Part 4 (1/2)
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 succ.u.mb 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.
CHAPTER IV
A PAINFUL DECISION
Two days pa.s.sed uneventfully, though Nasmyth was conscious of a growing uneasiness during them; and then one evening they landed to search another beach. They had less difficulty here, for small cedars and birches crept down to the waterside and Jake found an ax-blaze on one.
After that, it was easy to locate the cache, and there were signs that it had been either very roughly made, or afterward opened and reclosed in careless haste. Lisle had no hesitation in deciding upon the latter, and Jake was emphatic in his brief a.s.surance on the point.
On removing the covering stones, they found very little beneath them, but every object was taken out and Lisle, measuring quant.i.ties and guessing weights, carefully enumerated each in his notebook. Neither he nor Nasmyth said anything of import then; both felt that the subject was too grave to be lightly discussed; and walking back silently along the s.h.i.+ngle, they pitched the tent and prepared supper. After the meal, Jake, prompted by an innate tact, sauntered away down the beach, and the other two, lounging beside the fire, took out their pipes. A full moon hung above the lonely gorge, which was filled with the roar of the river, and the shadows of the cedars lay black upon the stones.
Some minutes pa.s.sed before a word was spoken; and then Nasmyth looked up.
”Well?” he said briefly.
Lisle moved a little, so that he could see his companion's face.
”In the first place,” he explained, ”Clarence Gladwyne came down this bank. One could locate the cache by the blazed tree, even with snow upon the ground--and it has been opened. Apart from the signs of this, no party of three men would have thought it worth while to make a cache of the few things we found.”
”Mightn't it have been opened by some Indian?”
”It's most unlikely, because he would have cleaned it out. A white prospector would certainly have taken the tobacco.”
Nasmyth knit his brows. He was deeply troubled, because there were respects in which the matter would hardly bear discussion, though he recognized that it must now be thrashed out.