Connie Morgan with the Mounted/Chapter 14
CHAPTER XIV
THE END OF THE TRAIL
Following the back trail of Sam Spotted Raven's valiant band, Connie and Ick Far came to the site of the deserted village. That the departure of the Indians had been a hasty departure was evidenced by the litter of abandoned goods and utensils with which the ground was bestrewn. In the dusk of evening, the depressing atmosphere of abandoned habitation enshrouded the deserted encampment.
Supper was eaten in silence. On the trail Connie had ridiculed the old chief's story, and assured Ick Far they would unearth a perfectly simple explanation of the events that had struck fear to the hearts of the Indians. But the boy knew that Ick Far believed the story of Sam Spotted Raven, and as he glanced at the old scout he noted that his features were gloomy with forebodings of evil.
After carefully drawing a circle about his blankets with a forked stick of peeled willow, the Indian turned in, leaving Connie beside the dying fire to think over the chief's story. Charred ends of brushwood fell into the red coals and flared into flame that caused shifting shadows to dance among the litter of abandoned equipage, and threw into uncanny relief the twisted trunks of scrub timber. Connie caught himself darting swift, furtive glances toward the rim of the circle of firelight, while little tickly chills chased up and down his spine. The boy's fists clenched in a sudden flash of anger. "You tin horn! You're scared!" he hissed through clenched teeth. "You're a coward. You're worse than the Indians! About the only detail you're fit for is to sweep out the barracks!"
Suddenly he stood erect. "Who says I'm afraid of ghosts?" he cried. "Or kultus tamahnawuses, or whatever they call 'em!" And with outthrust jaw, walked deliberately into the scrub and beyond the dancing shadows, nor did he return to the fire until he had made a complete circuit of the camp. A few moments later he crawled between his blankets and as he drew them over his head an owl hooted in a near-by tree and upon a far sand-hill a lone wolf howled dismally.
After an early breakfast Connie and Ick Far examined their surroundings more closely. As the scout prowled about the litter, his attention was suddenly attracted to some faint marks which to Connie's eyes were scarcely discernible upon the hard surface of the ground.
"Someone be'n here!" he exclaimed. Then, after a few moments of silence during which he moved slowly from place to place, studying the almost invisible marks, he turned sombre eyes upon the boy. "It's de 'oman. She com,' from de riv', an' she tak' de grub, here, an' here, an' here."
"Well let's not waste any time!" cried Connie. "We must follow that trail."
For just an instant Ick Far hesitated, but after a glance into the determined face of the boy, he shrugged and lead into the scrub in the direction of Red Tail Lake. The old Indian followed almost without hesitation the trail that was several days' old and so faint that only at rare intervals, where it skirted marshes or followed the banks of creeks, was it discernible at all to the eyes of the boy.
At noon they halted upon the top of a high ridge that overlooked the bay upon which the Indian said the man had built his cabin. But instead of leading to the bay the trail turned sharply to the left as if to avoid the place. And abandoning it for the moment the two scrambled down the steep descent to examine the cabin, which was visible in a grove of spruce.
At the water's edge Ick Far came again to an abrupt halt and pointed to marks on the bank. "Canoe, she lan' here," he said glancing sharply about him. "Only two, t'ree days ago. A man com' een dat canoe. Dat man he no lak' to stay bury. He com' back to hees cabin."
Connie pushed open the door and here, too, were evidences of hasty departure. The blankets had been ripped from the spruce bows that covered the bunk, and upon the table the dishes remained unwashed.
"De man com' back for hunt hees 'oman, but she ain't here. He gon' 'way ag'in,"remarked the scout.
Once more they returned to the water's edge. And as Ick Far again examined the signs on the bank, Connie noticed that he became suddenly excited. He dropped to his hands and knees and studied minutely the faint imprints. "Dees man, she ain't de man w'at liv' here!" he exclaimed suddenly. "She de man w'at got cross de divide wid de kultus gol'."
"What!" cried Connie, stooping to examine the marks. "How do you know?"
For answer Ick Far shrugged and pointed a lean finger at the almost invisible marks, which for all Connie could tell might have been made by a rolling stone or a hurrying wolf. "Me, I'm fol' dem track from Dawson to de divide, an' she got los' een de rocks. I know dem track. W'at I'm tell you we fin' dat kultus gol' mak' de trouble on Red Tail Lak'? De tamahnawus she mad 'cause men fin' dat gol'. She wan' dat back, an' mebbe-so dey bury you an' me, too."
"Not yet they won't!" grinned Connie. "We're a long ways from dead ones yet. If the fellow that's got the nugget is on Red Tail Lake we'll just stick around and get him after we clean up the job we're detailed on. I sure would like to take that hombre back to Dawson!"
Finding nothing further of importance, they returned to the ridge and took up the trail of the woman. After detouring the bay this trail led to the western shore of the lake where the country became rapidly more broken and rocky, so that the scout, trained tracker that he was, was forced to exert his powers to the utmost. Towards evening, among the rock-hills and ridges, the trail disappeared entirely, and that night the two camped on the bank of a tiny creek. Morning found them again at work seeking to pick up the lost trail. But their efforts went for naught, and for several days the two searched unceasingly among the ridges and rock-crags of the western shore. Here and there, the scout was able to point out where the strange woman had crossed a creek, or descended to the shore of the lake. But always the trail would return to lose itself among the rocks. Several times also he found evidence of the presence of the man who had visited the cabin after its owner's hasty departure. But this trail, too, was lost among the rocks.
Upon the evening of the fourth day as they were returning to their camp beside the little creek, both halted abruptly and stared wide-eyed toward the sky line of a naked ridge which terminated abruptly in a sheer drop of a hundred feet to the cold black waters of Red Tail Lake. For an instant there appeared, running swiftly upon the very summit of the ridge, the figure of a woman. Clean-cut and sharp, the figure was silhouetted against the afterglow of the evening sky. Only for a moment did Connie pause to stare at the flying figure, and calling to Ick Far to follow, rushed in headlong pursuit. Across a narrow valley they dashed and, clawing, scrambling, stumbling, succeeded at length in gaining the summit of the ridge. As they paused to regain their breath the eyes of both scrutinized their surroundings. A strip of naked rock interposed between the scrub growth and the extreme end of the ridge upon which a mass of huge rock fragments stood high above the lake. And it was across this bare strip that the woman had run from the direction of the scrub.
"We've got her, now!" exclaimed Connie excitedly. "It's too steep for her to get down. She's hiding there in the rocks."
But Ick Far shook his head gloomily and pointed to the black waters which lapped at the base of the rock- wall far below. "I'm t'ink we no ketch," he said tersely. "She gon' to de tamahnawus—deep down on de floor of de lak'."
Connie laughed nervously. "Come on!" he said shortly, "we'll see," and led the way toward the mass of rock fragments.
Hardly had they begun to explore the crevices and angles of the rocks, before a cry from Connie brought the old scout to his side. The boy was peering into a dark, triangular opening where a great mass of rock, in some mighty convulsion of nature, had been toppled against a shoulder of the ridge.
Seconds passed as the two stared into the black opening. Then, lying flat, Ick Far placed his ear to the rock and Connie waited in breathless suspense until the old scout scrambled to his knees. "Som't'ing een dere," he said.
What do you think it is?" asked Connie.
The man shrugged: "Mebbe-so, 'oman, mebbe bear, loup cervier, wolf, man wid' de kultus gol'—an' mebbe-so tamahnawus.
The inky cavern looked uninviting enough as the boy peered into its depths, and for several moments he hesitated. Then, suddenly, with the same outthrusting of the jaw with which he had ventured beyond the firelight at the deserted camp of the Indians, he dropped to his hands and knees. Feeling a tug at his sleeve, he turned to look into the face of Ick Far.
"Better you don' go een dere. Mebbe-so, one day—two—t'ree, bye 'n' bye eet git 'ongre an' com' out, den mebbe-so we ketch um."
"But if it's a tamahnawus it won't get hungry," grinned Connie, "and it won't come out."
Ick Far shrugged: "Heap skookum, li'l p'lice. But eef eet's tamahnawus een dere, you no com' out neider."
Connie considered the man's words. To tell the truth, the boy had no liking for the task, and the plan of Ick Far sounded reasonable. For a moment he considered adopting it, then, turning once more to the opening, shook his head. "If I don't go in," he muttered, "it's because I'm a coward! Even if we did stick around until the thing came out, I'd always know that I'd run up against something I was afraid to do! And I'm more afraid of that, of the nights and the days I'd spend thinking about it, than I am of anything that could squeeze through that three-cornered hole. Besides, my dad never tackled anything, he didn't see through, and I won't either. If a fellow funks once it would always be easy to do it again, but if he kind of—kind of cleans up as he goes, he can keep on believing in himself. I'd rather go in and not come out than not go in at all!"
And Connie did go in, and a few minutes later he came out again, and with him came a woman who laughed and sobbed hysterically as she clutched tightly to her breast a packet wrapped in a piece of smoke-tanned buckskin. The woman sank down upon the rock and it was some moments before Connie's awkward efforts to quiet her met with any response. Finally, however, she gained control of herself with an effort:
"I thought you were—were that man. I saw his canoe down there and I thought he had found my hiding place. For days I have been hiding from him—" She paused and Connie cleared his throat.
"Yes'm—I mean no*m. We aren't him," he floundered; "I'm Connie Morgan of the Mounted and this is Ick Far, and we're your friends. But suppose you begin somewhere. Who is this man? And why are you hiding from him? And who was the drowned man? And what made you come up out of the water and scare the Indians?"
"It was this way, " began the woman, speaking in nervous haste, so that her words came in short, jerky sentences. "It all began with that," she pointed to the packet that lay upon the rock between them. "We lived over near the divide in the Bonnet Plume Pass country. My husband was a prospector and trapper, and one day a man met him near the cabin. He seemed very nervous and, thrusting the packet into my husband's hand, asked him to keep it. And the next moment he was gone.
"Several days passed and the man did not return. And then, one night, my husband opened the packet. I did not know it, then, but afterwards he told me. But he would not tell me what it contained. After that he was never the same. We left the cabin and came to Red Tail Lake, and built a new cabin. All during our journey we avoided the trading posts, and we even avoided the Indians. Always my husband seemed fearful of pursuit. I asked him what was in the packet, but he never would tell me. One day he came tearing into the cabin and seized the packet, tore the blankets from the bed, and ordered me to throw some food into the canoe. And then we paddled as fast as we could to the end of the lake and headed down the river. But just as we got into the current the canoe struck a rock that ripped her whole bottom out. I am a good swimmer, and easily reached shore a short distance below. But my husband, who could not swim, must have been drawn into the swifter current beyond the rock, for I never saw him again. I made my way back to the cabin, but from a near-by ridge I saw there was someone there. So I hid in the scrub and the next morning made my way back to the scene of the accident. I was hungry, and hoping that one of the packs of provisions might have caught on the rock, that reaches almost to the surface of the water, I swam to the rock, and while peering down in the clear water I saw the strange packet that was the cause of all our trouble lying upon the white gravel.
"First I thought I would let it lie there, then a strange curiosity to see what the packet contained took possession of me and, balancing upon the rock, I dived down and recovered it. Of all the contents of the canoe this packet alone had not been carried down by the current. Taking the packet with me I started in search of the Indian village which I knew was somewhere in the vicinity. I thought they would give me food and possibly take me to some trading post. I found the village, but the Indians were gone. They had evidently fled in great haste, for the ground was littered with things they had left behind. I took a pair of blankets and all the food I could carry and made my way again to the cabin, and once more I saw from the top of the ridge that someone was there, and I dared not go down. So I came on to this cave in which my husband and I had once found shelter from a storm. I knew this lake was a favourite hunting-ground of the Indians, and sooner or later I would be rescued. But no Indians have appeared, and the man my husband feared is still searching.
"I often see his canoe upon the waters of the lake. And today, when I was returning from a visit to some snares I had set, I found it drawn up in a cove close by. I saw that his tracks headed into the scrub, and I feared he had found my cave where the packet was hidden. I ran with all my might, but the packet was safe. And then you came and I thought it was he."
The woman paused and glanced about her fearfully: "But he must be very near because his tracks lead to the ridge.
"But the packet!" cried Connie. "What is in the packet?"
For answer the woman reached swiftly and tore off the buckskin covering, and once more Connie's eyes rested upon the misshapen outlines of the "Demon's Heart** that showed dull yellow, with its mysterious streaks of red just visible in the fast deepening twilight.
There was a swift movement, a sharp rattle of loose stones, and from the angle of a huge rock fragment a man leaped straight toward them. One hand held a tightly clutched carbine and, stooping swiftly, he snatched the nugget from the ground.
So suddenly had the man appeared, and so swift were his movements that the three stared speechless with amazement. But as his fingers closed about the great nugget, Connie's voice cut sharp and clear on the silence: "Drop that!" The command rang like a pistol shot and, even as he spoke, the boy jerked the service revolver from its holster. With a snarl the man sprang erect and leaped backward to swing his carbine into line. As he did so his heel caught a projecting sliver of rock and with a shrill scream he toppled backward, his body shot out from the edge of the cliff, and went hurtling downward into the darkness.
A moment later a loud splash sounded from far below. And upon the ridge the three gazed in silence into each other's faces.
When the Indians at Tilton Lake Post heard the story of the accident and saw that the woman who returned with Connie Morgan and Ick Far was a real woman of flesh and blood, they returned once more to their hunting-ground on Red Tail Lake.
And while the men of the Yukon wonder, Connie Morgan and Ick Far know, that the trail of the "Demon's Heart" is ended. For the great nugget lies to this day griplocked in the hand of a dead man on the floor of a black water lake in the heart of the land of gold.