Читать книгу Beyond the Outposts - James B. Hendryx - Страница 4

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Corporal Downey, of the Royal North-West Mounted Police, carefully folded the letter and returned it to the girl that faced him across the little fire. Instead of meeting directly the dark eyes that regarded him steadily, the officer allowed his gaze to linger for a moment upon the three canoes drawn side by side upon the shingle, and then shift to the low-hung sun that showed fiery red across the wind-lashed waters of the lake. Teddy Bye and Bye, one of Irma Boyne’s Indian Guides, returned from the water’s edge, and picking up a light axe, stalked silently into the woods. A moment later the pecking of the axe upon a dry spruce sounded above the muffled roar of the wind.

Finally, the officer spoke, his eyes upon the three Indians who lolled about a smudgy fire a short distance away. “I don’t suppose anything I could say, Miss Boyne, would turn you back. I want to warn you, though, that you are right now headed into the bleakest an’ least known strip of country in Canada—maybe in the world. If there is any worse I don’t want to see it. It’s a mean country for a man to travel, an’ no place at all for a woman.”

The girl smiled, and for the dozenth time in the brief hour since he had met her, the officer found himself completely captivated by that smile. “But I have been in the wilds before, Corporal Downey. With my father—fourteen months in the Andes, searching for the lost mines of the Incas, where we were the first white people many of the Indians had ever seen. And in Tibet we spent nearly two years trying to uncover the supposed sealed mines of C’hi Tgu. Why, I’ve been captured by Chinese pirates and held for three months before I was able to escape, and when I did, I had to find my way across more than a hundred miles of unknown country, before I found my father who, failing to get assistance from the proper authorities, had organized a sort of army of his own from among some wild tribesmen and was scouring the country to find me. Really, you don’t need to feel any concern for my safety. I am not in the least afraid.”

Downey returned the smile: “No, I know you ain’t afraid. If you was afraid, I wouldn’t have found you makin’ yourself to home in a little five-by-seven tent on the north shore of Great Bear Lake. It ain’t a question of bein’ afraid. It’s a question of facts—a question of eatin’, or not eatin’. Game is scarce east of the Coppermine.”

“I know, but we can live on fish if we have to. We have both hooks and nets, and the Indians are good fishermen. If I don’t find my father before late fall, I’ll work north to the coast and winter at Bernard Harbour, or if I get farther east, I can winter at Baker Lake, or at Fullerton.”

Downey nodded: “Yes, you could winter at any of them places providin’ you could get to ’em. Don’t start too late, that’s all. It’s a big country up here, an’ travellin’s slow. You seem to know quite a lot about the country for one who’s never be’n into it, an’ maybe you’ll make it all right. When you come to think about it there really ain’t no reason why a woman couldn’t live up here as handy as a man, only—we ain’t used to ’em tryin’ it.

“You say your father went in by way of Baker Lake, an’ he was prospectin’?”

“Yes,” answered the girl, wearily, “a year ago this spring. He’s trying to find the lost mines of the Indians—the gold and copper that lured old Captain Knight to his death in 1719. The mines that Hearn tried to find fifty years later.”

“I’ve heard about that gold,” said Downey, gloomily. “He ain’t the first that’s tried to find it. Why ain’t folks satisfied to hunt new gold?”

The girl’s eyes lighted. “But, he has found new gold—lots of it. He made his stake in the Klondike, in the days of the big stampede. Nobody can understand it unless they’ve felt it—the call of gold. When it comes men will leave home, friends, loved ones to answer the call. They will delve, and sweat, and starve, and freeze, and die for raw gold. But the call of a new strike, strong as it is, is nothing to the call of a lost mine. That is the call of calls! And in answering that call my father has travelled thousands of miles, and spent thousands of dollars. When my mother died he took me with him, to South America, and to China. When he returned from that trip, he swore he’d never take me again, so last year when he started into the North, he left me under the guardianship of a friend—that is, father thinks he’s his friend—he trusts him implicitly, but——”

The girl’s voice trailed off into silence.

“But, what?” asked Downey.

“Oh, I don’t know—exactly,” she answered evasively. “Only, sometimes I wonder if a man really knows his friends. I may be wronging Mr. Babcock, but—anyway, I put in the time reading everything I could get my hands on, about the North, and I’ve studied the maps. I think my father had bought everything that had ever been written on this country, not only books but the technical reports of Franklin, Rae, Richardson, Simpson, Hanberry, Dr. Bell, Stefansson—all of them.”

“Maps ain’t goin’ to help you much where you’re headin’,” said the officer. “There ain’t be’n any real explorin’ done there yet, an’ the maps is mostly wrong. But, why didn’t you go in the same way he did?”

“There are two reasons. In the first place, I know from the marginal notes and notations on the books and reports that he intended to work westward, and I shall probably find him sooner from this side. Then, Mr. Babcock is going in from the east, and—well, the farther I am away from him, the better I’ll like it.”

The officer smiled: “You don’t seem to think well of this Babcock. What’s he huntin’ your father for?”

“He says he’s worried for fear something has happened to dad. Says it’s his duty to start out and find him. You see, it’s sixteen months since dad started, and thirteen since we have heard from him. The last letter was mailed at the headquarters of the Baker Lake Detachment of Police. Not only is Babcock my guardian, but he is to be the sole administrator of dad’s estate under the terms of a will he drew just before he left. I think Babcock believes that my father is dead, and his object in going in search of him is to obtain proofs of his death, so he can begin to take up his duties as administrator. I have heard it hinted that Babcock is rather heavily involved financially, and if so, the handling of something like a million dollars would particularly appeal to him. Dad had hardly turned his back on civilization before Babcock tried to marry me. Smoothly and suavely, at first, with much talk of love—and failing in that, by threats.” The girl paused and a faint smile curved her lips, “I don’t think he’ll try that game again, but—do you know, I hadn’t even thought of worrying about father until I found out Babcock was going in search of him.”

Downey nodded his understanding: “I’m sorry the country east of the Coppermine is outside my territory,” he said, “I’d kind of like to keep my eye on how things goes. I’m doubtin’ if there’s any gold over there, but if there is, it’s devil’s gold—it’s cost a lot of lives before, an’ it’ll cost more. But here I am, keepin’ you up all night talkin’. You’d better turn in. You’ve got a hard trail ahead, shovin’ up Dease River. I just come down it, an’ it’s uncommon shallow for this time of year.” The Indians were already asleep, lying rolled in their blankets nearby, and bidding the officer good night, the girl entered her tent.

After an early breakfast Downey and the girl watched the loading of her two canoes. “Good outfit you’ve got,” approved the officer. “That’s half the game—the other half’s knowin’ what to do with it. Live off the country an’ save your grub. Most of ’em that comes into the North from the outside bring along a lot of food notions about balanced rations an’ scurvy. Besides bein’ pure bunk it handicaps ’em with a lot of unnecessary outfit. Balanced rations might be all right down in the settlements where there’s a doctor handy, but it ain’t any good up here. Straight meat with plenty of fat—that’s the secret—plenty of fat. Lean meat or fish straight will bring on starvation an’ scurvy no matter how much of it you eat. Fat, that’s all the balance you need along with your meat to keep healthy an’ fit.”

“I know,” smiled the girl. “You don’t notice any excess of dried or desiccated vegetables or fruit on my outfit, do you?”

“That’s why I said it was a good outfit,” grinned Downey, “an’ remember this, after you hit the Coppermine River, these Siwashes you’ve got are packers, not guides. Teddy Bye and Bye’s a good man. The rest ain’t much. They don’t know nothin’ about the country beyond, an’ when you get ready to hit north for the coast next fall, use Eskimos instead of Injuns. They know more about the country than anyone else, an’ you’ll run onto some of ’em. They’re supposed to fish in summer as far south as Back’s River.”

The loading was completed, and the girl’s face lighted with a smile as she extended her hand to the officer: “Thank you for the advice,” she said, “I’ll follow it. I’ll get along all right, I’m sure. It’s just the kind of thing I love to do. I’ve never had the chance before. Dad’s always been the commander of the outfit.”

“No letters you want to send?” asked Downey. “It’ll be your last chance for a long time.”

“No letters,” laughed the girl. “There’s only dad and me. And when he connects with his mail there will be so many of my letters that it would be a shame to inflict another one on him. Good-bye!”

“Good-bye, and good luck!” called Downey, cheerily, as the canoes pushed off and headed eastward, skirting the shore.

For a long time the officer stood, his eyes on the receding canoes. When, finally, he turned and with the precision of long practice, made up his own pack, the smile had faded from his face. From his pocket he produced note book and pencil, and for another long time he sat staring into the dying embers of the little breakfast fire. His unseeing eyes fixed the grey ashes, but his thoughts bridged the span of long years. He saw a Hudson’s Bay Post, far to the southward, another face, “like hers” he whispered, and then—a rotting cabin, and a lonely grave beside the thundering waters of a nameless lake. The pencil dropped unheeded from his hand, and the fingers lifted and pushed slowly through the grizzled hair. “ ’Twas to answer the same wild call that Murdo MacFarlane took her,” he murmured, “ ’tis fool’s gold—devil’s gold—gold that costs lives!” A tiny flame flared for a moment among the ashes and died. Straightening himself with a jerk Corporal Downey recovered his pencil and made a notation in his notebook. Then, with water from the lake, he extinguished the last spark of smouldering embers, loaded his canoe, and pushing out into the lake headed west.

At noon Irma Boyne’s two canoes beached at the site of Old Fort Confidence, and while the Indians prepared the meal, the girl wandered about the grass-grown ruins of the building whose four massive stone chimneys still stand as a gaunt and dismal monument to their builders. An incessant drizzle had set in, and in the mist-wraiths that rolled and whipped about the grim reminders of the past, she conjured stalking forms—Dease, Simpson, Richardson, Rae—intrepid explorers of eternal solitudes. The forms melted into the cold grey drizzle through which the spires of surrounding spruce trees blurred into dim background.

That night they camped comfortably in the last cabin they were to see in many a long day situated on a wooded point at the foot of the first rapids of Dease River.

To detail the ascent of Dease River would be to repeat with tiresome sameness a story of gruelling toil in the loading and unloading of canoes, portaging the outfit around swift, shallow rapids, and man-hauling the canoes up through these rapids against the swift current of the river. Some sluggish, deep stretches there were which afforded welcome relaxation in the use of the paddle and pole, but for the most part the water of the river seemed to progress to its destination by a series of rushes over a shallow, boulder-strewn bed that all but furnished a complete bar to even shallow draught navigation.

On the evening of the sixth day they camped at the mouth of a shallow creek that flowed into the Dease from the north-west. In the morning, when the Indians headed the canoes up this tiny stream, the girl called a halt. When, after repeated questioning, Teddy Bye and Bye refused to be shaken in his statement that he knew the route to the Coppermine, and that this stream furnished the only means of reaching the Dismal Lakes portage, she reluctantly ordered them to proceed. There was little or no paddling now. The stream was ridiculously small to attempt with even the light canoes. The ascent became almost a continual portage. The bends were so sharp that the canoes could hardly be edged around them, and the rapids so shallow that the empty canoes scraped harshly upon the gravel bottom. It seemed incredible that such a small and insignificant watercourse could be a recognized route of travel, and several times the girl was upon the point of ordering a return to the main river. But always Teddy Bye and Bye insisted that he was on the right trail. On the second, and third days, he pointed out old choppings, and in one place a small pile of firewood that had been left by some previous party. On the evening of the fourth day from the junction of the streams, they came upon the very limit of navigation, in a valley flanked by rolling, gravelly hills. The girl’s heart sank. It was as she had feared. The stream ended in the middle of a bleak wilderness—not a tree in sight, not even a shrub—only bare gravel, and rocks, and an occasional bunch of heather-like weed. She glanced at Teddy Bye and Bye, who smiled, and leaving the other Indians to set up the camp, motioned her to follow and led the way to a gravelly ridge, which they followed to its extremity, some two miles distant. The girl’s heart leaped with new hope. Before her lay a narrow valley, dotted throughout its length by a series of small lakes, while at its extremity, a long sheet of water was visible.

“The Dismal Lakes!” she cried, and the Indian nodded emphatically, and turning, led the way back to camp through a downpour of rain that had been threatening all the afternoon. And that night the girl retired in high spirits that even a wet and fireless camp could not dampen. The negotiation of the seven-mile portage consumed two whole days, and the traverse of the lakes two more, and on the morning of the fifth day from sighting the lakes, they slipped into the mouth of Kendall River for the short, dangerous dash to the Coppermine.

It was Irma Boyne’s first descent of a swift-water river. The upper reaches were not so bad and the girl thrilled with a wild exhilaration as the canoe shot rapidly down stream borne on the swift current. Toward noon, however, the exhilaration turned to apprehension as the frail craft hurtled past jagged boulders with the seeming speed of an express train, clearing sheer rock walls by a matter of inches, missing by hair’s breadths, fang-capped rocks that reared their heads out of the foaming white-water, and dashing to apparent destruction in narrow, boulder-studded gorges. The wild rush shook her nerves, and time and again she would gladly have exchanged her situation for the disheartening toil of the up-stream portages.

From time to time she turned her head to glance into the immobile face of Teddy Bye and Bye who knelt in the stern of the canoe, wordless, expressionless, eyes to the front, his only sign of animation, the quick, sure twists of his trailing paddle.

Late in the afternoon the canoe plunged into a limestone canyon, by far the most turbulent and the swiftest of all the chutes of the Kendall. The river seemed to dash down a veritable hill so steep was its pitch. All about the canoe the water boiled and foamed and leaped high into the air from some jagged obstruction that, had the canoe so much as touched, would have ripped through her bottom as a saw rips through a log. In white terror the girl gripped the thwarts and closed her eyes. Minutes passed as she waited in deadly calm for the crash that was sure to come. Beneath her the canoe leaped and bounded like a thing of life. In her ears the roar of the rapids blended into a mighty monotonous dirge. Subconsciously she knew that she was surprised at her own calm. It would soon be over—the crash and jar of impact, the chill of icy water, the short, frantic struggle with the whirling current, and ... The roar of the rapids sounded from afar. The canoe floated steadily upon an even keel. It was with a distinct sense of effort that the girl opened her eyes. The bowman’s paddle lay at rest across the thwarts before him. All about the canoe the water was placid as a mill pond. She turned her head to see Teddy Bye and Bye leisurely dip his paddle and with a graceful twist, head the canoe toward the low grassy shore. The other canoe shot from the mouth of the canyon and a moment later its bow gently scraped the gravel of the low, flat point that marks the junction of the Kendall with the Coppermine.