The Country Beyond: A Romance of the Wilderness

by James Oliver Curwood

  CHAPTER XXII

  Dripping from the bog-holes and lathered with mud, it was the mystery ofBreault's noiseless presence somewhere near him in the still night thatdrew Peter continually deeper into the swamp.

  Half a dozen times he caught the scent of him in a quiet air thatseemed only now and then to rise up in his face softly, as if stirred bybutterflies' wings. Always it came from ahead, and Peter's mind workedswiftly to the decision that where Breault was there also would be Nadaand Jolly Roger. Yet he caught the scent of neither of these two, andthat puzzled him.

  Many times he found himself at the edge of the black lip of water, butnever quite at the right time to see a shadow in its darkness, or hearthe sound of Breault's pole.

  But in the swamp, as he went on, he saw nothing but shadow, and heardweird and nameless sounds which made his blood creep, even though hiscourage was now full-grown within him.

  He was not frightened at the ugly sputter of the owls, as in the days ofold. Their throaty menace and snapping beaks did not stop him nor turnhim aside. The slashing scrape of claws in the bark of trees and theoccasional crackling of brush were matters of intimate knowledge, andhe gave but little attention to them in his eagerness to reach thosewho had gone ahead of him. What troubled him, and filled his eyes withsudden red glares, were the oily gurgles of the pitfalls which tried tosuck him down; the laughing madness of muck that held him as if livingthings were in it, and which spluttered and coughed when he freedhimself.

  Half blinded at times, so that even the black shadows were blotted out,he went on. And at last, coming again to the edge of the stream, heheard a new kind of sound--the slow, steady dipping of Breault's pole.

  He hurried on, finding harder ground under his feet, and camenoiselessly abreast of the man on his raft of cedar timbers. He couldalmost hear his breathing. And very faintly he could see in the vastgloom a shadow--a shadow that moved slowly against the background of astill deeper shadow beyond.

  But there was no scent of Nada or Jolly Roger, and whatever desirehad risen in him to make himself known was smothered by caution andsuspicion. After this he did not go ahead of Breault, but kept behindhim or abreast of him, within sound of the dipping pole. And everyminute his heart thumped expectantly, and he sniffed the new air forsigns of those he most desired to find.

  Dawn was breaking in the sky when they came out of the swamp, and thefirst flush of the sun was lighting up the east when Breault headed hisimprovised craft for the sandbar upon which Nada and McKay had restedmany hours before.

  Breault was tired, but his eyes lighted up when he saw the footprints inthe sand, and he chuckled--almost good humoredly. As a matter of facthe was in a good humor. But one would not have reckoned it as such inBreault. A hard man, the forests called him; a man with the huntinginstincts of the fox and the wolf and the merciless persistency of theweazel--a man who lived his code to the last letter of the law, withoutpity and without favoritism. At least so he was judged, and his hard,narrow eyes, his thin lips and his cynically lined face seldom betrayedthe better thoughts within him, if he possessed any at all. In theService he was regarded as a humanly perfect mechanism, a bit ofmachinery that never failed, the dreaded Nemesis to be set on the trailof a wrong-doer when all others had failed.

  But this morning, with every bone and muscle in him aching from his longnight of tedious exertion, the chuckle grew into a laugh as he lookedupon the telltale signs in the sand.

  He stretched himself and his tired bones cracked.

  Breault did not think aloud. But he was saying to himself.

  "There, against that rock, Jolly Roger McKay sat There is the imprint ofonly one person sitting. The girl was in his arms. Here are little holeswhere her outstretched heels rested in the sand. She is wearing shoesand not moccasins."

  He grinned as he drew his service pack from the two-log cedar raft.

  "Plenty of time now," he continued to think. "They are mine thistime--sure. They believe they have fooled me, and they haven't. That'sfatal. Always."

  Not infrequently, when entirely alone, Breault let a little part ofhimself loose, as if freeing a prisoner from bondage for a short time.For instance, he whistled. It was not an unpleasant whistle, but ratheroddly reminiscent of tender things he remembered away back somewhere;and as he fried his bacon and steamed a handful of desiccated potatoeshe hummed a song, also rather pleasant to ears that were as closelyattentive as Peter's.

  For Peter had crept up through a tangle of ground-scrub and lay nottwenty paces away, smelling of the bacon hungrily, and watching intentlyfrom his concealment.

  Peter knew the fox and the wolf, but he did not know Breault, and hedid not guess why the man's whistling grew a little louder, nor why hishumming voice grew stronger. But after a time, with his back and not hisface toward Peter, Breault called in the most natural and matter-of-factvoice in the world,

  "Come on, Peter. Breakfast is ready!"

  Peter's jaws dropped in amazement. And as Breault turned toward him, histhin face a-grin, and continued to invite him in a most companionableway, he forgot his concealment entirely and stood up straight, readyeither to fight or fly.

  Breault tossed him a dripping slice of bacon which he held in his hand.It fell within a foot of Peter's nose, and Peter was ravenously hungry.The delicious odor of it demoralized his senses and his caution. For afew seconds he resisted, then thrust himself out toward it an inch at atime, made a sudden grab, and swallowed it at one gulp.

  Breault laughed outright, and with the first of the sun striking intohis face he did not look like an enemy to Peter.

  A second slice of bacon followed the first, and then a third--untilBreault was frying another mess over the fire.

  "That's partial payment for what you did up on the Barren," he wassaying inside himself. "If it hadn't been for you--"

  He didn't even imagine the rest. Nor after that did he pay the slightestattention to Peter. For Breault knew dogs possibly even better than heknew men, and not by the smallest sign did he give Peter to understandthat he was interested in him at all. He washed his dishes, whistlingand humming, reloaded his pack on the raft, and once more began polinghis way downstream.

  Peter, still in the edge of the scrub, was not only puzzled, but felt afurther sense of abandonment. After all, this man was not his enemy, andhe was leaving him as his master and mistress had left him. He whined.And Breault was not out of sight when he trotted down to the sandbar,and quickly found the scent of Nada and McKay. Purposely Breault hadleft a lump of desiccated potato as big as his fist, and this Peter ateas ravenously as he had eaten the bacon. Then, just as Breault knew hewould do, he began following the raft.

  Breault did not hurry, and he did not rest. There was something almostmechanically certain in his slow but steady progress, though he knewit was possible for the canoe to outdistance him three to one. He wasmissing nothing along the shore. Three times during the forenoon he sawwhere the canoe had landed, and he chuckled each time, thinking of theold story of the tortoise and the hare. He stopped for not more than twoor three minutes at each of these places, and was then on his way again.

  Peter was fascinated by the unexcited persistency of the man's movement.He followed it, watched it, and became more and more interested in theunvarying monotony of it. There were the same up-and-down strokes ofthe long pole, the slight swaying of the upstanding body, the same eddybehind the cedar logs--and occasionally wisps of smoke floating behindwhen the pursuer smoked his pipe. Not once did Peter see Breault turnhis head to look behind him. Yet Breault was seeing everything. Fivetimes that morning he saw Peter, but not once did he make a sign or callto him.

  He drove his raft ashore at twelve o'clock to prepare his dinner, andafter he had built a fire, and his cooking things were scattered about,he straightened himself up and called in that same matter-of-fact way,as if expecting an immediate response,

  "Here, Peter!--Peter!--Come in, Boy!"

  And Peter came. Fighting against the last instinct that held him ba
ck hefirst thrust his head out from the brush and looked at Breault. Breaultpaid no attention to him for a few moments, but sliced his bacon. Whenthe perfume of the cooking meat reached Peter's nose he edged himselfa little nearer, and with a whimpering sigh flattened himself on hisbelly.

  Breault heard the sigh, and grunted a reply,

  "Hungry again, Peter?" he inquired casually.

  He had saved for this moment a piece of cooked bacon held over frombreakfast, and tearing this with his fingers he tossed the strips toPeter. As he did this he was thinking to himself,

  "Why am I doing this? I don't want the dog. He will be a nuisance. Hewill eat my grub. But it's fair. I'm paying a debt. He helped to save meup on the Barren."

  Thus did Breault, the man without mercy, the Nemesis, briefly analyzethe matter. And he cooked five pieces of bacon for Peter.

  During the rest of that day Peter made no effort to keep himself inconcealment as he followed Breault and his raft. This afternoon Breaultshot a fawn, and when he made camp that night both he and Peter feastedon fresh meat. This broke down the last of Peter's suspicion, andBreault laid a hand on his head. He did not particularly like the feelof the hand, but he tolerated it, and Breault grunted aloud, with a noteof commendation in his hard voice.

  "A one-man dog--never anything else."

  Half a dozen times during the day Peter had found the scent of Nada andRoger where they had come ashore, and from this night on he associatedBreault as a necessary agent in his search for them. And with Breault hewent, instinctively guessing the truth.

  The next day they found where Nada and McKay had abandoned the canoe,and had struck south through the wilderness. This pleased Breault, whowas tired of his poling. This third night there was a new moon, andsomething about it stirred in Peter an impulse to run ahead and overtakethose he was seeking. But a still strong instinct held him to Breault.

  Tonight Breault slept like a dead man on his cedar boughs. He was up andhad a fire built an hour before dawn, and with the first gray streakingof day was on the trail again. He made no further effort to follow signsof the pursued, for that was a hopeless task. But he knew how McKay washeading, and he traveled swiftly, figuring to cover twice the distancethat Nada might travel in the same given time. It was three o'clock inthe afternoon when he came to a great ridge, and on its highest pinnaclehe stopped.

  Peter had grown restless again, and a little more suspicious of Breault.He was not afraid of him, but all that day he had found no scent of Nadaor Jolly Roger, and slowly the conviction was impinging itself upon himthat he should seek for himself in the wilderness.

  Breault saw this restlessness, and understood it.

  "I'll keep my eye on the dog," he thought. "He has a nose, and anuncanny sixth sense, and I haven't either. He will bear watching.I believe McKay and the girl cannot be far away. Possibly they havetraveled more slowly than I thought, and haven't passed this ridge; orit may be they are down there, in the plain. If so I should catch signof smoke or fire--in time."

  For an hour he kept watch over the plain through his binoculars, seekingfor a wisp of smoke that might rise at any time over the treetops. Hedid not lose sight of Peter, questing out in widening circles below him.And then, quite unexpectedly, something happened. In the edge of atiny meadow an eighth of a mile away Peter was acting strangely. He wasnosing the ground, gulping the wind, twisting eagerly back and forth.Then he set out, steadily and with unmistakable decision, south andwest.

  In a flash Breault was on his feet, had caught up his pack, and wasrunning for the meadow. And there he found something in the velvetysoftness of the earth which brought a grim smile to his thin lips as he,too, set out south and west.

  The scent he had found, hours old, drew Peter on until in the edge ofthe dusk of evening it brought him to a foot-worn trail leading to theHudson's Bay Company post many miles south. In this path, beaten by thefeet of generations of forest dwellers, the hard heels of McKay's bootshad made their imprint, and after this the scent was clearer underPeter's nose. But with forest-bred caution he still traveled slowly,though his blood was burning like a pitch-fed fire in his veins. Almostas swiftly followed Breault behind him.

  Again came darkness, and then the moon, brighter than last night,lighting his way between the two walls of the forest.