*CHAPTER XVIII*
_*The Lost Cabin is Found*_
"Come, come," said Canlan, suddenly, with an access of the facialtwitching and another sudden jerking of his head. "If them 's yourblankets, pack 'em up and let's git out o' this, back to my camp theother side of the lake."
I thought it as well to obey him, for if either of these men yet livedand should by any ill fortune emit as much as a moan, I knew that Canlanwould make a speedy end then. If they lived, the best I could do forthem was to leave them.
And yet there was another thing that I might do--snatch up one of therevolvers and straightway mete out justice--no less--upon this murderer.
But he was on the alert and shoved his Winchester against my neck as Istooped, tying my blanket-roll, with my eyes surreptitiously measuringthe distance to the nearest weapon.
"See here," he said, "I can't be runnin' chances with you. I 've letyou off already, but I can't be givin' you chances to kill me now.Funny thing it would be for me to let you off for having saved my lifeonce, and then you turn round and plug me now. Eh? That would be a skinkind of a game to play on a man. If that's your gun layin' there withthe belt, you can buckle on the belt but keep your hands off the gun, orI gets tired o' my kindness. See?"
He snarled the last word at me, and over my shoulder I saw the leer onhis grey face as he spoke. So I packed my blankets without more ado andbuckled on my belt, with the revolver in its holster hanging from it,and at Canlan's suggestion took also a bag of flour with me.
"I guess there ain't no call to see what them two has in their pocketsby way of dough,"[#] said he. "We don't have no need for feelin' in deadmen's pockets now--you and me," and he winked and laughed a dry,crackling, nervous laugh, and stooped to lift a torch from our fire.
[#] Money.
With this raised in his hand he whirled about on me and said: "Nowremember, I trusts you," and led off at a brisk pace from the troddencircle of the camp-fire. He had the tail of his eye on me, and Ifollowed at once.
We skirted the lake, keeping under the trees, the torch sending thetwisted shadows flying before us and bringing them up behind; and justat the bend of the lake I looked back at that camp, and it brought to mymind the similar, or almost similar, scene I had witnessed in the placeof smouldering stumps behind Camp Kettle.
We plodded round the north end of this little lake, and then a horsewhinnied in the gloom, and, "Here we are," cried Canlan, and stooping,he thrust the torch into the embers of the fire he had evidently hadthere and trodden out suddenly. He kicked it together again, and soonthe flames were leaping up vigorously. Then he turned and looked on me.
"Well," said he, "you and your friends must ha' travelled pretty quick.Clever lads! Clever lads! Did you know that you was goin' to try andspoil Mike Canlan's game that day I gave you good-bye at Baker City?"
"Not I," I replied. "I did not know then that you knew the secret."
"Ah well, I did! Clever lad Apache thought himself, I guess, slinkin'away down to Camp Kettle and cuttin' in that ways. Well, I ain'tsurprised he took that way. He knows it well. If all stories is true,he 's played hide and seek in that same valley more nor once withgentlemen that had some desire for to settle accounts with him."
He blinked on me, and then sniffed twice, and suddenly pursed his lipsand said:
"But that ain't here nor there. Are you on to take my offer o' halfshares in this?"
The whole man was still loathsome to me, and I cried out:
"No, no! And would to Heaven I had never heard of this horrible andaccursed quest."
"Well," drawled Canlan, "I 'm gettin' some tired o' havin' no sleepnights for sittin' listenin' for fellers follerin' me up. Not that they'd kill me in my sleep. I guess I 'm too precious like for that. I 'vebeen keepin' myself up on tanglefoot all the way in, but I did n't bringnigh enough for them mountains, and it's give out. It's give out thislast day and a night, and by jiminy, I 'm gettin' them again. I feel'em comin' on. It ain't good for a man like me wantin' my tonic. Say,"and his face twitched again, "I 'm jest holdin' myself together now byfair devil's desperation; when I get to the end o' this journey I 'mgettin' some scared my brain-pan will jest----" he stopped abruptly andbegan on a fresh track: "Well, it's natural, I guess, for you to feelbad to-night, you bein' partners o' them fellers so recent. But you'llbe better come morning. Say, if I lay down and sleep you won't shoot mesleepin', eh?"
"I won't do that," said I.
"That's a bargain, then," he cried, and before I could say another wordhe threw himself down beside the fire.
He drew his hand over his brow and showed me it wet.
"That's for wantin' the liquor," he said. "A man what don't know thecrave can't understand it. I know what I need though. Sleep,--that'swhat I need; and I 'm jest goin' to force myself to sleep."
I made no reply, but looked on him as he lay, and perceived that hisghastly face was all clammy in the fire-sheen as he reclined in thisattempt to steady his unstrung nerves. For me, I sat on, scarcelyheeding the noises of the midnight forest. I heard a mud-turtle everand again, with that peculiar sound as of a pump being worked. That wasa sound new to me then, but the other cries--of the wildcats andwolves--I heeded little.
Once or twice I thought of taking a brand from the fire to light meround to the camp across the lake, that I might discover whether,indeed, both my friends were dead. But, as I turned over this thoughtof return in my mind, Canlan brought down his arms again from above hishead where they had lain relaxed, and, opening his eyes, rolled on hisside and looked up at me.
"Don't you do it," he said.
"Do what?" I inquired.
"What you was thinkin' of," he replied.
"And what was that?"
"You know," he said, thickly and grimly, "and I know. Two men alone inthe mountains can't ever hide their thoughts from each other. Mind youthat!"
"What was I thinking of doing, then?" I asked.
"That's all right," he said. "You can't bluff me."
"Well, what then?" I cried, irritated.
He sat up.
"You was thinkin' of goin' right off, right now. No, it wasn't to get inahead of me at the Cabin Mine. I 'm beginnin' to guess that Apache Kiddid n't let you know so much as that. But you was just feelin' so sickand sorry like that you thought o' gettin' up quiet and takin' my hossthere and----"
He was watching my face as he spoke, peering up at me and sniffing.With a kick he got the fire into a blaze, but without taking his eyesfrom me. Then, "No, you was n't thinkin' that, either," he said, in avoice as of disappointment that his power of mind-reading seemed atfault.
"Derned if I dew know what you was thinkin'," he acknowledged. "Oh, you're deeper than most," he went on, "but I 'll get to know you yet. Yes,siree; I 'll see right through you yet."
He lay down after this vehement talk, as though exhausted, wiping thesweat from his brow where it gleamed in the little furrows of leatheryskin. He was not a pretty man, I assure you.
A feeling as of pride came over me to think that this evil man waswilling to take my word that I would not meddle him in his sleep, as Isaw him close his eyes once more,--this time really asleep, I think.
But to attempt to return to Apache Kid's camp I now was assured in mymind would be a folly. At a merest movement of mine Canlan mightawaken, and if he suspected that I entertained a hope of at least one ofmy late companions being alive, he might himself be shaken in his beliefin the deadly accuracy of his aim.
I pictured him waking to find me stealing away to Apache's camp andstealthily following me up. I even pictured our arrival at the furthershore--the still glowing fire, both my companions sitting up bleedingand dazed and trying to tend each other, Canlan marching up to themwhile they were still in that helpless predicament and blowing theirbrains from his Winchester's mouth. So I sat still where I was andeventually dozed a little myself, till morning came to the tree-tops andslipped do
wn into the valley and glowed down from the sky, and thenCanlan awoke fairly and stretched himself and yawned a deal and moaned,"God, God, God!"--three times.
And I thought to myself that this reptile of a man might well cry on Godon waking that morning.
Neither he nor I, each for our own reasons, ate any breakfast. Mybelongings I allowed him to pack on his horse with his own, so that Imight not be burdened with them, the chance of a tussle with Canlanbeing still in my mind. Then, after we had extinguished the fire, athought came to me. It was when I saw that he was going to strikedirectly uphill through the forest that I scented an excuse to get backto my comrades. True, my hope that they lived was now pretty nigh atebb, for I argued to myself that if life was in them, they would alreadyhave managed to follow us. Aye! I believed that either of them,supposing even that he could not stand, would have _crawled_ along ourtrail at the first light of day, bent upon vengeance; for I had learntto know them both as desperate men--though to one of them, despite whatI knew of his life, I had grown exceedingly attached.
"I 'll go back to our old camp," said I, "and bring along an axe if youare going right up that way. We may need it to clear a way for thehorse."
He wheeled about.
"Say!" he said. "What are you so struck on goin' back to your camp for.Guess I 'll come with you and see jest what you want."
He looked me so keenly in the eye that I said at once, knowing that toobject to his presence would be the worst attitude possible: "Come,then," and stepped out; but when he saw that I was not averse to hiscompany he cried out:
"No, no. I have an axe here that will serve the turn if we need to doany cutting. But I reckon we won't need to use an axe none. It's upthis here dry watercourse we go, and there won't be much clearin' wantedhere."
It was now broad day, and as I turned to follow Canlan again I gave upmy old friends for dead.
The man's short, broad back and childish legs, and the whole shape ofhim, seemed to combine to raise my gorge.
"I would be liker a man," I thought, "if I struck this reptile dead."And the thought was scarce come into my mind and must, I think, havebeen glittering in my eyes, when he flashed around on me his colourlessface, and said he:
"Remember, I trust my life to you. I take it that you 've agreed to myoffer of last night to go half shares on this. God knows you 'll haveto look after me by nightfall, this blessed day--unless there 's maybe atot o' drink in that cabin."
At the thought he absolutely screamed:
"A tot o' drink! A tot o' drink!" and away he went with a sign to me tofollow, scrambling up the watercourse before his horse, which followedwith plodding hoofs, head rising and falling doggedly, and long tailswishing left and right. I brought up the rear. And thus we climbedthe greater part of the forenoon, with occasional rests to regain ourwind, till at last we came out on the bald, shorn, last crest of themountain.
Canlan marched the pony side on to the hill to breathe; and he himself,blowing the breath from him in gusts and sniffing a deal, pointed to thelong, black hill-top stretching above us.
"A mountain o' mud," he said. "That's it right enough. Some folksthinks that everything that prospectors says they come across in themountains is jest their demented imaginatings like; but I seen mountainso' mud before. There 's a terror of a one in the Crow's Nest Pass, awayup the east Kootenai; and there's one in Colorado down to the WarmSprings country. You can feel it quiver under you when you walk onit--all same jelly. See--you see that black crest there? That's allmud. This here, where we are, is good enough earth though, all right,with rock into it. It's here that we turn now. Let me see----"
He took some fresh bearings, looking to the line of hills to thesouth-east. I thought I could pick out the notch at the summit, overthere, through which Apache Kid, Donoghue, and I had come; and then heled off again--along the hill this time, his head jerking terribly, andhis whole body indeed, so that now and again he leapt up in littlehopping steps like one afflicted with St. Vitus' dance.
Up a rib of the mountain, as it might be called, he marched, I nowwalking level with him; for I must confess I was excited.
And then I saw at last what I had journeyed so painfully and paid socruelly to see,--a little "shack," or cabin, of untrimmed logs of thecolour of the earth in which it stood, there, just a stone's cast fromus, between the rib on which we stood and the next rib that gave asweeping contour to the hill and then broke off short, so that themountain at that place went down in a sharp slope, climbed upon lowerdown by insignificant, scrubby trees. But there--there was the cabin,sure enough. There was our journey's end.
Canlan turned his ashen face to me, and his yellow eyeballs glittered.
"It looks as we were first," he said, his voice going up at the end intoa wavering cry and his lips twitching convulsively.