to replenish the fire. And so the long hours crept on toward the gray dawn.

Daylight had come. Leo yawned and stretched his cramped limbs. Si-wash was still beside the fire. He had melted a pot of snow, the only pot that had been saved from wreck on the hillside. He was making tea, boiling it, as is the fas.h.i.+on of all Indians. The smell of it pervaded the camp and reminded Leo that he was hungry.

In half an hour breakfast was over, and Si-wash proceeded with his work on the sled. Audie waited for the commands of her lover. But none were forthcoming. For a long time Leo sat lost in thought, watching the skillful fingers of the Indian at his work, while the fierce sled dogs fought and played around in their untamed, savage way.

The man's expression was quite inscrutable. He was thinking neither of the Indian nor his work. His mind was on other matters, matters which set him puzzling and speculating.

At last he rose and picked up the rawhide rope, which was lying beside the diminished wood pile. He stood for a moment contemplating it. Then he absently stretched it out on his powerful hands, and finally coiled it up.

"Guess I'll climb around and gather wood. So long, Audie," he said briefly.

The next moment the girl's longing eyes were watching his retreating figure as the gray distance swallowed it up.

For a long time she stood thus. Then she started and looked around. It was the Indian's voice that had startled her.

"Him heap good feller. Him no come back bimeby."

The girl's eyes widened with sudden fear.

"What do you mean?" she demanded, with a clutching at her heart.

The Indian's features relaxed into something approaching a smile.

"Him crazy, sure!"

CHAPTER IV

LEO

Leo gazed about him as he left the woodland shadows behind. All sign of the recent blizzard had pa.s.sed. The world was white, cold, and bathed in the gleaming sunlight of the northern winter. The air was warmer than it had been for days, an unusual phenomenon after such a storm.

For a moment his unexpressive eyes lifted to the s.h.i.+ning sky. There was nothing to suggest anything in the nature of one of those rapid changes of weather so much a feature of winter in this region, and the prospect seemed to satisfy him. From the sky his glance drifted to the jagged horizon, and here it searched closely in every direction. For a long time he stood studying every rise and depression in the glacial ocean of hills and valleys; then, slowly, his interest began to wane.

Now a definite disappointment became apparent in the frown that depressed his strong brows. He moved out from the edge of the woods and skirted them until a fresh vista of bald, snow-clad hills presented themselves to his searching eyes. For a time his scrutiny lacked something of its original interest. Then, quite suddenly, it became fixed on one spot, a deep depression, shadowed, and definitely marked, an almost black patch in the white setting of the surrounding world.

In a moment all his interest had revived, and he concentrated all his efforts to read the meaning of that which he beheld.

"He wasn't lying, after all," he muttered at last. And his words gave a key to his recent moments of waning interest.

He knew that the black patch he was looking at was a bluff of woods lying in the narrow valley between two high hills, a bluff of woods such as those which lay behind him. Whether they were larger, or just a small, isolated cl.u.s.ter of trees did not concern him. He was watching a spiral of thin smoke, a faint shadow against the dark backing, as it floated upwards and drifted away, quite invisible after it broke the sky line. He knew that this was the smoke Si-wash had told him of. He knew, as Si-wash had known, that it was the smoke of a camp fire. He wondered whose, and, wondering, he moved out without any hesitation in its direction, determined to ascertain whose hand had lit the fire; a matter which had seemed all unnecessary to the Indian's mind.

Just for a moment he glanced again at the sun, and took his bearings.

Si-wash had said three miles at most. Three miles; it was little enough to concern himself about. He knew that unless he encountered unlooked-for difficulties he would be able to cover the distance, and make the return journey in less than four hours.

So he set off, adopting a course much as the crow might fly. That was his way in all things. He rarely sought to spare himself by seeking the easier route in anything. His goal always a.s.sumed a definite point straight ahead of him, so why make the journey longer for the sake of a little ease? Time enough for such deviations when stress of circ.u.mstances demanded.

His way took him down a long, easy slope, where, at moments, banks of snow mounted up to many feet in height, and at others the earth lay bare, swept clear by the force of the recent storm. Then it was possible for him to travel swiftly, nor was he put to inconvenience from the fact that he was without his snowshoes.

The depression was quickly pa.s.sed and terminated in the abrupt rise of a low bald hill whose base was surrounded by a low, shabby scrub. At first glance the hill had a curious resemblance to a monk's shaven crown, but a closer inspection revealed that here was one of those broken hills suggesting the ruin of a one-time magnificent mountain, which must have succ.u.mbed under the fierce blastings of one of Nature's pa.s.sionate moments. The bald crown was a broken sea of torn and riven rocks, which might well have been the result of gigantic operations with dynamite.

The obstruction gave him no pause. Again deviation never entered his head. With infinite purpose he attacked the ascent which amounted to a laborious and even perilous struggle. There was no faltering, and soon he was so far involved that any thought of yielding to the difficulties he encountered became quite out of the question. To return would have been far more difficult than to continue the advance.

The ascent occupied an hour of great physical effort, but at last he stood at the summit breathing hard from his exertions. Here he paused and surveyed the distance. Again was it characteristic of him that he had no longer interest in his immediate surroundings, or the difficulties he had already surmounted. His whole thought was for that which lay ahead, for those difficulties which still remained to be overcome.

The descent of the hill, though it appeared to be no mean accomplishment, was far shorter, and far less abrupt than the upward climb had been. Nor was he sorry for the respite, while still there was no shrinking in him from whatever hazard Nature might have chosen to offer. He had calculated that such was the case, for the whole trend of the land was upward, bearing on up to the crystal peak between which the crowding woodland ahead lay pinched. His eyes wandered on with his thoughts which carried him out in the direction of the tiny ribbon of smoke, still gently rising from the heart of the woods to vanish in the sparkling air above.