Part 28 (2/2)
”Now I know why they do not curse. Something curses for them. Jo give me a word for her, and say 'Well, it is all right; but I wish I had killed the puma.' There was nothing more.... I followed Gawdor for days. I know that he would go and get someone, and go back to the gold. I thought at last I had missed him; but no. I had made up my mind what to do when I found him. One night, just as the moon was showing over the hills, I come upon him. I was quiet as a puma. I have a stout cord in my pocket, and another about my body. Just as he was stooping over the fire, as Gordineer did, I sprang upon him, clasping him about the neck, and bringing him to the ground. He could not get me off. I am small, but I have a grip. Then, too, I had one hand at his throat. It was no use to struggle. The cord and a knife were in my teeth. It was a great trick, but his breath was well gone, and I fastened his hands. It was no use to struggle. I tied his feet and legs. Then I carried him to a tree and bound him tight. I unfastened his hands again and tied them round the tree. Then I built a great fire not far away. He begged at first and cried. But I was hard. He got wild, and at last when I leave him he cursed! It was like nothing I ever heard. He was a devil... I come back after I have carry the message to the poor girl--it is a sad thing to see the first great grief of the young! Gawdor was not there. The pumas and others had been with him.
”There was more to do. I wanted to kill that puma which set its teeth in the throat of my friend. I hunted the woods where it had happened, beating everywhere, thinking that, perhaps, it was dead. There was not much blood on the leaves, so I guessed that it had not died. I hunted from that spot, and killed many--many. I saw that they began to move north. At last I got back here. From here I have hunted and killed them slow; but never that one with a wound in the shoulder from Jo's knife.
Still, I can wait. There is nothing like patience for the hunter and for the man who would have blood for blood.”
He paused, and Lawless spoke. ”And when you have killed that puma, Pourcette--if you ever do-what then?”
Pourcette fondled the gun, then rose and hung it up again before he replied.
”Then I will go to Fort St. John, to the girl--she is there with her father--and sell all the skins to the factor, and give her the money.”
He waved his hand round the room. ”There are many skins here, but I have more cached not far away. Once a year I go to the Fort for flour and bullets. A dog-team and a bois-brule bring them, and then I am alone as before. When all that is done I will come back.”
”And then, Pourcette?” said Shon.
”Then I will hang that one skin over the chimney where his gun is--and go out and kill more pumas. What else can one do? When I stop killing I shall be killed. A million pumas and their skins are not worth the life of my friend.”
Lawless looked round the room, at the wooden cup, the gun, the bloodstained clothes on the wall, and the skins. He got up, came over, and touched Pourcette on the shoulder.
”Little man,” he said, ”give it up, and come with me. Come to Fort St.
John, sell the skins, give the money to the girl, and then let us travel to the Barren Grounds together, and from there to the south country again. You will go mad up here. You have killed enough--Gawdor and many pumas. If Jo could speak, he would say, Give it up. I knew Jo. He was my good friend before he was yours--mine and M'Gann's here--and we searched for him to travel with us. He would have done so, I think, for we had sport and trouble of one kind and another together. And he would have asked you to come also. Well, do so, little man. We haven't told you our names. I am Sir Duke Lawless, and this is Shon M'Gann.”
Pourcette nodded: ”I do not know how it come to me, but I was sure from the first you are his friends. He speak often of you and of two others--where are they?”
Lawless replied, and, at the name of Pretty Pierre, Shon hid his forehead in his hand, in a troubled way. ”And you will come with us,”
said Lawless, ”away from this loneliness?”
”It is not lonely,” was the reply. ”To hear the thrum of the pigeon, the whistle of the hawk, the chatter of the black squirrel, and the long cry of the eagle, is not lonely. Then, there is the river and the pines--all music; and for what the eye sees, G.o.d has been good; and to kill pumas is my joy.... So, I cannot go. These hills are mine. Few strangers come, and none stop but me. Still, to-morrow or any day, I will show you the way to the valley where the gold is. Perhaps riches is there, perhaps not, you shall find.”
Lawless saw that it was no use to press the matter. The old man had but one idea, and nothing could ever change it. Solitude fixes our hearts immovably on things--call it madness, what you will. In busy life we have no real or lasting dreams, no ideals. We have to go to the primeval hills and the wild plains for them. When we leave the hills and the plains, we lose them again. Shon was, however, for the valley of gold.
He was a poor man, and it would be a joyful thing for him if one day he could empty ample gold into his wife's lap. Lawless was not greedy, but he and good gold were not at variance.
”See,” said Shon, ”the valley's the thing. We can hunt as we go, and if there's gold for the sc.r.a.pin', why, there y'are--fill up and come again.
If not, divil the harm done. So here's thumbs up to go, say I. But I wish, Lawless, I wish that I'd niver known how Jo wint off, an' I wish we were all t'gither agin, as down in the Pipi Valley.”
”There's nothing stands in this world, Shon, but the faith of comrades and the truth of good women. The rest hangs by a hair. I'll go to the valley with you. It's many a day since I washed my luck in a gold-pan.”
”I will take you there,” said Pourcette, suddenly rising, and, with shy abrupt motions grasping their hands and immediately letting them go again. ”I will take you to-morrow.” Then he spread skins upon the floor, put wood upon the fire, and the three were soon asleep.
The next morning, just as the sun came laboriously over the white peak of a mountain, and looked down into the great gulch beneath the hut, the three started. For many hours they crept along the side of the mountain, then came slowly down upon pine-crested hills, and over to where a small plain stretched out. It was Pourcette's little farm. Its position was such that it caught the sun always, and was protected from the north and east winds. Tall shafts of Indian corn with their yellow ta.s.sels were still standing, and the stubble of the field where the sickle had been showed in the distance like a carpet of gold. It seemed strange to Lawless that this old man beside him should be thus peaceful in his habits, the most primitive and arcadian of farmers, and yet one whose trade was blood--whose one purpose in life was destruction and vengeance.
They pushed on. Towards the end of the day they came upon a little herd of caribou, and had excellent sport. Lawless noticed that Pourcette seemed scarcely to take any aim at all, so swift and decisive was his handling of the gun. They skinned the deer and cached them, and took up the journey again. For four days they travelled and hunted alternately.
Pourcette had shot two mountain lions, but they had seen no pumas.
On the morning of the fifth day they came upon the valley where the gold was. There was no doubt about it. A beautiful little stream ran through it, and its bed was sprinkled with gold--a goodly sight to a poor man like Shon, interesting enough to Lawless. For days, while Lawless and Pourcette hunted, Shon laboured like a galley-slave, making the little specks into piles, and now and again crowning a pile with a nugget. The fever of the hunter had pa.s.sed from him, and another fever was on him.
The others urged him to come away. The winter would soon be hard on them; he must go, and he and Lawless would return in the spring.
Prevailing on him at last, they started back to Clear Mountain. The first day Shon was abstracted. He carried the gold he had gathered in a bag wound about his body. It was heavy, and he could not travel fast.
One morning, Pourcette, who had been off in the hills, came to say that he had sighted a little herd of wapiti. Shon had fallen and sprained his arm the evening before (gold is heavy to carry), and he did not go with the others. He stayed and dreamed of his good fortune, and of his home.
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