CHAPTER XXI
CHANCE HEARD IN THE NIGHT
Before sunrise the five beings whose lives were so intimatelyintertwined and yet who were held by constraint one from the other,took up the trail. There was but one way to go and this fact aloneheld them together; they must keep close to the lake shore for upon theright the mountains swept upward in a series of cliffs and into afrowning barrier. Marshall Sothern and Ernestine, walking together inthe rear, spoke little as the day wore on. Max, Drennen and KootanieGeorge, ahead, spoke not at all. In silence, never the elbow of onetouching the coat of another, the three men felt and manifested thejealous rivalry which all day fought to place each one ahead of theothers. George, fleeced as Drennen had been and at a time when theCanadian's soul had listened avidly to the voice of his wrath,embittered as Drennen was by the act of a woman, was scarcely lesseager to be first than Drennen himself. And Max, reading the signs,grew watchful as his own eagerness mounted.
Before night they found the trail which Drennen knew that, soon orlate, he would come upon. Here, perhaps a week ago, certainly not morethan ten days ago, two or three men and one woman had passed. They hadhad with them two or three pack animals and the trail, coming inabruptly from a canon at the westward, was plain.
At nightfall they were at the foot of the sixth of the nine lakes, thebroad trail running on straight along its marge. The fathomless,bluish water, looking in the dusk a mere rudely circular mirror whichwas in truth a liquid cone whose tip was hidden deep in the bowels ofearth, lay in still serenity before them. On all sides the cliffs,sheer falls half a thousand, sometimes quite a thousand feet high,seemed actually to stoop their august, beetling brows forward that theymight frown down upon their own unbroken reflections. There would be apass through the mountains at the northern end of the lake, a deeplycleft gorge, maybe, but from here, with the first dimness of the newnight upon everything, there seemed no way through.
Each man, the silent meal done, threw his bed where he saw fit, apartfrom the others. Sothern, having aided Ernestine, telling her goodnight and receiving a wan smile of gratitude, went back to the firewhere Max was brooding. The lieutenant looked up, glad of thecompanionship. The two men from silence grew to talk in low voices.Max had something he wanted to say and the opportunity for saying itseemed to have come. He looked about him, saw Drennen's form andGeorge's through the trees, saw where Ernestine was stamping out theglowing embers of her fire, and began to speak. Something else he sawand forgot, its being of no importance to his brain. It was merely thepipe which Drennen had laid upon a stone near the camp fire and hadleft there when he had gone away.
But Drennen, being in no mood for sleep, missed his pipe. Coming backtoward the fire a little later it happened that he approached behindthe two men's backs and in the thick shadows. It happened, too, thatthey were very deep in their own thoughts and conversation and thatthey did not hear him until he had caught a part of their talk. Afterthat Drennen, grown as still as the rocks about him, listened and madeno sound. He had caught the words from Max:
". . . a man named Drennen; an embezzler. Not a common name, is it?I've a notion that this David Drennen is the son of that John HarperDrennen."
Drennen, listening, got nothing from this, but stood still, frowningand wondering. His eyes, upon Max's face outlined by the fire, took nonote of Sothern's.
"We've got the report," went on Max thoughtfully, "that the otherDrennen, John Harper Drennen, is somewhere in this country. Lord," andhe laughed softly, "it would be some white feather in my cap if I couldbring the old fox in, wouldn't it, Mr. Sothern? He's given the policethe slip for a dozen years."
Now, Drennen, with a quick start of full understanding, lookedanxiously at the old man. Sothern's face stood in clear relief againstthe fire. There came no change into it; he looked gravely at Max, drewa moment contemplatively at his pipe, and then in a voice grave andsteady answered:
"John Harper Drennen. . . . I remember the name. The papers were fullof it. But wasn't he reported to have died a long time ago?"
"A dodge as old as the hills," grunted Max. "And God knows it worksoften enough, at that. No, he isn't dead and he is somewhere in thiscorner of the Dominion. By Heaven!" his young voice rising with theambition in it, "if it's in my run of luck to bring him in I'll go upfor promotion in two days! And I'm going to get him!"
Sothern's smile, a little tense, seemed only the smile of age upon thevaunting ambition of youth.
"I am not the man to doubt your ability to do pretty nearly anythingyou set your mind and hand to, Max," he said after a little. And then,"Isn't it a little strange that after all these years interest in JohnHarper Drennen should awake?"
"Not so strange," replied Max. "The odd thing, perhaps, is that DavidDrennen, the son, and the sort of man he seems to be, should have paidoff his father's obligation of forty thousand dollars just as soon ashe sold the Golden Girl to you people."
Sothern, offering no remark, looked merely casually interested. Maxwent on.
"That's the first thing which began to stimulate dormant interest," hesaid. "Queer, isn't it, that the most honest and unselfish andaltogether praiseworthy thing he has ever been known to do shouldsucceed chiefly in drawing attention to his father, so long thoughtdead? We've had our eyes on him for pretty close to a year now. I'mup a tree to know whether he knows his father is living, even."
"That's not all of the evidence you've got that John Harper Drennen isalive, is it?" Sothern's voice asked quietly.
"Lord, no. That's not evidence at all. In fact, there isn't anyevidence; there's just a tip. There came a letter to the Chief inMontreal. I got a copy of it. It said merely: 'John Harper Drennen,wanted for embezzlement in New York, is in hiding in the North Woodscountry. He is the father of David Drennen of MacLeod's Settlement.Watch young Drennen and you'll find the thief.'"
When Max paused, leaning toward the fire for a burning splinter of woodfor his pipe, Sothern passed his hand swiftly across his eyes. As Maxstraightened up the old man said:
"The letter might have said more. It doesn't give you a great deal towork upon."
Max laughed.
"But it does. The letter wasn't signed, even, and was typewritten, soyou'd say it wasn't worth reading twice. And yet I know right now whowrote it."
"Yes?"
"Yes." There was triumph unhidden in Max's voice, in his eyes turnedfull upon Sothern's. "For I've been after that man for more thanseventeen months, the man who has cause to hate John Harper Drennenlike poison, the man who'd like to entangle both the father and son inthe mesh of the law. It's the man I'm going to get at the end of thistrail, a man calling himself Sefton. And when I get him he's going totalk, he's going to identify John Harper Drennen, and I'm going to putthe two of them where they'll see the sun through the bars for moreyears than is pleasant to look upon!"
Again there was silence and the calm smoking of pipes.
"Why do you tell me this, Max?" asked Sothern after a little.
Suddenly Max's hand shot out, resting upon Sothern's shoulder. Drennenstarted, his hands shutting tight, as he waited breathlessly for thewords: "John Harper Drennen, you are my prisoner!" He fancied that hesaw Sothern's body shaken with a little tremor. The words which heheard at last in Max's quiet voice were these:
"I tell you, Mr. Sothern, because I come pretty near the telling ofeverything to you. Because for six years you have been more a fatherto me than my own father ever was. Because everything that I am I oweto you. You set my feet in the right path, and now that I amsucceeding, for by God, success is coming to me, I want you to know it!I have never talked to you of the things which I have felt most. . . ."For a moment he broke off; Drennen fancied his eyes glistened and thathe had choked on the simple words. "You know what I mean . . . youdon't think I'm a sentimental fool, do you?"
Sothern, his face white but his expression showing nothing, his voicegrave and calm, dropped his own hand gently upon the lieutenant'
sshoulder.
"Max, my boy," he said simply, "I know you'll succeed. I've alwaysknown that. But, old fellow, I think you've got the hardest work ofyour life ahead of you. No, I don't think you are a sentimental fool.We are just in the forests together, and the solitude and the starlightup yonder and the bigness of the open night are working their willsupon us. Just remember one thing, Max," and his voice grew a shadesterner, "when the hard time comes don't let your heart-strings getmixed up with your sworn duty. If you did I'd be ashamed of you, notproud, my boy."
Drennen slipped away through the dark. He came to his bed under thetrees and went on, walking swiftly. For the first time in many longmonths a new emotion was upon him, riding him hard. He forgot Ygernefor the moment; forgot his own wrong and his own vengeance. He lookedat the stars and they seemed far away and dim; the shadows about himwere like blackness intensified into tangible things.
When at last he came back to his bed the fires were out; all the othershad gone to their rest. He fancied, however, that none of them slept.He pictured each one, his own father, Kootanie George, Ernestine,Lieutenant Max, lying wide awake, staring up into the stars, each onebusy with his own destiny. What pitiful pictures are projected intothe calm of the star-set skies from the wretched turmoil of feveredbrains!
"I must come to Sefton first!"
It was Drennen's last thought that night. His first thought in the dimdawn was:
"I must come to Sefton first!"
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