Part 8 (2/2)
He repeated the word as though questioning himself. ”Hardly partners, I should say. We were--it is hard to define the exact relations.h.i.+p that existed between Rod Sinclair and me. There was never any agreement of partners.h.i.+p, rather a sort of tacit understanding, that when we struck the lode, we should work it together. Your father knew vastly more about rock than I, although I had long suspected the existence of this lode. But extensive interests to the northward prevented me from making any continued search for it. However, I found time at intervals to spend a month or six weeks in these hills, and it was upon one of these occasions that we struck up the acquaintance that ripened into a sort of mutuality of interest. Neighbors are few and far between in the hill country, and those not exactly of the type that attract men of education. I think each found in the other a man of his own stripe, and thus a friends.h.i.+p sprang up between us that gradually led to a merging of interests. His were by far the most valuable activities in the field, while I, from time to time, advanced certain funds for the carrying on of the work.
”But let us not talk of business matters. Time enough for that.” He stepped to the doorway and glanced down the creek. ”Here comes Clen and we must be going. While he stopped at Watts's to reset a shoe I rode on to inquire if there is any way in which I may serve the daughter of my friend.
”Oh-ho! I see Clen is carrying something very gingerly. He has prevailed upon the good Mrs. Watts to sell him some eggs. A great gourmand--but a good fellow at heart. I think a great deal of Clen, even though it was he who----”
”But tell me, before you go,” interrupted the girl. ”Do you know the location of my father's mine?”
Bethune turned from the door, smiling. Patty noticed with surprise that the dark, handsome features looked almost boyish when he smiled.
There had been no hint of boyishness before, in fact something of baffling inscrutability in the black eyes, gave the man an expression of extreme sophistication. ”Do not call it a mine,” he laughed. ”At least, not yet. A mine is a going proposition. If your father actually succeeded in locating the lode, it is a strike. Had he filed, it would be a claim. Had he started operation it would be a proposition--but not until there is ore on the dump will it be a mine.”
”If he actually succeeded!” cried Patty. ”I thought you said----”
The man interrupted with a wave of the hand. ”So I did, for I believe he did succeed. In fact, knowing Rod Sinclair as I did, I am certain of it.”
”But the location of the--the strike,” she persisted, ”do you know it?”
Bethune shook his head sadly. ”Had your father filed the claim, all would have been well. But, who am I to question Rod's judgment? For on the other hand, if he had filed, word of the strike would have spread broadcast, and the whole hill country would immediately have been overrun by stampeders--those vultures that can scent a gold strike for five thousand miles. No one knows where they come from, and no one knows where they go. It was to guard our secret from these that prompted your father not to file. We had planned to establish our friends on the adjoining claims, and thus build up a syndicate of our own choosing. So he did not file, but it was through no fault of his that I remain ignorant of the location, but rather it was the result of a combination of unforeseen circ.u.mstances. You shall judge for yourself.
”I was deep in the wilds of British Columbia, upon another matter, when Rod unearthed the lode, and, not knowing this, he hastened at once to my camp. He found Clen there and after expressing disappointment at my absence, sat down and hurriedly sketched a map, and taking from his pocket a photograph, he wrapped both in a piece of oilskin, and handed them to Clen, with instructions to travel night and day until he had delivered the packet to me. He told him that he had located the lode and was hurrying East to procure the necessary capital and would return in the early spring for immediate operation.”
Bethune paused and, with his eyes upon the Englishman who was dismounting, continued:
”Poor Clen! He did his best, and I do not hold his failure against him, for his was a journey of hards.h.i.+p and peril such as few men could have survived. Upon receiving the packet he started within the hour.
That night he camped at the line, and that night, too, came the first snow of the season. He labored on next day to the railway and took a train to Edmonton, and from there, to Fort George, where he succeeded in procuring an Indian guide for the dash into the wilderness beyond the railway. The early months of last winter were among the most terrible in the history of the North. Storm after storm hurtled out of the Arctic, and between storms the bitter winds from the barrens to the eastward roared with unabated fury. Yet Clen and his guide pushed on, fighting the cold and the snow. Up over the Height of Land, to the Hudson Bay Post at the head of the Parsnip, where I was making my headquarters, and where I had lain s...o...b..und for ten days. It was during the descent of Crooked River, a quick water, treacherous stream, whose thin ice was covered with snow, that the accident happened that cost me the loss of the location, and nearly cost Clen his life. The Indian guide was mus.h.i.+ng before, bent low with the weight of his pack, and head lowered to the sweep of the wind. Clen followed. At the head of a newly frozen rapid, the Englishman suddenly broke through and was plunged into the icy waters. Grasping the ice, he managed to draw himself up so that his elbows rested upon the edge, and in this position he called again and again to the guide. But the Indian was far ahead, his ears were m.u.f.fled in his fur cap, and the wind roared through the scrub, drowning Clen's voice. The icy waters numbed him and sucked at his body seeking to drag him to his doom. The heavy pack was dragging him slowly backward, and his hold upon the ice was slipping. Then, and not until then, Clen did what any other man who possessed the strength, would have done. He worked the knife from his belt and cut the straps of his pack sack. In an instant it disappeared beneath the ice, and with it the location of your father's strike. Relieved of the weight upon his shoulders, Clen had a fighting chance for his life, but it is doubtful if he would have won had it not been that the Indian, missing him at last, returned in the nick of time, and with the aid of a loop of _bab.i.+.c.he_, succeeded in drawing him from the water. The rest of the day was spent in drying Clen's clothing beside a miserable fire of brushwood, and the next day they made Fort McLeod, more dead than alive.”
”Lord” Clendenning had dismounted, deposited his precious basket of eggs upon the ground, and stood in the doorway as Bethune concluded his narrative. When the man ceased speaking the Englishman shook his head sadly. ”Yes, yes, it seemed to me then, as I clung to the edge of the bloomin' ice, freezin' from my feet up, that my only chance was in bein' rid of the pack. But, I've thought since that maybe if I'd held on just a few minutes longer, the b.l.o.o.d.y Injun would have got there in time to save both me an' the pack to boot.”
”There you go again!” exclaimed Bethune, with a trace of impatience in his voice. ”How many times have I told you to quit this self-accusation. A man who covered fifty miles on horseback, seven hundred on the train, and then nearly a hundred a-foot, under conditions such as you faced, has nothing to be ashamed of in the failure of his mission. It is your loss as well as mine, for you also were to have profited by the strike. It is possible, however, that all will be well--that Miss Sinclair has her father's original map, and a duplicate of the photograph, or better yet, the film from which the print was made.”
Pausing he glanced at the girl significantly, but she was gazing past him--past Clendenning, her eyes upon the giant up-sweep of the hills.
He hurried on, ”So now you have the whole story. I had not meant to speak of it, to-day. Really, we must be going. If I can be of service to you in any way, Miss Sinclair, I am yours to command. We will drop in again, after you have had time to get used to your surroundings, and lay our plans for the rediscovery of the mother lode.” Smiling he pointed to the canvas bag upon the floor. ”Your father's pack sack,”
he said. ”I should know it in a thousand. He devised it himself. It is a clever combination of the virtues of several of the standard packs, and an elimination of the evils of all.” He stooped closer. ”What's this? You should not have cut it! Couldn't you find the key? If not, it would have been a simple matter to file a link of the chain, and leave the sack undamaged.” He laughed, shortly. ”But, that, I suppose, is a woman's way.”
”I did not cut it. It was cut before it came here. My father left it in Mr. Watts's care and he stored it in the barn. Look at the edges, it is an old cut.”
”So it is!” exclaimed Bethune, as he and Lord Clendenning bent close to examine it. ”So it is. I wonder who--” Suddenly he ceased speaking, and stood for a moment with puckered brows. ”I wonder,” he muttered.
”I wonder if he would have dared? Yes, I think he would. He knew of Rod's strike, and he would stop at nothing to steal the secret.”
”I don't believe Mr. Watts, nor any of the Wattses cut that pack,”
defended the girl.
”Neither do I. Watts has his faults, but dishonesty is not one of them. No. The man who cut that pack, was the man who carried it there----”
”Vil Holland!” exclaimed Lord Clendenning. ”My word, d'ye think he'd dare? Yes, Watts told us that he brought in the pack because Sinclair was in a hurry. The b.l.o.o.d.y scamp! He should be jolly well trounced!
I'll do it myself if I see him, so help me Bob, I will!”
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