Читать книгу The Long Portage - Harold Bindloss - Страница 8

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They spent the greater part of a week on the portage, crossing here and there a little lake; and then came out one evening on a river that flowed, green and tranquil, beneath a ridge of hills. Here they camped; and on rising with a shiver in the raw and nipping dawn the next morning, Nasmyth found Lisle busy at the fire. Jake was cutting wood some distance off, for the thud of his ax rang sharply through the stillness.

“I was awake—thinking—a good deal last night; in fact, I’ve been restless ever since we struck the Gladwynes’ trail,” Nasmyth began. “Now, I understand that an uninterrupted journey of about sixteen days would take us well on our way toward civilization. You say you apprehend no difficulty after that?”

“No.” Lisle waited, watching his companion in an intent fashion.

Nasmyth hesitated.

“Then, considering everything, mightn’t it be better to waste no time, and push straight on?”

“And leave the work that brought me here—I believe that brought us both here—undone?”

“You’ll forgive me if I don’t express myself very fortunately. What I feel is this—Gladwyne’s story is a tragic one, but it’s twelve months old. In a way, it’s forgotten; the wounds it made have healed.”

“Is such a man as the one you have described forgotten in a year?” Lisle asked with a hardening expression.

Nasmyth, being a man of simple and, for the most part, wholesome ideas, was in a quandary. His feelings were generous, but he shrank from putting them into words. Moreover he was just and was not wholly convinced that the course he wished to recommend was right.

“Well,” he contended, “there are faithful hearts that never quite forget—with them the scar remains; but it’s fortunate that the first keen pain does not last. Is it decent—I almost think that’s the right word—to reopen the wound?”

He paused and spread out one hand as if in expostulation.

“Your late comrade has gone beyond your help; you told me he had left no relatives; and you have only yourself to consider. Can you do any good by bringing this sorrowful tale of disaster up again?”

“Are you pleading for your English friends, anxious to save them pain at my expense? Can’t you understand my longing to clear my dead partner’s name?”

A trace of color crept into Nasmyth’s face.

“I suppose I deserve that, though it wasn’t quite the only thing I meant. I’ve an idea that you are somehow going to lay up trouble for yourself by persevering in this search.”

“I don’t want to be offensive; but can’t you see that by urging me to let the thing drop you are casting grave doubts upon the honor of a man of your own caste and kind, one with whom you are closely acquainted? Are you afraid to investigate, to look for proofs of Clarence Gladwyne’s story?”

Nasmyth looked him steadily in the eyes.

“For the sake of one or two others, I think I am. Your belief in the guide, Vernon, has had its effect on me.”

“Then,” said Lisle, “I have no fear of putting my belief to the test; I came up here for that purpose, and I mean to call upon you as my witness. As you said of George Gladwyne, the man I owe so much to never did a shabby thing. That he should have deserted a starving comrade is clean impossible!”

“I suppose there’s no help for it,” responded Nasmyth, with a gesture of acquiescence. “We have said enough. Since you insist, I’ll stand by my promise.”

The thudding of the ax ceased, and they heard Jake returning with the wood. Lisle set out the simple breakfast, and when they had eaten they launched the canoe and floated swiftly down the smooth green river all that day. They had accomplished the worst half of the journey; henceforward their way lay down-stream, and with moderate good fortune they need have no apprehension about safely reaching the settlements, but they were both silent and ill at ease. Lisle was consumed with fierce impatience; and Nasmyth shrank from what might shortly be revealed to him. Scarcely a word was spoken when they lay in camp that night.

The next day they came to the head of a long and furiously-running rapid. Rocks encumbered its channel; the stream boiled fiercely over sunken ledges, dropping several feet here and there in angry falls; and in one place, where the banks narrowed in, a white stretch of foaming waves ran straight down the middle. Here they unloaded and spent the day laboriously relaying their stores and camp-gear over the boulders and ragged ledges between a wall of rock and the water. It was a remarkably difficult traverse. In places they had to hoist the leader up to some slippery shelf he could not reach unassisted and to which he dragged his companions up in turn; in others deep pools barred their way, and in skirting them they were forced to cling to any indifferent handhold on the rock’s fissured side. As they toiled on, badly hampered by their loads, the same thought was in the minds of two of the men—a wonder as to how Gladwyne’s exhausted party had crossed that portage, unless the water had been lower. It was not difficult to understand how the famishing leader had fallen and lamed himself.

When at last, toward the end of the afternoon, the stores had been deposited on the banks of the pool below, Lisle sat down and filled his pipe.

“It would take us most of two days to portage the canoe, and we might damage her badly in doing so,” he said. “The head of the rapid’s impossible, but with luck we might run her down the rest in about ten minutes. The thing seems worth trying, though I wouldn’t have risked it with the stores on board.”

“Suppose you swamped or upset her?” Nasmyth suggested.

“It’s less likely, since she’d go light, with only two of us paddling.”

Nasmyth considered. The sight of the rapid was not encouraging, but he shrank from the intense effort that would be needed to transport the craft by the way they had come. Eventually it was decided to leave Jake below, ready to swim out with the tracking-line and seize the canoe if any mishap befell, and Lisle and Nasmyth went back to the head of the rapid. They dragged the canoe round the worst rush with infinite difficulty; and then Nasmyth set his lips and braced himself for the mad descent when his companion thrust her off.

A few strokes of the paddle drove them out into the stream, and then their task consisted in holding her straight and swinging her clear of the rocks that showed up through the leaping foam, which was difficult enough. Seen from the water, the prospect was almost appalling, though it was blurred and momentarily changing. Nasmyth’s eyes could hardly grasp salient details—he had only a confused impression of flying spray, rushing green water that piled itself here and there in frothy ridges, flitting rocks, and trees that came furiously speeding up toward him. He had an idea that Lisle once or twice shouted sharp instructions and that he clumsily obeyed, but he could not have told exactly what he did. He only knew that now and then he paddled desperately, but more often he knelt still, gazing fascinated at the mad turmoil in front of him.

At last there was an urgent cry from Lisle and he backed his paddle. The canoe swerved, a foaming wave broke into her, and in another moment Nasmyth was in the water. He was dragged down by the swirling stream, and when he rose he dimly saw the canoe a few yards in front of him. He failed to reach her—she was traveling faster than he was—and, though he could swim well, he grew horribly afraid. It struck him that there was a strong probability of his being driven against a boulder with force enough to break his bones or of being drawn down and battered against the stony bottom. Still, he struck out for a line of leaping froth between him and the bank and was nearing it when Lisle grasped his shoulder and thrust him straight down-stream. Scarcely able to see amid the turmoil, confused and bewildered, he nevertheless realized that it was not desirable to attempt a landing where he had intended. Yielding to the guiding impulse, he floundered down-stream, until Lisle again seized him and drove him shoreward, and a few moments later he stood up, breathless, in a few feet of slacker water. He waded to the bank, and then turned to Lisle, who was close behind.

“Thanks,” he gasped. “I owe you something for that.”

“Pshaw!” disclaimed the other. “I only pulled you back. You’d have got badly hammered if you’d tried to cross that ledge. I’d noticed the inshore swirl close below it when we were packing along the bank, and remembered that we could land in it.”

“But you had hold of the canoe. I saw you close beside her.”

“I only wanted her to take me past the ledge,” Lisle explained. “I’d no notion of going right through with her. Now we’ll make for camp.”

On arriving there as darkness closed down, they found that Jake had recovered the craft. The paddles had gone, but he could make another pair in an hour or two. They had a few dry things to put on, and as they lay beside the fire after supper they were sensible that the slight constraint both had felt for the last two days had vanished. Neither would have alluded to the feeling which had replaced it, nor, indeed, could have clearly expressed his thoughts, but mutual liking, respect and confidence had suddenly changed to something stronger. During the few minutes they spent in the water a bond, indefinite, indescribable, but not to be broken, had been forged between the two.

The next morning it was clear and cold, and they made good progress until they landed late in the afternoon. Then, after scrambling some distance over loose gravel, Lisle and Nasmyth stopped beside a slight hollow in a wall of rock. A few large stones had been rudely placed on one another to form a shelter; there were still some small spruce branches, which had evidently been used for a roof, scattered about; and the remains of a torn and moldering blanket lay near by. In another place was a holed frying-pan and a battered kettle.

Nasmyth gravely took off his shapeless hat, and stood glancing about him with a fixed expression.

“This,” he said quietly, “is where my friend died—as you have heard, they afterward took his body out. There are few men who could compare with that one; I can’t forget him.”

There was nothing to be done, and little that could be said; and they turned away from the scene of the tragedy, where a man, who to the last had thought first of his companions, had met his lonely end. Launching the canoe, they sped on down-river, making a few easier portages, and four days later they landed on the bank of a turbulent reach shut in by steep, stony slopes. There was a little brushwood here and there, but not a tree of any kind.

“It was on this beach that Gladwyne made one cache,” said Lisle. “If there had been a cypress or a cedar near, he’d have blazed a mark on it. As it is, we’d better look for a heap of stones.”

They searched for some time without finding anything, for straight beach and straight river presented no prominent feature which any one making a cache would fix upon as guide. Lisle directed Nasmyth’s attention to this.

“There was deep snow when Vernon came down the gorge, on this side,” he pointed out. “It doesn’t follow that he was with the others when they buried the stores—he might have been carrying up a load—and it’s possible they couldn’t give him a very exact description. If I’m right in this, he’d have a long stretch of beach to search, and a man’s senses aren’t as keen as usual when he’s badly played out.”

Nasmyth made no comment, but his expression suggested that he would not be disappointed if they failed to strike the cache. Shortly afterward, however, Jake called out, and on joining him they saw a cross scratched on a slab of slightly projecting rock. Even with that to guide them, it was some time before they came upon a few stones roughly piled together and almost hidden in a bank of shingle.

“First of all, I want you to notice that this gravel has slipped down from the bluff after the cache was made,” Lisle said to Nasmyth. “With snow on the ground and the slab yonder covered, it would be almost impossible to locate it.” He turned to Jake. “How long would you say it was since the rain or frost brought that small stuff down?”

Jake glanced at the young brushwood growing higher up the slope. It was shorter than that surrounding it, and evidently covered the spot which the mass of débris had laid bare in its descent.

“Part of one summer and all the next,” he answered decidedly.

“Tell us how you figured it out.”

Jake climbed the bank and returned with two or three young branches which he handed to Lisle.

“The thing’s plain enough to you.” He turned toward Nasmyth. “No growth except in the summer—they’d had a few warm months to start them, but they don’t fork until the second year. See these shoots?”

“As winter was beginning when the Gladwyne party came down, that small landslide must have taken place some time before then,” declared Lisle.

They set to work and carefully moved aside the stones. First they uncovered three cans of preserved meat, and then a small flour bag which had rotted and now disclosed a hard and moldy mass inside. There was also another bag which had evidently contained sugar; and a few other things. All examined them in silence, and then sat down grave in face.

“It’s unfortunate that nobody could positively state whether this cache has been opened or not since it was made, but there are a few points to guide us,” said Lisle. “Do you know what kind of food civilized men who’ve been compelled to work to exhaustion on insufficient rations, helped out by a little fish or game, generally long for most?”

“No,” answered Nasmyth, with a feeble attempt at levity. “I’ve now and then remembered with regret the kind of dinner I used to get in England.”

“You have scarcely felt the pinch,” Lisle informed him. “The two things are farinaceous stuff and sugar. No doubt, it will occur to you that Vernon might have taken a can or two of meat; but that’s not likely.”

“If you’re right about the longing for flour and sweet-stuff, it’s a strong point,” Nasmyth declared. “Where did you learn the fact?”

Lisle looked at Jake, and the packer smiled in a significant manner.

“He’s right,” he vouched. “We know.”

“Then,” continued Lisle, indicating the sugar bag, which had been wrapped in a waterproof sheet, “can you imagine a starving man, in desperate haste, making up this package as it was when we found it?”

“No,” admitted Nasmyth; “it’s most improbable.”

Somewhat to his astonishment, the usually taciturn Jake broke in.

“You’re wasting time! Vernon never struck this cache—he told the folks at the post so. Worked with him once trail-cutting—what that man said goes!”

“You never told me you knew Vernon!” exclaimed Lisle.

“Quite likely,” Jake drawled. “It didn’t seem any use till now.”

For the first time since they landed, Nasmyth laughed—he felt that something was needed to relieve the tension.

“If people never talked unless they had something useful to say, there would be a marvelous change,” he declared.

Lisle disregarded this, but he was a little less grave when he resumed:

“There’s another point to bear in mind. Two of Gladwyne’s party left him; and of those two which would be the more likely to succumb to extreme exertion, exposure, and insufficient food?”

“Against the answer you expect, there’s the fact that Vernon made the longer journey,” Nasmyth objected.

“It doesn’t count for much. Was Clarence Gladwyne accustomed to roughing it and going without his dinner? Would you expect him to survive where you would perish, even if you had a little more to bear?”

“No,” confessed Nasmyth; “he’s rather a self-indulgent person.”

“Then, for example, could you march through a rough, snow-covered country on as little food as I could?”

“No, again,” answered Nasmyth. “You would probably hold out two or three days longer than I could.”

“Vernon was a stronger and tougher man than I am,” Lisle went on. “Now, without finding definite proof, which I hardly expected, there is, I think, strong presumptive evidence that Vernon’s story is correct.”

“Yes,” agreed Nasmyth, and added gravely: “Will you ever find the proof?”

“I think there’s a way—it may be difficult; but I’m going right through with this.”

“What’s your next move?”

“I’ve willingly laid my partner’s story open to the only tests we can impose. Now I’m going to do the same with Clarence Gladwyne’s.”

Nothing more was said, and turning away from the cache, they went back to the canoe.