The Gold Trail Part 8

When they stood waiting, each with a stout fir pole on his shoulder, he turned to the anxious lady, who seemed bent on going with him.

"It's quite out of the question for you to undertake that climb. We'll be back again in a few hours with the major and Miss Kinnaird," he said.

Ida went up to him and touched his arm, and, for no very evident reason, the color crept into her face when he looked at her inquiringly.

"Can't the Indians find the way themselves?" she asked. "You are scarcely fit to go."

Weston shook his head.

"I must manage it somehow," he said. "They have nothing to eat up yonder, and the Indians might not find them until it's dark again."

He broke off for a moment with a forced smile.

"Try to rea.s.sure Mrs. Kinnaird, and then go to sleep as soon as you can."

In another minute he had limped away, and Mrs. Kinnaird found the girl looking down with a very curious expression at a little smear of blood on a smooth white stone. There were further red spots on the s.h.i.+ngle, and they led forward in the direction in which the rescue party had gone.

"Oh," she said, "he told me he had cut his foot, and he couldn't have waited long enough to eat anything."

Then she gasped once or twice, for she was worn out to the verge of a break-down, and Mrs. Kinnaird, who saw how white her face was growing, slipped an arm about her and led her back toward the tent.

The afternoon pa.s.sed very slowly with the little, anxious lady, and every now and then she crept softly out of the tent and gazed expectantly up the steep hillside. Still, each time she did it, there was nothing that she could see except the long ranks of somber firs, and the oppressive silence was broken only by the sound of the river.

Then she slipped back quietly into the tent where Ida lay in a restless sleep. Now and then the girl moved a little, and once or twice she murmured unintelligibly. It was very hot, for the sunrays struck down upon the canvas between the firs, whose clogging, honey-like sweetness was heavy in the air.

By and by, however, it grew a little cooler, as the shadow of the great dark branches crept across the tent. Then they moved out upon the dazzling river and slowly covered it. Mrs. Kinnaird, rising once more in an agony of impatience, stumbled against one of the tent supports. The crutch and ridge-poles rattled, and Ida opened her eyes.

"Oh," she said drowsily, "you needn't be anxious. He is quite sure to bring them back."

She apparently tried to rouse herself, and, failing, went to sleep again; but she left Mrs. Kinnaird a little comforted. The latter was observant, and she felt that Ida Stirling had a reason for her confidence which, she fancied, was not lightly given.

The sunlight had, however, faded off the valley when she rose for the last time from the seat she had found outside the tent, for there was no doubt now that a faint patter of feet on stones mingled with the clamor of the river. Almost as she did so, a few plodding figures appeared beneath the firs, and she saw that two of them carried a litter between them. Then she saw her husband walking very wearily, and she ran forward with a little cry. She grasped one of the poles between which a sagging blanket hung, and Weston, who held the ends of them, looked at her.

"Miss Kinnaird isn't hurt much," he said harshly. "Don't stop us now!"

Then she heard her daughter's voice bearing out this a.s.surance, and she went back with the plodding men, while her husband stumbled along wearily at her side. In a minute or two Weston, calling to one of the Indians, laid down his end of the poles, and, staggering away, sat down heavily. None of them troubled themselves about him, and Ida, who had risen when she heard their voices, helped to convey Miss Kinnaird into the tent. In the meanwhile one of the Indians growled to his comrade when he found the fire out, and stolidly proceeded to relight it, while Weston lay with his back against a fir and watched him with half-closed eyes. The Siwash, however, proved that he was capable of preparing a meal, and when it was finished, Arabella, who appeared much fresher than the major, proceeded to relate her adventures to Ida and her mother.

"It was rather horrible up on the range, and I was almost afraid they wouldn't get me down," she said. "I don't know how they did it, I'm sure. Parts of the way were simply awful. They had to cut the little trees down for yards at a time to get my blanket litter through, and there were places so steep that they could scarcely crawl down. The Indians, of course, had to be relieved now and then, and my father and the packer took turns with them."

She looked at the major with a smile.

"When it was especially steep, I preferred an Indian and the packer.

Once, you know, you dropped me; but nothing seemed to disconcert that young man. He must have been horribly worn out, for he had been up twice, but he was so steady and rea.s.suringly quiet. I suppose a man of his kind would appreciate twenty dollars. He really deserves it."

Ida frowned, and remembered the trail of blood on the white stones when the packer had started. Kinnaird made a little abrupt movement.

"I'm afraid that I was forgetting all about the man in my relief at getting you safely down," he said. "We owe him a good deal, and I'll go out presently and thank him; but there's another matter. Your knee ought to be attended to."

That commenced a discussion, but Arabella persisted that she would get over the injury if she didn't walk for a few days.

Then Kinnaird summoned one of the Indians to clear away the meal. The brown-skinned, dark-haired man appeared in the entrance of the tent and spoke haltingly in English.

"They wait," he said, pointing to the supper plates. "Want piece s.h.i.+rt--handkerchief. Packer man's boot full of blood."

Those he addressed looked at one another, and Kinnaird, rising, went out hastily.

CHAPTER VI

KINNAIRD STRIKES CAMP

It was about the middle of the next afternoon when Ida Stirling, walking slowly along the river-bank, came upon Weston sitting with his back to a tree. He wore no boot on one foot which was wrapped in bandages, and when he would have risen Ida checked him with a sign, and sat down not far away.

"Is it too hot in the tent?" he asked.

Ida flashed a swift glance at him. He seemed perfectly contented, and very much at his ease, and it was a little difficult to believe that this was the sharp-voiced mart who had ordered her to put on his jacket early on the previous morning. Now he was smiling languidly, and there was a graceful carelessness that was almost boyish in his manner, which made it a little easier to understand why his comrades had called him the Kid. She was rather pleased with it.

"No," she said. "At least that was not what brought me out. The major has gone fis.h.i.+ng; Mrs. Kinnaird has gone to sleep; and Arabella appears a little cross."

Weston nodded.

"It's excusable," he said. "How is Miss Kinnaird's knee?"

"I don't think it's very bad. How is your foot? It doesn't seem to have affected your temper."

Weston laughed.

"I'd forgotten all about it. In some respects I feel a little obliged to it. You see, for once in a while, it's rather nice to have nothing to do, and know that one's wages won't immediately stop. Besides, to be waited on is a pleasant change."

Ida's eyebrows straightened a trifle as they sometimes did when she was not exactly pleased. It is by no means an unusual thing in the west for a packer or a ranch hand to converse with his employers or their friends on familiar terms, and it occurred to her that it was a trifle superfluous for him to insist on reminding her of his status when she was willing to forget it. Still, she was quite aware that this man had not always been a packer, and she was conscious of an increasing curiosity concerning his past.

"That is an unusual experience with you?" she asked.

"Oh, yes," said Weston. "Anyway, during the last few years."

She was foiled again, for she could not press the question more closely; and, sitting still in the shadow, she looked up between the dark fir branches at the line of gleaming snow and the great rock rampart beneath which they had crept.

"Were you ever up so high before?" she ventured.

"Yes," said Weston. "I believe so; but never for pleasure. In fact, I think some of the ranges we crossed on the gold trail must have been considerably higher. I told you that prospecting is one of my weaknesses."

"You did," agreed Ida. "It's one I could never understand, though I have spent some time, in this province. Every now and then it seems that the rancher must leave his clearing and wander off into the bush.

As you admitted, he generally comes home dressed in rags, and very seldom brings anything with him. Why do you do it?"

Weston laughed in a rather curious fas.h.i.+on.