CHAPTER XX
THE FIRES WHICH PURIFY
The camp fire which the two men had seen had not been that of Ygerneand her companions. Upon the afternoon of the second day Drennen andSothern, still working northward along the chain of lakes, came tounmistakable signs of a fresh trail, made by two men, turning in fromthe westward. In the wet sand of a rivulet were the tracks. One wasof an unusually large boot, the other of a smaller boot with a higherheel that had sunk deep.
"Kootanie George and Lieutenant Max, I think," announced Drennen."It's a fair bet, since they're both somewhere in the neighbourhood andmay well enough be travelling together. They've gone on ahead. . . ."
They travelled late that afternoon, Drennen setting a hard pace,seemingly forgetful of the man who followed. Drennen's eyes had grownbright as with fever; for the first time he showed a hint of excitementthrough the stern mask of his face. He felt strangely assured that hehad come close to the end of a long trail. But that was not thethought which caused his excitement. It was the fear that perhapsKootanie George and Max might first come up with the quarry.
Signs of fatigue showed upon Marshall Sothern an hour before they madecamp. Drennen sought and failed to hide the restlessness upon him.The next morning, a full hour before the customary time for making thestart for the day, Drennen had thrown the half diamond hitch whichbespoke readiness. They reached Lake Nopong before noon and all dayfought their way northward along its shore. Before night came they hadheard a rifle shot perhaps a mile further on. A rifle shot might meananything. No doubt it merely told of a shot at a chance deer. ButDrennen's anxiety, already marked, grew greater.
Drennen left their camp fire when they had made their evening meal andclimbed the little cliffs standing at the skirt of the strip of valleyland east of Lake Nopong. Half an hour later he came back. Sothern,removing his pipe from his mouth, looked up expectantly.
"I think I can make out their camp fire," Drennen said, speakingslowly. "I imagine an hour would bring us up with them."
Sothern knocked out his pipe and got to his feet. Tightening the packupon his mule's back he removed the rifle which had always ridden thereand carried it in his hand. Drennen's own rifle remained on his pack;he did not seem to have noticed Sothern's act.
Two hours later, sending before them an announcement of their approachin a rattle of loose stones down a steep trail, they came up with thetwo men whom they had followed these last few days. They wereLieutenant Max and the big Canadian and the two were not alone.Drennen, walking a little ahead of his father, came to a dead halt, hisbody grown suddenly rigid. He had seen that there was a second campfire, a tiny blaze of dry fagots not twenty steps from the first butpartially screened by the undergrowth among the trees, and that theslender form of a woman bent over it. His pause was only momentary;when he came on his face gave no sign of the emotion that had beenriding him nor of the old disappointment again as he saw that the womanwas not Ygerne but Ernestine Dumont.
Lieutenant Max, a rifle across the hollow of his arm, stepped out tomeet them. Not knowing who his guests were he moved so that thefirelight was no longer just behind him, so that he was in the shadows.Kootanie George, upon his knees, holding a bit of fresh meat out overthe fire upon a green, sharpened stick, turned his head but did notmove his great body.
"Who is it?" demanded Max sharply. And then, before an answer hadcome, he saw who they were and cried out: "Why, it's David Drennen!And Mr. Sothern! Gad, I never thought to see you two here!"
He came forward and shook hands warmly, showing an especial pleasure inmeeting Marshall Sothern again. The eyes of both men kindled as theygripped hands, in Sothern's a look of affection, in Max's an expressioncompounded of liking and respect.
Max had finished his meal; George, his appetite in keeping with hissize, was doing his last bit of cooking; Ernestine, bending over herown lonely blaze, was seeking to warm a body which the fresh eveninghad chilled, a body which looked thinner and withal more girlish thanit had looked for many a day. The face which she turned toward the newarrivals with faint curiosity, was paler than it had been of yore; hereyes seemed larger; there were traces of suffering which she had notsought to hide.
Lieutenant Max was unmistakably glad to welcome Drennen and Sothern tocamp. The atmosphere hovering about the trio upon whom father and sonhad come was not to be mistaken even in the half gloom. There wasnothing in common between the officer and the big Canadian beyond theirpresent community of interest in coming up with the fugitives whom thelaw sought through Max and revenge quested through Kootanie. AndErnestine, though with them, was distinctly not of them. She waspitifully aloof, the broad expanse of George's back turned toward herfire speaking eloquently.
"You are on a hunting trip, I take it?" offered Max as they sat down,each man having brought out and lighted his pipe. "Just pleasure ofcourse? There's no gold in here, you know," he ended with a laugh.
Sothern turned his eyes toward Drennen and brought them back to thefire without answering. Max's eyes upon him Drennen spoke simply.
"A hunting trip, yes. Hunting the same game you are after."
Ernestine looked up quickly, her hands clenching spasmodically. Georgeturned his meat, spat into the coals, and sought for salt.
"Mr. Drennen," said the lieutenant coldly, "it's just as well tounderstand each other right now. I represent the law here; the law atso early a stage as this considers no personal equation. A privatequarrel must stand aside. I know what you mean; you know what I mean."
"Lieutenant," answered Drennen gravely, "the law is not yet full grownin the North Woods. Here a man steps aside for nothing. Yes, as yousay, I think we understand each other."
"By God!" cried Max angrily, "I know what is in your heart, yours andGeorge's here! It's murder; that's the name for it! And I tell youthat you are going to keep your hands off! When we find these peoplethey are my prisoners, it's my sworn duty to lead them back to a placewhere they can stand trial, and I am going to take them. Rememberthat."
Drennen, having spoken all that he could have said if he talked allnight long, made no answer. Ernestine, her two hands at her breast,crouched rocking back and forth, in a sort of silent agony. George,eating swiftly and noisily, did not look up.
In an instant the old atmosphere which had hovered over the camp cameback, electrically charged with distrust, constraint, aloofness.Sothern's heavy brows were drawn low, the firelight showing deep, blackshadows in the furrows of his forehead. In a moment he got to his feetand went to where Ernestine sat, his hat in his hand, kind words ofgreeting upon his lips for a lonely woman. She grew suddenly sullen;in a moment the sullen mood melted in a burst of tears, and she wastalking with him incoherently.
George and Drennen had not met to speak since that night, long ago,when they had diced and fought at Pere Marquette's. Now neither gavethe least sign that he had seen the other.
* * * * * *
When one, life ended, goes down into the grave that grass may growabove him and men walk over his quiet body, are the doors of his hellswinging open that he may enter, or are they softly closing behind him?Are the fires of hell venomous tongues that bite deep to punish withtheir torture when it is too late? or are they flames which cleanse andchasten while there is yet time? Ernestine Dumont, like many another,had lighted the fires with her own hands, seeing and understanding whatit was that she did. For close to two years she had walked through theflames of her own kindling. And now, not waiting for the tardyretribution which comes all too late, she was already passing throughthe burning fires; she was closer than she knew to having the ironportals clang behind her, gently and forever. After labour comes rest;after suffering, peace.
Drennen had said, "There is no law here in the North Woods that a manmay not push aside." He was thinking of such law as Lieutenant Maxrepresented. Had he looked into his own heart; could he have lookedinto the hearts of Marshall Sothern, Ernestine Dumont, Kootanie Georg
e,even into the heart of Lieutenant Max, he would have known that hisseeming truth was an obvious lie. There is another law which reacheseven into the lawless North Woods and which says, "Transgress againstme and not another but yourself shall shape your punishment." Had helooked into the hearts of Ygerne Bellaire, of Sefton and Lemarc andGarcia, he would have beheld the same truth. He might have looked intothe hearts of good men and bad and have found the same truth. For soonor late each man, be he walking as straight in the light as he knowshow, be he crouching as low in the shadows as he may, ignites thesulphur and tinder of his own hell. The hell may be little or it maybe a conflagration; it may flicker and die out or it may burn throughlife and lick luridly at the skies; but a man must light it and walkthrough it, since he is but man, and that he may be a man.
If Ernestine Dumont's body had appeared to grow wan and slender, hersoul, long stifled, had found nourishment and had expanded. Under asympathy emanating gently from Sothern she grew calm and spoke with himas she had not known she could speak. She was not the woman she hadbeen two years ago, and yet no miracle had been wrought. She hadsinned but she had suffered. The suffering had chastened her. Arebellious spirit always, she had become softened with a meekness whichwas not weakness but the dawning of understanding. She had struggled,she had known fatigue after violence and the God who had made the Lawhad ordained that after fatigue should come rest.
There was much she did not say which Sothern, having trod his ownburning path, could divine.
She had offered to David Drennen a fierce passion which he neithercould nor would accept. The hot breath of it had shaken her being,seared through her breast, blinded her eyes. She had flung herselfupon Kootanie George, still seeing only Drennen through the blur of herpassion; she had awakened love in Kootanie George, the strong love of astrong man, and she had not so much as seen it.
She had humiliated the Canadian before men. Had she fired the shotbecause she loved him he would have been proud instead of ashamed. Buthe had known that she had fired only because she wanted to hate DavidDrennen.
Seeing dimly what she had lost only when it was gone from her she hadsought to bring it back by throwing herself at another man. Garcia hadmade light love to her beautifully after the exquisite manner of hiskind, and had gone away when Ygerne had gone, with laughter in his gayheart and his song upon his lips for the woman who had taken Drennen'slove. George had seen, had understood and his heart had grown stillharder.
But now, at last, Ernestine knew to the full what she had been offeredand had thrust aside. She had come to see in Kootanie George thequalities of which a woman like her could be proud. She had come tofeel a strange sort of awe that George, who was no woman's man butalways a man's man, had loved her. And it had been given to her atlast to know that her passion for David Drennen had been as the passionof the moth for the candle. A new love came into her heart, rising toher throat, choking her; a love that was meek and devoted, that was nowas much a part of her as were her hands and feet; an emotion that wasthe most unselfish, the most worthy and womanly she had ever felt. Shehad followed Kootanie George; she had at last come up with him; andnow, George's back to her, she sat at her own little fire.
"Life is hard for us, Miss Dumont." Sothern laid his hand very gentlyupon her shoulder and smiled into her face. "But, I think . . . at theend . . . life is good."
"I have done everything wrong," she said slowly. "I have never hadanything in life worth while . . . but George's love. And I threw thataway."
"When a man has loved once he loves always," Sothern told her quietly."And a thing like that you can't throw away."
Presently, from deep thoughtfulness, she said hesitantly:
"I want to talk to Mr. Drennen. There is something I must say to him."
"Let it wait a day or so," Sothern answered. "He is not himself rightnow. And George might misunderstand."
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