Murder Point Part 18

"No, I never told you that," he continued fiercely, "and I suppose you don't believe me now. Seems somehow odd to you, I daresay, that Druce Spurling should ever have thought himself worthy to talk to men about their souls and Christ. You'd have thought it a good joke if I'd told you even when you knew me at my best. _When you knew me!_ Bah! You never knew me; you were always a harsh judge when it came to setting a value on things which you didn't understand."

When Granger still kept silent and gave no sign of interest, Spurling broke out afresh: "d.a.m.nation! I tell you you never knew anything about me. You were always too selfish to take the trouble to get into other folks' insides; yet you went about complaining that people were unsympathetic. Here's the difference between us; I may be a scoundrel, but whatever I've done I've played the man and never blamed anyone else for my crimes, while you--! You were always a weak dreamer, depending on others for your strength. You were discontented, but you never raised your littlest finger in an attempt to make men better.

All you could think of was yourself, and your own ambition to escape.

So though, perhaps, I've sunk to a lower level than you have ever touched, I want you to know there was once a time when I did reach up to a n.o.bler and a better."

Gradually, as he had spoken, there had grown into his voice a concentrated fury. He was giving utterance to an old grievance over which he had brooded for many years; as happens frequently in such cases, only a portion of his complaint could be proved by facts, the remainder being an overgrowth of embittered imagination.

His eyes sought out the face of the man whom he accused, but it told him nothing; he sat there silent, with his head thrown back a little, unemotional as the distant stretch of cold grey river up which he gazed.

The sun had vanished, and the prolonged dusk of the northland was stealing from out the forest. At length Granger answered him: "It may be true, and if so, what follows?"

"Oh, nothing: only I thought I'd tell you this so that one man might not think too badly of me, if before long I should be called upon to die. I must have looked a horrid beast when I came to you last April."

Whether consciously or not, Granger nodded his head, as much as to say, "You did. Most certainly you did."

His companion broke into a harsh laugh. "The Reverend Druce Spurling!

How d'you like the sound of it? That's what I might have been to-day, and a fat lot you care about it."

To Granger, as he listened, there had come the painful knowledge, bearing out the accusation that he had never cared for the inward things of men, that this was the first sc.r.a.p of confession which Spurling had ever let fall in his presence. Why, up to that moment he had not heard a word about his mother, and had certainly never credited him with a p.r.o.nounced religious instinct.

Yes, perhaps that statement, which had sounded so exaggerated at first, was true; and he was a hard and selfish man. Up to now he'd excused himself on the score of his superior sensitiveness and ideality. Probably it was this same error which Pere Antoine, in gentler manner, had tried to point out, when he said, "You will never help yourself, or the world, by merely being sad. No man ever has. It is because of your flight from sadness that you have met with all your dangers. All your life you have spent in striving to escape from things which are sad." His thoughts travelled back to those earlier days, when he'd poured out his troubles to Spurling, and told him all about himself; and always with the a.s.surance that he would be understood and would gain sympathy. John Granger as he had been then, now seemed like a complaining child to himself. He was certain that, were he to be met by that old self to-day, he would have no patience with him. But Spurling had had patience.

So, when all was said and done, he must consider himself a pretty worthless fellow; and, after all, Spurling, despite his blood-stained hands, was probably the better man.

"Why Spurling failed to become a parson"--a strange topic for thought and conversation this, on the Last Chance River at nightfall!

But Spurling was speaking again, timidly and half to himself. "Suppose G.o.d should brand a mark on our foreheads for every crime which we have perpetrated, I wonder what kind of beasts we should appear to one another then?"

Turning his head, in order that his face might not be seen, Granger replied, "Much the same kind of beasts, I suspect, as we appear to one another now." Then, speaking more hurriedly, "It wasn't to talk of these things, and to ask me that question, that you required me to come with you to some place where we might be by ourselves. Tell me, what is it that you want me to do for you? You were good to me once, and I'm willing to help you in any way that is honourable, and that isn't too dangerous."

Spurling laughed shortly, and said, "It isn't your help that I'm asking; it's you that I'm trying to help. Here, look at that." He pa.s.sed something to him. "I didn't act squarely by you in the Klondike, and I want to make up for it now. When we made that strike in Drunkman's Shallows, the success of it turned my head; even then, if you'd not been so impatient, I think I should have come to myself and have behaved decently. You put my back up with your suspicions, and by seeming to claim a part of my wealth as though it were yours by right. But I'm anxious to forget that now."

In the meanwhile, Granger had been examining the thing which had been placed in his hands. It was wrapped up carefully in several rags, which were knotted and tedious to untie. When he had stript them off, he found that they contained a nugget, somewhat bigger than the one which Eyelids had shown him, but of the same rounded formation, as though it had been taken from a river-bed. "Where did you get it?" he asked excitedly.

"Where the half-breed got his--from the Forbidden River. Does El Dorado seem more possible to you now?"

But Granger was thinking, and he did not answer the question. Suddenly the dream of his life had become recoverable. He had forgotten Peggy, and Murder Point, and even Spurling himself. Once more in imagination he was sailing up the Great Amana, following in his father's track.

Once more he saw, as in Raleigh's day, the deer come down to the water's side, as if they were used to the keeper's call; and he watched anxiously ahead lest, in the rounding of the latest bend, the s.h.i.+ning city should meet his sight and the salt expanse of Parima, from whose sh.o.r.es its towers are said to rise. In his eyes was the vision of the island near Puna, which Lopez wrote about, with its silver herb-gardens, and its flowers of gold, and its trees of gold and of silver; and in his ears was the tinkling music, which the sea-wind was wont to make as it swept through the metal forest, causing its branches to clang and its leaves to shake. He was far away from Keewatin now, making the phantom journey to the land of his desire.

"Does El Dorado seem more possible to you now?"

He turned to Spurling a face which had grown thin with earnestness, "Druce, tell me quickly," he said, "how long will it take us to get there?"

"To get to El Dorado? The answer to that you should know best. But to get to the place on the Forbidden River where this gold was found? Oh, about five days."

"Let us go there at once, then, before Beorn finds us out."

"Ah, Beorn! The old trapper who put that half-breed on my track!"

"Did he do that? Tell me about it."

CHAPTER XV

MANITOUS AND SHADES OF THE DEPARTED

"After I had left you, I journeyed three days to the northward, till I came to the mouth of the Forbidden River. There I found the cache which you spoke to me about; but I did not break into it at that time, as I was still well provided with food and ammunition. Because you had told me that the Forbidden River was unexplored and never visited, being haunted by Manitous and shades of the dead, I turned into it and travelled up it--I thought that I should find safety there.

"On the second day, just as evening was falling, I saw the flare of a camp-fire, about two miles ahead. You'll remember that my nerves were badly shaken when I came to you at Murder Point; and they hadn't been much improved by those five days of flight through the winter loneliness. When I saw that light blaze up in the distance, I began to be afraid--and it wasn't the fear of men that I was thinking about. I waited until it was utterly night and then, leaving my dogs behind, stole stealthily forward to prospect. As I drew nearer, I saw that a hut of boughs had been erected, and that a man was sitting, with his rifle on his knees, before the fire. He was very old and tall. But I had no opportunity to get a closer view of him, for, at that moment, he must have heard me; he put his head on one side to listen, and rose to his feet. Without the waste of any time, he fired in my direction. Luckily I had thrown myself flat along the snow, for the bullet whizzed over my head. He advanced towards me a little way, and then, thinking that he had been mistaken, went back to his fire, grumbling to himself, and sat down. The cold ate into my bones, yet I dared not stir until I was certain that he had gone to sleep.

Presently he arose, looked suspiciously around, piled more wood on his fire, and went into his hut.

"I hurried back to where I had left my dogs, harnessed them in and, leaving the river-bank, travelled into the bush for a distance of about two miles; there I tied them up, and then returned to the river by myself, coming out at a point somewhat nearer to the old man's hut.

I lay down behind a clump of trees and waited. Before day had come, I could hear that he was astir; but he seemed to be almighty busy for a Keewatin trapper, who was only changing camp. About midday he had made his preparations, and, stamping out his fire, set out down-stream, in the direction of the Last Chance River. I knew that in half-an-hour he must come across my trail, and have his suspicions of the previous night confirmed. Sure enough, after he had pa.s.sed my place of hiding and had got below me about three hundred yards, he struck my tracks.

He pulled up sharply, and wheeled round, as if he could feel that my eyes were watching him; he threw up his head like an old bull caribou scenting danger.

"I had left two trails leading from that point, the one towards his hut and back again, the other into the bush to where my dogs were tethered. If he was determined to follow up the latter and to trace me to my hiding, I was ready for him, and would have the advantage of knowing his whereabouts, whilst he was ignorant of mine. He must have been going through some such argument himself, for presently he whipped up his dogs and, with one last glance across his shoulder, continued on his journey. When he had vanished, and I had made certain that he did not intend to return, I went forward to inspect his abandoned camp.

"Inside the hut I found that the floor was of earth and below the snow-level, making evident the fact that it had been erected before the winter had commenced. When I examined the walls, which were constructed of boughs and mud, I came to the conclusion that they had been standing for many years, but had been renewed from time to time.

All this made it clear to me that you had been mistaken in saying that the Forbidden River had never been travelled. The next thing to discover was what had brought the old man up there. The earth of the floor was not packed together, but looked loose and rough, as though it had been newly dug. This gave me my first clue to the secret. When I walked above it, it did not sound solid, so I commenced to sc.r.a.pe away the earth. Six inches down I came to branches of trees spread crosswise, as though to form a roof to a cellar. Pulling these aside, after another hour of labour, I looked down into a pit which had been hollowed out. It was getting dark now, so I lit a fire.

"I climbed into the pit, by some rudely fas.h.i.+oned stairs which had been shaped in the side of the wall, and soon found myself on level footing. Groping about down there, I could feel that the sides were tunnelled, and had been roughly timbered with the stems of trees.

Going above ground, I fetched a torch and then saw all that I had commenced to suspect--and a good deal more.

"Piled up in one corner was an outfit of miner's implements, pans, axes, spades, picks, etc., and close beside them was a sack of moose-hide. Whipping out my knife, I cut through the thongs by which the sack was tied; it lurched over, letting fall a dozen ounces or so of gold dust. On searching round, I found in another corner a second sack containing nuggets. When I went about the walls, and pushed my way into some of the tunnels, I was made certain that I was in one of the richest placer-mines that I had ever set eyes on. Then I went up to consider what all this meant.

"Here was I, a man fleeing for his life, and here was this old man, a pioneer in an unexplored region, who, for some reason of his own, was keeping secret the knowledge of his bonanza, yet taking the gold out all the while. Couldn't I, by making the world a present of his knowledge, buy back my life? Soon I recognised that that was folly; the world would accept the present, but it would also demand my life.

There was nothing for it but to act by stealth. If I could once get out of Keewatin with all these riches, I would be able to purchase my escape; especially if I should remain in hiding for a year or so, until the search had been abandoned, and I had been given up for dead.

Then I could sneak out and get to South America, where I was not known, and commence life afresh. The thought of South America brought El Dorado to my mind, and then I remembered you, two hundred miles'

distant at Murder Point. 'Why shouldn't I tell Granger?' I said. 'Then we could both escape, and go in search of El Dorado together, as we have always planned.'"

He paused and looked at his companion to see what effect his words had had. Granger was sitting with his head bent forward, his knees drawn up and his arms about them, all attention, with a strange look of hunger in his eyes. "Well, for G.o.d's sake don't keep me waiting, Druce. Go on," he said.

It was the second time that Granger had called him "Druce" in less than two hours; he was now certain of his ground.

"If you are willing to help me, I think we can do as we have always planned. What do you think about it?"

"I'm willing to the death. But after you'd discovered the mine, what did you do then? Did the old man come back?"

"The next few days I kept a careful lookout, in case I should be surprised. When nothing happened, I commenced to prospect for myself.

I could not do much as the ground was frozen; but I thawed out some of the dirt, and gathered a few nuggets of pretty fair size. Then the river broke up, and I thought that I was safe for at least a time. But soon my provisions began to run low, so that it became necessary for me to turn back to the Last Chance River to break open the cache. I postponed the journey as long as I dared, and at last set out, with only enough flour and bacon to keep me going for two days. It was hard travelling, for my dogs were of no use to me, the snow being too moist for the pa.s.sage of a sled. I had to work my way along by the river-bank, through melting drifts and tangled scrub. I dared not light a fire when I camped at night, lest it should be seen by the old man, and he should steal up and kill me while I slept.

"I thought I began to see why he had gone away so meekly, though he knew that a stranger had found him out and was likely to stumble on his treasure: so long as I was in hiding, I had had him at a disadvantage; but now, having gone away quietly without resistance, he was able to await me under cover at the Forbidden River's mouth, and I would be the one who would run most risk when we came to an encounter.

He had known that sooner or later I should run short of grub, and be forced to return to the Last Chance, and to pa.s.s by his ambush; all that he had to do was to await me, for there is but one way out.

"It took me three days to make the journey and when, as night was falling, I came in sight of the spit of land which divides the two rivers, on which the cache had been made, I had exhausted my supply of rations. I was faint with hunger and perished with cold; but I dared do nothing to provide for myself until I had made certain that I was not spied upon.