*CHAPTER XVI*
_*Sounds in the Forest*_
We hanged Farrell in the morning, for he had broken the compact and hewas a murderer. And we laid Pinkerton to his rest in the midst of theplain, with a cairn of stones to mark the spot.
Let that suffice. As for these two things you may readily understand Ihave no heart to write. And indeed, it would be a depraved taste thatwould desire to read of them in detail. I know you are not of those whowill blame me for this reticence.
When I told Apache Kid of Mr. Pinkerton's last words he was greatlymoved, as I could see, though he kept a calm front, and he told thehalf-breed, who left us then, to convey to Miss Pinkerton our unitedsympathy with a promise that we would visit her immediately on ourreturn from our expedition.
Then we set out again, a melancholy company, as you will understand,Apache Kid and I carrying all the provisions that he thought fit to takealong with us; for Donoghue was too light-headed to be burdened with anyload, and lurched along beside us as we made toward the hills thatclosed in the plain to north, lurched along with the red handkerchiefaround his head and singing snatches of song now and again. The bullethad ploughed a furrow along the side of his head, and though thebleeding had stopped he was evidently mentally affected by the wound.
It was drawing near nightfall again when we came to the end of thisseeming cul-de-sac of a valley, and the hills on either side drew closerto us.
Before us now as we mounted, breathing heavily, up the incline we sawthe woods, all the trees standing motionless, and already we could lookwell into the hazy blue deep of that place.
"I have been here before," said Apache, "but not much farther. Wethought we might have to push clear through this place and try what luckthere was in getting a shelter beyond. They pushed us very close thattime," he said meditatively. But so absently did he speak this that,though I could not make any guess as to who it was that was "pushing"him "close" and who was with him on that perilous occasion, I forbore toquestion.
You have seen men in that mood yourself, I am sure, speaking more to theair than to you.
He turned about at the entering into the wood and we looked down on theplain stretching below us. A long while he gazed with eyelids puckered,scanning the shelving and stretching expanse.
"Two parties have followed us," he said in a whisper almost. "God grantthere be no more, else when we get the wealth that lies in store for uswe shall hardly be able to enjoy it for thinking of all it has cost us.It has been the death of one good man already," he added. "Ah, well!There is no sign of any mortal there. We must push on through thiswilderness before us."
He stopped again and considered, Donoghue rocking impotent and dazedbeside us.
"I wonder where Canlan is to-night," he said, and then we plunged intothe woods.
If the silence of the plain had been intense, we were now to know asilence more august. I think it was our environment then that madeApache Kid speak in that whisper. There was something in this deep woodbefore us that hushed our voices. I think it was the utter lack of eventhe faintest twitter of any bird, where it seemed fitting that birdsshould be, that influenced us then almost unconsciously. Our very treadfell echoless in the dust of ages there, the fallen needles and cones ofmany and many an undisturbed year. It was with a thrill that I foundthat we had suddenly come upon what looked like a path of some kind.Apache Kid was walking first, Donoghue following, the knotted ends ofthe handkerchief sticking out comically at the back of his head underhis hat.
"You see, we're on to a trail now," said Apache Kid, as he trudgedalong. "You never strike a trail just at the entrance into a place likethis. Travellers who have passed here at various times, you see, comeinto the wood at all sorts of angles, where the trees are thin. Butafter one gets into the wood a bit and the trees get thicker, in feelingabout for a passage you find where someone has been before you and youtake the same way. A week, or a month, or a year later someone elsecomes along and he follows you. This trail here, for all that you cansee the print of a horse's hoof here and there on it, may not have beenpassed over this year by any living soul. There may not have beenanyone here since I was here last myself, three years ago--yes, thatprint there may be the print of my own horse's hoof, for I remember howthe rain drenched that day, charging through the pass here and drippingfrom the pines and trickling through all the woods."
"It is a pass, then?" said I.
"Oh, yes," he explained. "It is what is called, in the language of thecountry, a buck's trail. That does not mean, as I used to think, anIndian trail. It is the slang word for a priest. You find these bucks'trails all over the country. They were made by the priests who came upfrom old Mexico to evangelise and convert the red heathen of the land. Ithink these old priests must have been regular wander-fever men to doit. Think of it, man, cutting a way through these woods. Aha! See,there's a blaze on a tree there. You can scarcely make it out, though;it's been rained upon and snowed upon and blown upon so long, year in,year out. Turn about, now that we are past it, and you see the blaze onthis side. Perhaps the old buck made that himself, standing back fromthe tree and swinging his axe and saying to himself: 'If this leads menowhere, I shall at least be able to find my way back plain enough.'Well! It's near here somewhere that I stopped that time, three yearsago. Do you make out the sound of any water trickling?"
We stood listening; but there was no sound save that of our breathing,and then suddenly a "tap, tap, tap" broke out loud in the forest, sothat it startled me at the moment, though next moment I knew it was thesound of a busy woodpecker.
We moved on a little farther, and then Apache Kid cried out in joy:
"Aha! Here we are! See the clear bit down there where the trees thinout?"
We pushed our way forward to where, through the growing dusk of thewoods, there glowed between the boles a soft green, seeming very brightafter the dark, rusty green of these motionless trees.
"There is n't much elbow room round about us here to keep off thewildcats," said Apache Kid, looking round into the forest as we steppedforth into this oasis and found there a tiny spring with a teacupful ofwater in its hollow. The little trickle that went from it seemed justto spread out and lose itself almost immediately in the earth; but itserved our purpose, and here we camped.
Donoghue had been like a dazed man since morning, but now, after thestrong tea, he was greatly refreshed and had his wits collectedsufficiently to suggest that we should keep watch that night, lestanother party were following us up. He also washed the wound in hisforehead, and, finding it bleeding afresh after that, pricked what hecalled the "pimples" from a fir-tree, and with the sap exuding therefromstaunched the bleeding again, and I suppose used one of the bestpossible healers in so doing.
That there were wildcats in the woods there was no doubt. They screamedhalf the night, with a sound like weeping infants, very dolorous tohear. Apache Kid took the first watch, Donoghue the second, and I thethird. I was to waken them at sunrise, and after Donoghue shook me upand I sat by the glowing fire, I remember the start with which I saw,after a space, as I sat musing of many things, as one will muse in suchsurroundings, two gleaming eyes looking into mine out of the woods--justthe eyes, upright ovals with a green light, turning suddenly intohorizontal ovals and changing colour to red as I became aware of them.
We were generally careful to make our fire of such wood as would flame,or glow, without shedding out sparks that might burn our blankets; butsome such fuel had been put on the fire that night, and it suddenlycrackled up then and sent forth a shower of sparks. And at that the eyesdisappeared. I flicked the sparks off my sleeping comrades and then satmusing again, looking up on the stars and alternately into the darknessof the woods and into the glow of the fire, and suddenly I saw all alongthe forest a red line of light spring to life, and my attention wasriveted thereon.
I saw it climb the stems of trees far through the wood and run up to thebranche
s. A forest fire, thought I to myself, and wondered if ourdanger was great in that place. I snuffed the air. There was certainlythe odour of burning wood, but that might have been from our camp-firealone, and there was also the rich, unforgettable odour of the balsam.
But so greatly did the line of fire increase and glow that I stretchedforth my hand and touched Donoghue upon the shoulder. He started up,and, following the pointing of my finger, glared a moment through thespaces of the forest. Then he dropped back again.
"It is the dawn," he said, and drew the blankets over his head. "Wakeme in another hour."
But I sat broad awake, my heart glowing with a kind of voicelessworship, watching that marvellous dawn. It spread more slowly than Iwould have imagined possible, taking tree by tree, running left andright, and creeping forward like an advancing army; and then suddenlythe sky overhead was full of a quivering, pale light, and in the dimblue pool of the heavens the stars went out. But no birds sang to thenew day, only I heard again the tap-tap of a woodpecker echoing aboutthrough the woods.
So I filled the can with water, which was a slow process at that verytiny spring, and mixed the flour ready for the flapjacks and then wokemy comrades.
I must not weary you, however, recounting hour by hour as it came. Ihave other things to tell you of than these,--matters regarding hasty,hot-blooded man in place of a chronicle of slow, benignant nature.
On the journey of this day we came very soon to what seemed to be the"height of land" in that part, and descending on the other side cameinto a place of swamp where the mosquitos assaulted us in clouds. Soterribly did they pester us that on the mid-day camp, while Apache Kidmade ready our tea (for eatables we did with a cold flapjack apiece,having made an extra supply at breakfast, so as to save time at noon), Iemployed myself in switching him about the head with a leafy branch inone hand, while with the other I drove off another cloud of these peststhat made war upon me.
No sooner had we the tea ready than we put clods and wet leaves upon thefire, raising a thick smoke, a "smudge," as it is called, and sitting inthe midst of that protecting haze we partook of our meal, coughing andspluttering, it is true; but the smoke in the eyes and throat was a merenothing to the mosquito nuisance.
I think that for the time being the mosquitos spurred us forward as muchas did our fear of being forestalled in out quest. Mounting higher onour left where a cold wind blew, instead of dipping down into the nextwooded valley, we found peace at last. As we tramped along on thiscrest, where our view was no longer cramped, where at last we could seemore than the next knoll before us or the next abyss of woods, I noticedApache constantly scanning the country as though he were trying to takehis bearings.
Donoghue, who was now more like his rational, or irrational self, soonseemed to waken up to his surroundings, and fell to the same employ.
It was to the valley westward, now that we were upon the ridge, thatthey directed their attention. Donoghue, his loose jaw hanging, histeeth biting on his lips, posted on ahead of us and suddenly he stopped,stood revealed against the blue peak of the mountain on whose ridge wenow travelled, in an attitude that bespoke some discovery. He was on alittle eminence of the mountain's shoulder, a treeless mound whereboulders of granite stood about in gigantic ruin, with other graniteoutposts dotted down the hill into the midst of the trees, which stoodthere small and regular, just as you see them in a new plantation athome. He shaded his eyes from the light, looked finally satisfied, andthen sat down to await our coming.
Apache stepped forward more briskly; quick and eager we trotted up therise where Donoghue merely pointed into the valley that had now for overan hour been so eagerly scanned. There, far off, in the green forestbottom, the leaden grey glint of a lake showed among the wearisomewoods.
"Ah! We'll have a smoke up," said Apache, with an air of relief. So wesat down on our blanket-rolls in the sunlight. There was a gleam in mycompanions' eyes, a look of expectation on their faces, and after that"smoke up" Apache spoke with a determined voice, dropping his cigaretteend and tramping it with his heel.
"We camp at that lake to-night," said he.
"To-night?" said I, in astonishment, for it seemed to me a monstrouslength to go before nightfall; but he merely nodded his head vehemently,and said again: "To-night," and then after a pause: "We lose time," saidhe, "there may be others:" and we rose to our feet.
"We could n't camp up here, anyhow," said Donoghue, looking round.
It was truly a weird sight there, for we could see so many valleys now,hollows, gulches, clefts in the chaos of the mountains; here, whitemasts of trees all lightening-struck on a blasted knoll; there, a rockycut in the face of the landscape like a monstrous scar; at another placea long, toothed ridge that must have broken many a storm in its day.Besides, already, though it was but afternoon, a keen, icy-cold wind ranlike a draught there and the voice of the wind arose and died in ourears from somewhere in that long, rocky backbone, with a sound like arailway train going by; and so it would arise and cease again, and thencry out elsewhere in a voice of lamentation, low and mournful.
Apache Kid was looking round and round, his eyes wide and bright.
"I should like to see this in Winter," said he, "when leaves fall andcold winds come."
"There 's no mortal man ever saw this in Winter," said Donoghue, "and noman ever will."
I saw Apache Kid linger, and look on that terrible and awesomelandscape, with a half-frightened fondness; and then he cast one moreglance at the leaden grey of the lake below and another at a peak on ourright and, his bearings thus in mind, led the way downward into thatdark and forbidding valley.
I shall never forget the journey down to that lake.
Winding here, winding there, using the axe frequently as the thin treesI mentioned were passed, and we entered the virgin forest below, closeand tangled, we worked slowly down-hill; and it was with something ofpleasure that we came at last again onto what looked like a trailthrough the forest. It was just like one of the field paths at home forbreadth; but a perfect wall of tangled bush and trees netted togetherwith a kind of tangled vine (the pea-vine, I believe it is called),closed it in on either side.
We were on the track of the indomitable "buck" again, I thought. But itwas not so. His trail had kept directly on upon the hill, Apache Kidtold me.
"I thought you saw it from the knoll there," he said, and then with aqueer look on his face, "but you can't go back now to look on it. Man,do you know that a hunger takes me often to go back and see just suchplaces as that on the summit there? I take an absolute dread that Imust die without ever seeing them again. There are places I cannotallow myself to think of lest that comes over me that forces--aye,forces--me to go back again for one look more. I love a view like thatmore than ever any man loved a woman."
Donoghue looked round to me and touched his forehead and shook his headgently.
"Rathouse," he said: "crazy as ever they make 'em."
"But this is a trail we have come onto, sure enough," I said.
My companions looked at it quietly and I noticed how they both at onceunslung their Winchesters from their shoulders, for Donoghue had againtaken his share of our burdens.
"Not exactly a trail," said Apache Kid, "at least, neither an Indian'strail nor a buck's trail this time. What was that, Donoghue?"
A sharp crack, as of a branch broken near us, came distinctly to ourears.
Donoghue did not answer directly but said instead:
"You walk first; let Francis here in the middle. I 'll come last," andDonoghue dropped behind me.
Apache nodded and we started on our way.
Neither to left nor right could we see beyond a few feet, so close didthe underbrush still whelm the way.
The sound of our steps in the stillness was more eerie than ever to myears. I felt that I should go barefoot here by right, soundless,stealthy, watching every foot of the way for a lurking death in thebushes.
"Crack," sounded again a broken branch on our left. r />
"Well," said Apache, softly--I was treading almost on his heels andDonoghue was close behind me--"twigs don't snap of their own accord likethat in mid-summer."
We kept on, however, not hastening our steps at all, but at the sameeven, steady pace, and suddenly again in the stillness--"Crack!"
Again a branch or twig had snapped near by in the thick woods throughwhich we could not see.