Everybody's Magazine/The Hill of Gold

by Leslie McFarlane

 

The Hill of
GOLD

By Leslie McFarlane

A Complete Novelette of
fabulous Treasure &
Desperate Men

VASILIEV reached the half-way house about nine o'clock at night but already the place was in darkness and he had to pound on the door before Hurst came shuffling from his bunk to let him in. It was a March night and very cold. Hurst held a flickering lamp on high and his shirt tail flapped about his skinny legs as he stood shivering in the gusts of snow that blew through the doorway.

“Come in quick, afore I freeze,” he mumbled, his teeth chattering. “I didn't expect anybody this hour o' night. Been in bed long ago.” Vasiliev came in, banging the door behind him. He stamped the snow off his moccasins as Hurst put the lamp on a table and vigorously shook a youth who was sleeping on a pallet in a corner. “Louie! Louie! Dem yer hide, Louie, wake up! Git out there and take care of Mr. Vasiliev's dop.”

Louie, an angular Indian lad, bestirred himself, sleepily struggled into his trousers and moccasins, wrestled briefly with a mackinaw and lurched outside, still yawning. The cabin was illuminated by a ruddy glow for a moment as Hurst opened the stove and dropped a stick of birch on the fire.

“How about coffee and something to eat?” said Vasiliev. “I've come a long way.”

“Coffee ready in no time,” grunted Hurst, sitting down on the bunk and putting on his pants. “Can't give you much else that's hot. Bit of cold moose-meat in the cupboard and some preserves and pie. If I'd knowed you was comin' I'd of sat up. But there ain't been many on the trail lately. You're the second that's been here all week. T'other fellow came in late this afternoon.”

He jerked a stubby thumb in the direction of a shadowy bunk on the far side of the room. “Sleepin' now,” he said.

Vasiliev, shaking the snow out of his short, fur coat looked up indifferently.

A foot in a gray sock stuck grotesquely out from the rumpled blankets. That was all that could be seen of the man who slept. His head was buried beneath the covers and the outlines of the bunk were lost in the gloom. A muffled snore struggled out of this obscurity.

“Who's he?”

“Keith.”

“Who's Keith?”

Hurst, who had put on a pair of shoe-packs and was slithering over toward the stove with the laces dragging on the floor, turned around in surprise, his mouth agape. He was a short, shrunken fellow with a button of a nose and a spiritless, tobacco-stained mustache. His bald head gleamed in the shadows,

“Keith,” he repeated. “The Keith!”

“Never heard of him.”

“Never heard of Keith? Unlucky Keith?”

“I haven't been in this country very long,” grumbled Vasiliev, flinging the coat aside and coming over to the stove to warm his hands. “Anyway, I've been in the bush all winter.”

“And y'ain't never heard of Keith?”

Hurst wagged his head in profound astonishment and began to fill up the coffee-pot. “Well I'll be derned!” he marveled. “I didn't think there was anybody hadn't heard of him.” He looked appealingly at Vasiliev. “Think, man. Keith! Ain't you never heard the name. Hard Luck Keith. You must have heard of him.”

“No,” said Vasiliev, impatiently. “What does he do?”

“Prospector,” answered Hurst. He reached for the butcher knife, wherewith to slice the moose-meat and he paused by the table. “That old fellow,” he went on. lowering his voice almost reverently, and pointing the butcher knife toward the bunk in the shadows, “is the best prospector in the world. The very best—bar none.”

in the lamplight. His watery eyes blinked,

He stared at Vasiliev. Vasiliev's thick, lips curled in a sardonic smile beneath his black mustache and his strong teeth gleamed. “You're taking in a lot of territory,” he said.

“I know it,” whispered Hurst. “And I still say it.”

Vasiliev looked curiously at the foot in the gray sock that project from the bunk into the area of lamplight.

“He must be worth lots of money.”

Hurst sawed at the moose-meat. There was a silence for a while.

“He ain't worth a nickel,” he said mournfully, at last, and slapped a slice of meat viciously upon a plate.

LOUIE, the Indian lad, came back with Vasiliev's packsack and after assuring the traveler that the dogs had been fed and bedded for the night, returned to his pallet. When the coffee was ready, Vasiliev sat up to the table and attack the moose-meat and bread while Hurst, lighting a pipe, perched on the edge of his bunk.

“If he's the best prospector that ever lived why isn't he worth money?” asked Vasiliev quietly.

Hurst shrugged.

“That's why they call him Hard Luck Keith. Why that old fellow,” he went on, glancing up at the bunk across the room, “has found mebbe more gold and silver, and got less for it, than any man in Canada I guess. First man into Cobalt, first man into Sudbury, first into the Porcupine. Any one of them camps has made fortunes for hundreds of people. He found 'em all. And yet has he got? Nothin'. There's some fellows just naturally born to be poor. He's one of 'em. And a regular—what d'you call it?—genius! A regular genius at findin' mineral.”

“Geologist?”

“Geologist, nothin'! That old lad has sent geologists crazy. He finds mineral where geologists say it just ain't. He don't go by rules. He don't go by nothin'. He just knows. Can't explain it himself. He's a doggoned old wizard, that's what he is.”

Vasiliev listened with a faint smile. He was vaguely incredulous.

“What did he ever find?”

“He's been in the North Country all his life. Old Keith has, and he's more'n sixty years old now. Knows every lake and river of Northern Ontario from Nipissing to Hudson Bay and over to Manitoby. Been prospectin' for years. He was in Cobalt before any one. He knew there was silver there so he went to Sudbury and took out a license and started back. What happened? He went on a spree. There he was, with the richest silver camp in the country waitin' for him to come and find it, and he got lost back of Temagami with a gallon of alcohol and by the time he come to himself again he found somebody had followed him up and went on into Cobalt and the boom was on. He could 'a' made millions. He never made a cent.”

“Tough!”

“That ain't the half of it. He was first man into Porcupine. Staked the richest mine there and needed money quick and sold it for two thousand dollars. Two thousand. It's made millions. He was first man into Kirkland Lake and he got jewed out of his holdings there. He was the man that found nickel at Sudbury and his papers was made out wrong and he lost out there. Been first man in every camp and never made a cent”

“Unbusinesslike?”

Hurst glanced up at the bunk where the unlucky man lay sleeping. There was a dim light of affection in his bleary eyes. Vasiliev munched at the stringy moosemeat.

“Well, yes and no,” replied Hurst. “If it was only that, he'd have made money in spite of it. He's made thousands and thousands of dollars for other people and hardly a cent for himself.”

VASILIEV looked up sharply. He was a man marvelously gifted in seeing opportunity for himself in the weakness of others. No one ever knew his exact occupation. He defied classification. He was a fur trader—a prospector—a financier—a timber dealer—varying with the moment. A hard man. A shrewd man. Above all, an unscrupulous man. For the first time, now, he became interested in Hurst's garrulity.

“What's the reason, then?” he asked.

“Unlucky,” answered Hurst, gloomily. “Just plain unlucky. He knows how to find miner but he can't hang on to it. He's been skun out of good claims so often you'd think he'd be wise to all the tricks there is—but somethin' always seems to happen. And then, of course, he used to go after the booze pretty hard. But that's nothin' against him,” added Hurst, magnanimously. “Any fellow that's been as unlucky as him and had all the disappointments he's had oughta get some comfort out of life even if it's only in bein' stewed most of the time.”

This philosophy left Vasiliev unimpressed. He stirred his coffee thoughtfully. “If he's found so many good mines he can't be so very unlucky,” he remarked. “A good prospector has to be lucky.”

“It ain't luck with him. Not the findin' of it. He just knows, see? That's his expression. 'I know rock.' That's what he says. And he does know rock. He can make all them geologists and prospectors that learned their prospectin' in school look like two cents. Old Keith, he'll say, 'I got an idee there may be silver up in such and such a country !' Or copper. Or iron. And every geologist will give him the big laugh and they'll say there just can't be silver up there. And accordin' to their books they'll be right. They'll say it's just downright impossible and that the Lord simply wouldn't let any min'ral be up there and that if there was any they might as well throw all the geology books away. But I'll be danged if that ol' lad won't wake up some mornin' after a drunk, get a grub-stake and start out with some beans and some flour, and in a week he'll be back with samples that'll have every prospector in the country breakin' his neck to get up there and stake claims where the geologists said there just couldn't be no metal nohow.”

“And why won't Keith make any money out of it.”

“He'll hod out he signed away a three-quarter interest for his grub-stake, or somethin' foolish like that, or mebbe he'll need money so bad he'll sell out right away for about a thousand dollars. He'll live high for a couple of months and then he'll end up as bad as he was before. He oughta have a guardian, he out.”

Vasiliev's dark es gleamed. Hurst took a deep breath and tapped his pipe against the stove.

The faint snore rose regularly from the gloomy heap of blankets in the bunk. Although he was oblivious to them, hidden from them, the personality of the unlucky man who slept in the shadows dominated them both.

“Perhaps he might get along better with a partner,” suggested Vasiliev, softly.

Hurst shook his head. “He's always traveled alone. Played a lone hand from the start. He's a good bushman—no better in the North—so it's no trick for him to go out into the woods by himself. He knows where to And the gold. No partner could help him that way—”

“But to protect him. A good business man, for instance.”

“He's dealt with good business men before. They all stung him. They all know he's like a kid when it comes to money. Easy come, easy go. He's come nearer bein' a millionaire than any man that ever lived, I guess, and somethin' always happened. Of course, he's made money, here and there. But never anythin' r big. Once he made ten thousand—out of a mine that's worth millions today. What did he do but charter a special train and take the boys down to Montreal. A special train. I can see him now. All his friends with him, and Old Keith settin' in the back of the train smokin' a big cigar, and a bottle of whisky beside each feet, settin' out for Montreal in his special train. Said he always wanted to know hew it felt to travel around like a dook or somethin'. He was back in two weeks of course, busted, but he said he didn't care. He'd had a good time. So did all the boys. That's what he's like—”

A mutter from the shadows interrupted the reminiscent flow.

“Guess I was talkin' too loud,” whispered Hurst, apologetically. “Nearly woke him up.”

“Time we were in bed anyway,” said Vasiliev, quietly, as be began to undress.

But sifter he was in his bunk, after the lamp had been blown out and the sturdy snores of Hurst had been added to the nocturnal gaspings of the Indian lad and the wheezy slumbers of Hard Luck Keith, he could not go immediately to sleep. Instead, he lay on his back, gazing wakefully into the darkness, wondening how a man of wits coold turn to his own use another's destiny of misfortune.

CHAPTER II

A Victim of the Storm

THE man known as Hard Luck Keith left the half-way early next morning and with him went Va»liev. Both were bound End-of-Steel.

When Vasiliev met the genius of rock at breakfast he was disappointed. Keith was not imposing. He was short in stature, slight of build, and in manner mild and unassuming. His gray hair was still thick despite his years his white mustache emphasized the mahogany tan of his wrinkled face. He had wintry blue eyes that were very candid. A rather child-like old man who nodded shyly to Vasiliev when they were introduced, who ate his breakfast in silence and who said little until they were well out upon the trail. Then it was to wave a mittened hand toward the southern hills that rose dimly from the great reaches white snow and blue-black forest, and mutter two words—

“Storm comin'.”

He bent over his sled again as though ashamed of this verbosity. Vasiliev, following like a dark giant in black sealskin hat and short black fur coat that added to height and breadth above the average, smiled in amusement. The man might be a wizard as a prospector but he was no weather prophet.

“Sure?” he called out The sky was innocent of cloud. The sun glared. The ragged horizon was abrupt, like clipped tin against glass.

The old man nodded his head vigorously but did not turn around. He was an odd little figure in a worn, gray parka, driving a sleazy pack of mongrels of hungry and villainous appearance. He was like a nimble old gnome of the snows. Vasiliev, in sleek furs, with a well-loaded sled drawn by picked huskies, felt immeasurably superior. He was younger and had money in his pockets. The old man was poor, unlucky, at the end of his tether. Storm coming! He laughed to himself. He, Vasiliev, had clear eyes and knew better than to predict storm on such a day. The old codger was probably showing off. Hadn't Hurst said he had a reputation as a bushman?

“Well,” said Vasiliev, “I hope you're wrong.”

“I'm afraid not,” grunted Keith.

The dogs sped on. Vasiliev wanted to ask questions. He had been more impressed by Hurst's tributes to the unlucky man than he cared to admit, and there were schemes in the back of his head. But it is difficult to strike up an intimacy with a man whose back is turned to you and Keith was one who seemed to contrive to wrap himself in a cloak of reserve. Not until they stopped by the trail for lunch, when the sun was in mid-sky, did the old man speak again.

THEY smoked after eating in the shelter of a clump of balsam.

“You've been prospecting, haven't you?” asked Vasiliev.

“Blanket-staking.”

“I don't know much about the game. Just what, now, is blanket-staking?”

Keith puffed and frowned slightly. The questions of tenderfeet always annoyed him.

“Staking when there's snow on the ground. Don't know what you're gettin'.”

“Taking a gamble, eh?”

“It's always a gamble. Winter or summer. Makes no difference.”

“But a good prospector, now—you must admit it's less of a gamble with him than with a poor one.”

“Ain't any such thing as a good prospector. Gold is where you find it. There ain't no rules. There's just luck. Some prospectors are lucky. Some ain't.”.

“And you—”

“Unlucky!”

He said the word slowly, with a hopeless intonation and looked away back down over the winding trail as he spoke as though contemplating the disappointments of dead years.

“Your turn will come.”

“Never.”

It was spoken with such simple finality that for a while Vasiliev was at a loss for words.

“Oh, come now,” he said at last, with the air of a physician soothing a patient. “You don't mean that. You really don't mean it, do you? Bad luck can't last always.

“Mine does.”

“But that's pessimism,” declared Vasiliev. It was as if he regaled pessimism as the unforgivable sin. “Why, Mr. Keith, from what I've heard, you've made some very valuable finds in your time. Surely that wasn't bad luck.”

“Good luck for other people.”

“But perhaps you took up with the wrong kind of people. Your partners—”

“I never go partners. Play a lone hand.

“Perhaps that's been the very reason!” exclaimed Vasiliev, triumphantly, leaning forward. “Now, listen, Mr. Keith. I don't believe in this bad luck business. I don't believe in it at all. If you've found gold in your time you're lucky. If you've lost it you've been unbusinesslike, or you've been cheated. If you had a partner, now, a business man—”

“I've always gone on my own.”

“But why not change? Look! I have some money. Not much, but some. I have faith in you. What do you say if we arrange a little trip in the spring. I'll stand the expense,” said Vasiliev as the old man shook his head, wearily. “All you supply is your prospecting ability and your knowledge of the country. If we don't find anything we haven't lost anything. If we do, you will find me very reasonable. Very reasonable indeed. I'll see that your interests are protected. Surely all the gold hasn't been found—” His eyes gleamed.

“Some gold left, I guess,” replied Keith, with the firs animation he had yet shown. “But I never go partners.”

His utterance was so conclusive, there was such complete finality in his tone that Vasiliev, who had been buoyed up by hope, lost his poise for the moment and became immensely agitated.

“But think, man!” he urged. “Think of the money. The money!” He lingered lovingly over the word. “You risk nothing. I take all the chances. If we lose, I accept the loss. If we win—and from what I've heard of you, Mr. Keith, I'll warrant we could find something good—you will find me a very fair man to deal with.”

“No.”

Vasiliev felt very helpless in face of this definite rejection. Arguments, subterfuges, he could have met but there was something so utterly final in the old man's attitude that he was baffled.

He began to feel angry. The old fool! Turning down an opportunity like this! So persuasive had he been that he almost convinced himself that a high honesty motivated him and he felt aggrieved that his magnanimity had been so rewarded. His pride was hurt. He tried another tack.

“You are not a rich man, Mr Keith.”

“I'm not poor. Matter of fact, I'm retirin' after this trip.”

“Retiring?”

“My son, he's gone and formed a company. Mine machinery company. All my friends put their money into it. I got a lot of friends,” he said, with a certain pride. “Lot of friends made money out of properties I've found. Some came to me often and said, 'Here—take a thousand,' like that. Different than it is in the story books. But they did. And I wouldn't take it. Charity. I lost. It was my fault. I wouldn't take their money then. But this company's different. They 'pointed me president and I get a sal'ry, see. Nothin' much to do, but they figger my name's worth somepin'. My son, he runs the business. So I ain't worryin' about money now. Got enough to retire on. Figger it's time to quit.”

“But you told me you had just been blanket-staking.”

“My last trip. Thought I'd like to go out in the bush once more before I was through. I'm never goin' prospectin' again.”

“But why? A man like you—”

“A man like me,” replied Keith, biting at his mustache, “ain't got no business makin' the same mistakes over and over again.” He paused, wearily. “I know rock. That's all. I know rock.” The words fell with heavy emphasis. “I don't know business. I don't know men. And then, I ain't got no luck. I've lost out so many times that them facts is beginnin' to dawn on me by now. Y'can't bt that combination. But the main point b, I'm not lucky, and I've figgered out I mebbe wasn't never meant to make any money out of this country, so I've quit. That's all.”

In reply to this, Vasiliev could only shake his head, sadly muttering that surely Mr. Keith must be mistaken. He murmured platitudes to the effect that it is a long lane that has no turning and that the darkest hour is just before the dawn.

They were as raindrops on cement before the old man's implacable resolution. Keith got up and went over to his dogs.

Beaten, Vasiliev followed.

THE sun had gone behind a ragged bank of cloud and the distant line of the horizon was no longer clear but obscure and merging with a greasy shadow that lay heavily above the hills.

A faint breeze sighed. A little eddy of snow rose before them and subsided lazily across the trail.

“We'll be caught in it,” remarked Keith. He urged on his dogs.

Vasiliev was flushed with wrath. It grated on his temper further to realize that he had mentally scoffed at the old man's predictions of storm.

“Just a little blow,” he grumbled.

“Hope so,” replied Keith non-committally.

They went on. Vasiliev looked back to the north. He was startled by the somber and forbidding aspect of that gloomy sky; clouds frowned; a gray veil had been drawn across the blue line of forest.

The veil shifted uneasily to and fro and pursued them with a silent insistence. It poured down from the black sky. It crept across the miles of snow and changed in hue from gray to white and in depth from a veil to a wall.

The trail wound through a little poplar bush and for a time the oncoming snow was hidden, but the dry branches of the poplars creaked sadly and rustled uneasily. When they came out on the other side of the bush onto an open plain all the trees were whispering and swaying. Vasiliev looked back again and the wind whipped his face sharply. It flung a handful of dry, stinging snowflakes against his coat.

“There's an Injun's cabin farther on,” called back Keith. “Off the trail a bit but I guess we can make it.”

The wind began to pound at them in short and sudden gusts and it hurled snow about them, snow that came, not drifting down from above but whistling almost parallel with the ground. It collected in little heaps in the folds of the packs on the sleds. The dogs whined.

The wind became a gale and the gale became a hurricane.

Snow swept at them in blasting sheets. Snow drove at them in stinging clouds. Snow roared about their ears. Snow blotted out the world.

The storm that had crept upon them so silently and so delicately was a howling, maniacal inferno. They staggered before its bitter fury. It raged at them mercilessly. Vasiliev could only see Keith as an obscure shape struggling through a gray void, like a dark and formless ghost in a white and formless dream.

The wind shrieked, whistled, moaned. The snow scourged them, hurled itself endlessly at them, blinded them. White demons hooted at them.

The cold was bitter. The storm sapped them of warmth. The sweat of their bodies changed to ice and their garments hung stiffly about them like chill husks. They staggered knee-deep in clinging snow and bowed under the pounding sweep of a hurricane.

Vasiliev gritted his teeth and tried to quell a fear that persisted in rising like a cold flame.

His dogs floundered. He beat at them with the long whip. They got up and plunged on in the wake of the dim figure ahead.

His feet rose and fell mechanically. His mind was numb. The hypnotic pounding of the monotonous gale and the remorseless grip of the cold made an automaton of him.

The old man seemed tireless as he struggled forward into the face of the fury. Sometimes he was entirely hidden from Vasiliev's view by the screen of storm. He did not stop, he did not turn, he did not slacken pace; sometimes the veil would be lifted for a second, revealing him with startling clarity, trudging on through the heaping snow, and then it would descend again, making a shadow of him, perhaps blotting him out altogether.

They came to a place where a clump of trees bowed almost level to the snow and there the old man turned sharply to the left Vasiliev knew the trail went straight ahead so he called out hoarsely—

“Where are you going?”

The old man did not seem to hear so Vasiliev shouted again and again, hurrying after him through snowdrifts deeper than any they had yet passed through, down a stormswept slope. He gasped with the effort, he cursed the old man for losing the trail, yet knew that he must follow, for it would be suicidal to separate in this blizzard. At last he saw Keith turn, vaguely wave one arm in a rigid gesture and call out something that was drowned by the roar of wind and swish of driving snow, then go on his way.

Down the slope they struggled, the dogs whimpering and plunging in the heavy drifts. Vasiliev was aghast. Had the old man lost his way? He was half minded to turn back and s the main trail again and leave this ancient fool to his own fate, but then it struck him that perhaps Keith was heading toward the Indian's shack of which he had spoken. Reluctantly, he admitted to himself that perhaps Keith was not as foolish as he seemed.

The confused dark mass ahead of him was no longer in motion and he drove up to find the old man's sleigh abandoned, the dogs huddled in the snow. Over to one side he distinguished the obscure form of Keith bending over something.

Wondering, he left his own dogs and stumbled through the drifts.

He found the old man struggling with the figure of a man, almost buried in the snow. Only the head and shoulders were visible. The fellow had been overtaken by the storm and had wandered off the trail to fall before the blinding, overwhelming force of the blizzard; snow had swept over his body, piling in little heaps in the ridges of his doting and about his supine form.

“What the hell! Who is he?” exclaimed Vasiliev.

“It's the Injun!” shouted Keith to him as he bent to help lift the man.

In their rough grasp, as they dragged him from the snow, &e man stirred and muttered faintly. Vasiliev was faintly shocked as he glanced at the lean, brown face for although the fellow was still alive it was plain that death had breathed upon him.

CHAPTER III

The Secret of the Hill

HOW they finally brought the Indian back to his weatherbeaten shack a mile farther down the trail through that raging storm Vasiliev never knew. He was conscious of the journey only as an aching nightmare; more than once his knees sagged under him and he stumbled into the snow, only to drag himself up and stumble for ward again. His face was numb, his whole body was devoid of feeling. He felt as though he had been beaten by the whips of the gale until he had become insensate.

They reached the shack at last, a poor little place by the banks of a stream, with snow heaped high almost to the roof, and they lifted the man from Keith's sleigh and brought him into the hut. No sooner had they placed him on his bunk in a corner of the ill-lighted den than Vasiliev tumbled in a heap on the floor and lay there panting, too weak to move.

The old man glanced at him curiously and went outside. Above the howling of the wind and the steady slap of snow against the one window Vasiliev could hear him putting the dogs in the shelter of the lean-to.

The man on the bunk stirred feebly and whispered. Vasiliev became conscious that the Indian was looking at him. He turned and met the blank stare of two inky eyes in which the last glimmer of life was slowly dissolving. Unmoving, he returned the gaze. They were still staring at one another in a ghastly silence when Keith returned, dumping one of the packs from his sled upon the floor.

“Dyin',” grunted Keith, as he began to open the pack.

Vasiliev said nothing. He was sick and exhausted.

The Indian had closed his eyes. His head was thrown back, the chin toward the dark roof of the hut. He was an old man. His face was scribbled with wrinkles, the inscrutable record of his years, and his body seemed very frail.

Keith took a bottle from his pack, a small bottle with a few ounces of alcohol in it, and placed it to the mouth of the dying man. The Indian choked, coughed and his brown, gnarled fingers clenched. He sighed. His lips opened and closed in a noiseless gasp.

“Sorry, John,” said Keith. “All I've got.”

Then he set to work stripping off the Indian's clothing to see if he were badly frozen. The feet were stiff as tombstones.

“Snow!” ordered Keith.

Vasiliev lurched to his feet and went to the door. He reeled in the entrance before the blast of the gale, but he scooped up a handful of snow and brought it back to Keith, who set to work rubbing the Indian's feet.

“Make a fire,” he grumbled.

Dully, Vasiliev went over to the battered stove. There was birch wood and some chips. He tore off some of the bark and soon the fire was crackling. Then he sat down on an upturned box and watched Keith, who was trying to fan the flagging spark of life in the body of the man they had rescued, now lying wrapped in dirty blankets on the bunk.

The Indian spoke. The voice was harsh, surprisingly clear.

“No good, M'sieu Keith—me die.”

He relaxed, as though the effort had been terrific, and his eyes closed in pain.

“Don't be crazy,” grunted Keith, rubbing vigorously at the man's body. “You're not going to die.”

The fire crackled. The timbers of the little hut creaked before the onslaught of the hurricane.

After a long while the Indian opened his eyes again. His gaze wavered about the gloomy shack and at last rested on Vasiliev. He stared thoughtfully.

“Send him—away,” he demanded.

“Send him away?” repeated Keith, in astonishment. “What's the matter with him?”

The Indian gestured faintly toward the doorway that led to the other room of the two-room shack.

“In there,” he muttered.

“But why?”

There was a long silence—

“You skookum white man, Keith. Me skookum Injun. Me die. Want talk wit' you.”

“I see,” replied Keith, slowly. He bit nervously at his white mustache. “Do you want to tell me about—?” Here he glanced at Vasiliev then mumbled something in the Indian's own language.

The dying man nodded.

Keith turned to Vasiliev.

“Don't mind, do ye?” he asked. “He's goin' to cash in pretty soon and he wants to tell me somethin' before he goes.”

“No, I don't mind,” said Vasiliev, heavily. He got up and went into the next room, an evil-smell cell that the redskin had used for storing his furs. There was a strange light in his eyes.

For, in the strange tongue, of which he knew but a smattering, he had caught the word that meant gold!

THERE was only a thin partition between the two rooms of the shack. Vasiliev.tiptoed over and crouched down with his ear to the logs, or rather poles, of which the partition had been constructed. All his exhaustion was forgotten. His cunning mind was alert. Gold!

For a while he could hear nothing but a confused mumbling from the other side of the partition, a mumbling in which Keith's quiet voice was uppermost. The Indian's voice-was hesitant, he appeared to have great difficulty in speaking, at times the mumbling died away in a wheezy cough.

“Me skookum Injun, Keith—me know you long time—”

“Sure, you're a skookum Injun, John—a good fellow—”, then a few words of the dialect, which Vasiliev could not understand.

The Indian's voice, faintly—”

“Me tell you once—w'at you call him?—

“Secret.”

“—my ladder tell me—his fadder big chief—tell him. Me, I tell nobody—now me die—you skookum white man—” a long pause and then, with great clarity, the words seemed to burst from the Indian—“now me tell you!”

“You tell me?” There was incredulity in Keith's tone. He broke into the dialect. In a labored voice, the Indian replied.

Vasiliev writhed. He could not understand a word. What little he had overheard had been vague enough but it had been sufficient for him to understand that the Indian was about to pass on to Keith some tribal secret. Some secret connected with gold! He was in utter agony as the mumbled words of dialect went on, desperately striving to catch from that unknown language some phrase, some word that he might recognize.

“No, me tell you,” muttered the Indian at last, obstinately.

Vasiliev preyed closer to the partition.

Keith was leaking again. He caught phrases—“not unless you want to—always knew you had a secret—perhaps you won't die—”

Was the old fool actually trying to discourage the Indian from telling him? Vasiliev was shivering with anxiety.

“No, me die. Me tell you—'bout—'bout the hill—”

Keith's voice came in an urgent, excited whisper, loud enough for Vasiliev to hear.

“About the hill of Id?”

For a moment Vasiliev was too stunned to distinguish words from the mumbling that continued in the next room. His mouth was agape with amazement. His head swam. Three words pounded in his brain. Hill of gold! Hill of gold! So this was the secret! Then, in sudden fright, he realized that he was not listening, and he leaned so closely against the partition that the poles creaked.

But they were talking in the dialect now. What was more, the Indian's voice was not little more than a whisper. Sweat stood out on Vasiliev's forehead; there were tense lines about his half-open mouth.

“—to the north—” in Keith's voice at last. “To the north, you said?”

An indistinguishable mutter of words came in reply.

“Can't you talk louder, John? Try—”

Words—a sluggish stream of words—a jargon—

“Follow the creek,” said the Indian, in a tone grown suddenly and surprisingly strong and clear, “to the white rock—then—then—”

The guttural voice faltered, failed, became a whisper.

“Then what?”

A dull muttering, phrases that were unintelligible to Vasiliev—“when the sun goes down—the hill—the hill of gold!”

After that came a silence. It was broken by a sigh, a hideous gasping sigh.

“Ah!”

The bunk creaked. Vasiliev could hear Keith talking.

“Can't ye hear me? Can't ye hear me any more, John? Are ye gone?”

There was no answer.

“Mr. Vasiliev!” called the old man, quietly.

Vasiliev got up and tiptoed softly to the far side of the room.

“Yes?”

“Ye can come out now. He's gone.”

The old man nodded. The Indian lay motionless on the bunk, one arm flung out, the limp hand touching the floor.

“He was sick afore he started out to the trail,” said Keith. “Then he got caught in the storm. I knew he couldn't last.”

Vasiliev said nothing. He gazed at the figure on the bunk, unable to speak, unable to understand anything more than the fact that the secret of a hill of gold had been dangled before his eyes and had been suddenly snatched away.

THEY stayed at the shack that day and toward evening the storm died down. Vasiliev was confused. He was silenced by the bewilderment that seized him. He sat moodily in the shack and could scarcely bring himself to even grunt acknowledgment of Keith's infrequent monosyllables.

He did not know whether or not the Indian had told Keith the secret of the hill before he died. Wretchedly, he tried to recollect that blurred mumble of words, tried to piece the phrases together to form a coherent whole, racked his brains to remember parts that had eluded him. There was no use. He had not heard enough.

But had Keith?

Covertly, he studied the old man but there was nothing to be learned from that inscrutable and kindly visage. There was no gleam of ill-concealed delight in his eyes, no look of baffled resentment. He was just as he had always been.

“He's not human,” Vasiliev told himself. “If he knew that secret he'd look a lot more cheerful than he is now. And yet—if he didn't know it—after being so close—he'd be raging. And he's neither. Poker Face!”

He had the sensation of colliding with a stone wall while in full flight. As the sickening sense of the disaster bore down on him he became fidgety and nervous. Once he fought an almost uncontrollable impulse to get up and go over to the old man and shout at him—

“Now then, tell me! Do you know where this hill of gold is or do you not? I'm tired of pretending I didn't overhear. Did he die before he could tell you, or are you sitting snugly there with that secret in your head. A hill of gold! Tell me!”

But he didn't do it. The old mans reserve was like an impenetrable armor. Instead Vasiliev sat moodily throughout the day, now and then gazing for long moments at the rough blankets on the bunk that concealed the corpse. He turned phrases over in his mind, wondered how he could bring up the topic that he knew was uppermost both in his mind and in the mind of Keith, and he could see no way of doing it in the face of the old man's imperturbable calm.

The hidden corpse was symbolic of the barrier that had risen between them. He was helpless. He did not sleep that night, and when morning came he was haggard for in the darkness of the night there had been a persistent vision of a hill of gold. A yellow glittering mass that towered in solid majesty to the sky, dazzling in the sunlight, rising in magnificence from the base earth, indescribably precious, unutterably sublime—that was the vision that filled the hovel.

When morning came they made shift to bury the Indian, clearing away the snow and hacking at the frozen earth with a pick and an ax. It was laborious and they could only chop out a shallow grave. They wrapped him in a blanket and laid him in the inhospitable ground, covered him with icy soil and heaped stones on the grave to defend his body from the wolves.

The hill of gold seemed to recede farther and farther into the distance as Vasiliev returned to the shack, for with the burial of the Indian the last assurance of its existence vanished. The hill of gold now lived only as a fragment of recollected mumblings in his mind. Perhaps it lived as a definite reality for Keith, a hill of which the precise location was known and remembered, but for Vasiliev it was only a torturing illusion.

They set out for End-of-Steel within the hour and on all that journey not a word passed between them concerning the hill of gold!

CHAPTER IV

Strohm

IT WAS not long before Vasiliev regained his customary calm and began to scheme. Back in Haileybury he settled down to a policy of watching Hard Luck Keith.

“I won't say a word to him—not a word,” he said to himself. “If he doesn't choose to be fair about it and tell me he must risk the consequences. The first time he starts on a trip I'll know where he's bound. Then we shall see.”

He met Keith occasionally, in the hotels, on the streets. The old man was invariably polite, but he never in any way alluded to their journey out from Hurst's. At times Vasiliev thought he detected a glimmer of mocking amusement in the wintry eyes and he was uncomfortably convinced that Keith knew all his incertitude and was secretly amused by it. But he waited.

“Spring will come. Then he'll start out for the hill.”

But spring came and Hard Luck Keith stayed in Heybury. To all intents and purposes he had done just what he had told Vasiliev on the trail from Hurst's. The old man enjoyed a great personal popularity in the town, and as president of the newly formed mining machinery company he enjoyed the dignity of an office to which he went every morning, with a pardonable vanity in his bearing. He appeared to have settled down to spend his remaining years in the town, finished forever with the trail. His old companions lounged about his office and spat tobacco juice on the floor and told stories. Keith luxuriated.

ALL the old-timers in town appeared to have invested money in that company and seemed to take a special pride in the new eminence of Hard Luck Keith. Theirs was a benevolent interest and even the humblest stockholder, the most hard-bitten veteran of the wilderness, who had scraped to get the money to invest in Keith's company, could not fail to achieve a proprietary glow when the old man came trudging down the main street to his office in the morning. He came down the street, chest out, shoulders back, his face glowing from the attentions of Scotty, in the Main Street Tonsorial Parlor, bestowing nickels upon children, returning greetings right and left with an expansive and utterly genuine heartiness, quite the most popular man in town. All were glad that his days of hard luck and privation were over and that he had found this little niche in which to enjoy some measure of adulation before he died.

All but Vasiliev. He glowered. As the spring days passed and Keith gave no sign of setting out into the bush he grew more and more puzzled. He was watching the old man with a catlike patience, but Keith basked in the sunlit of popularity and local eminence and gave no hint of leaving.

“Thinks he'll fool me,” he told himself. “He knows I'm watching him but he thinks if he sits pretty for a while I'll figure he didn't hear the secret after all. I'll watch him till domesday.”

But the old man made no move to go. The new company was prospering and he seemed content. Vasiliev daily became more puzzled and more anxious. The hill of gold filled his thoughts by day and his dreams by night; he loafed about town, not daring to leave lest in his absence Keith should slip away.

Weeks went by.

Finally Vasiliev reached a point of desperation. It came one day as he was walking down the street and met Keith face to face. He stopped, abruptly, in front of the old man.

“Are you really—are you really—” he stammered, “through with the trail? Did you mean that?”

Later he did not know what prompted him to ask this question. It was as if he had been in the grip of some uncontrollable force.

For a moment Keith did not reply. Then his eyes narrowed in a smile.

“Ye've been worryin' haven't ye, Vasiliev?” he said, sympathetically. “Ye're afraid I'm not gorn' to look for that hill of gold.”

The shock made Vasiliev's head swim. He could never have imagined such a remark. The existence of the hill had never been mentioned between them. And here was Keith, after all this silence, after all these weeks, mentioning it as casually as though he were referred to the weather.

“Why—I—I—” he stammered, losing his usual poise, “I don't know what you're talking about—really—a hill—”

The old man slowly took a pipe from his pocket and ban to grope for his tobacco pouch.

“I've been wonderin',” he said, “how long ye could hold out. It must be pretty aggravatin', knowin' what ye do know and yet not knowin' enough.” He thoughtfully tamped down tobacco in the bowl. “About the hill, I mean. Ye was listenin' that day, of course, and I could see ye was real worried after that poor Injun died. And ye didn't dare say anythin' to me about it. So there was no call for me to do any talkin'.”

“I couldn't help overhearing,” said Vasiliev, sullenly.

“Mebbe not.” The old man lit a match and as he drew on the pipe he flashed a shrewd glance at Vasiliev. “But ye heard about the hill, and I guess that made ye sit up and take notice.”

“Who wouldn't?”

“And ye didn't hear all that I heard. I know that, ye see. If ye did ye would have been out of here long ago.”

“Do you mean,” asked Vasiliev, “that you know where the hill is?”

Deliberately, the old man nodded assent.

“They why—why in heaven's name—?”

“Why haven't I gone lookin' for it? Because, Vasiliev, as I told ye that day on the trail'—I'm through. I'm never goin' prospectin' again.”

“But you can't mean that. Why it's foolishness!” Vasiliev laughed, almost hysterically. “A hill of gold! You won't even go looking for it?”

“Why should I?”

“Why shouldn't you? Why, man, you must be insane. A fortune! Millions—”

“Mebbe.”

“But you're certain of it. The Indian told you.”

“The Injun never saw the hill. He was never there. It was a family secret. His father told him, and the father got it from his father. Perhaps it's all a dream.”

“Oh, yes,” said Vasiliev, impatiently. “Perhaps. But what if it isn't? You don't mean to say you're afraid to take the chance!”

The old man puffed reflectively at the pipe for a few moments.

“Matter of fact,” he replied at last. “I am skeered to tackle it.”

Vasiliev was stupiefied. “But why—?” he stammered. “Why should you—?”

“Don't ye ever figger,” said Keith, “that I get a lot of fun out of knowin' about this hill of gold? Out of knowin' where there's a fortune waitin' for me if I choose to set out and get it? After all these years of hard luck. I can walk down street these days and say to myself, 'Keith—you're the richest man in the whole North Country. Ye know where there's a hill of gold. No matter how much tough luck ye've had before, no matter how many fortunes have passed ye by, ye can go out any day and find a hill of gold.' Don't ye think I get a lot of satisfaction out of it. I used to figger the North had licked me. Now I figger I've licked the North.”

Vasiliev could hardly credit his hearing. Had the old man gone crazy? Such reasoning was entirely beyond him.

“I'd rather have the hill,” he said.

“Of course ye would. We're two different men, Vasiliev. Ye can't understand me in this. Don't know that I blame ye. But supposin' I set out to find this Supposin' the Injun was wrong. Supposin' there wa'n't no hill at all. I'd be licked. I couldn't go down street any more and tell myself I was the richest man in the North becuse I owned a hill of gold.”

“But supposing you did find the hill. Consider that!”

“Vasiliev,” said the old man slowly, “I've found fortunes before. I've lost 'em all. I've had hard luck. I didn't get my nickname for nothin'. ' Somethin' always happened. I always lost what I found. No matter how careful I was, I always lost. Is there any reason to figger my luck is goin' to change now? For one thing, if I set out to find that hill of gold—you're the first man I'd have to fight.”

“But no?” cried Vasiliev, in excitement. “Is that what's stopping you? Can't we get together on this—?”

“No.”

He spat out the word almost viciously.

“Why?”

“It's my secret. It's my hill. I've never gone partners. I'm not startin' now. And besides—I'm through with prospectin'. If we found that hill of gold, Vasiliev, ye'd find some way of gettin' it for yourself. If I was your best friend on earth ye'd think of nothin' but that hill. Gold does that to a man. I've seen it before.”

Vasiliev, argued, besought, implored Keith to believe in his high honesty. He was seized with a reckless excitement. His eyes glistened. The old man scarcely seemed to hear him.

“D'ye believe in what they call destiny, Vasiliev?” he asked at last.

“I don't know,” said Vasiliev, dully.

“I believe in it. I've got a destiny. A destiny of bad luck. It was never meant that I should make money out of prospectin'. Why shouldn't I leave my destiny alone? Look ye, Vasiliev. If I went out to find the hill of gold, one of two things would happen. I'd find out that the Injun was wrong and that there wa'n't no hill, I'd find the hill and lose it again. As it is, I leave my destiny alone and I can go down street and figger myself the richest man in the North. I've beaten the North. I'm leavin' things as they are. It's a grand satisfaction for a man as old as me, for a man that's been beaten so often, to know that he holds the upper hand. A hill of gold!” He tapped his forehead with a finger. “In here!”

And with that old man Keith turned abruptly away from Vasiliev and trudged off down the street without a backward look.

THERE was only one explanation in Vasiliev's mind. The old man was crazy. A stark lunatic.

He went for a long walk down the Lake Shore Road and at last sat down on the beach below the trolley tracks and gazed moodily out over Temiskaming, shimmering in the spring sunlight. The Quebec hills lay green and purple across the great flow of water. An airplane came buzzing out of the sky like a bluebottle, winging homeward from the Rouyn camp. A trolley roared past him on the way to New Liskeard.

He cast pebbles into the water, reflecting bitterly on the strange conversation he had just finished. Mad! That was it. Crazy as a loon, the old fellow was. Unless there was something deeper. Unless Keith was trying to discourage him, trying to put him off the trail.

“He'll never get rid of me,” he muttered. “If I have to starve. I'll stay in this town and watch him.”

But he could not persuade himself that this was Keith's motive. Something convinced him that the old man was sincere in his wild idea of a destiny that would prohibit him from actual possession of the hill of gold. It was unfortunate that Keith was able to allow himself the luxury of owning the hill in imagination. If the man happened to be hard up for money, now....

Vasiliev hurled a pebble triumphantly and it skittered lightly across the waves. He rested his chin upon his clenched fists.

“If only the old fool needed money!” he said aloud.

But therein lay Keith's security. He did not need money. He was president of the machinery company and financially secure for the rest of his days. But Vasiliev knew he had uncovered a possible line of action. For a long while he sat there by the lake and when at last he got to his feet and turned toward the town again his quick stride bespoke a purpose.

He made his way directly to an office on a side street. It was a neat little place with green curtains hung on a brass rod midway in the windows on either side of the door. Upon the glass one saw inscribed in gilt—

JOSEPH STROHM

There was nothing more than that. It was the epitome of dignity, of modesty, of reserve. Even Vasiliev seemed a little daunted by this arrogant simplicity for he hesitated a second before opening the door but with a shrug of his shoulders he entered the dim interior of the office.

There was an atmosphere of quiet efficiency. A sleek dark girl tapped smartly at a typewriter and there was a bowl of flowers on the desk. Everything was new, everything was in perfect order. There was nothing to indicate the nature of Mr. Strohm's business.

“Mr. Strohm in?”

“What name, please?”

“Vasiliev.”

The girl tapped at a closed door and entered an adjoining office. She was back in a moment.

“Mr. Strohm will see you.”

She contrived to make Vasiliev feel honored and he entered the sanctuary of Strohm gratefully.

His feet were on a rug like moss and beyond an enormous mahogany desk he saw a short, plump man in gray. This was Strohm, who rose and extended a moist, fat hand.

“I am indeed glad to meet you, Mr. Vasiliev,” he said in a hushed voice. “Won't you sit down?”

Vasiliev sat in a heavily upholstered chair while Mr. Strohm magically produced a box of cigars. A match glowed, he puffed with relish.

Mr. Strohm did not immediately regain his seat. Instead he stood up by the desk, passing casual comments on the weather. He had a figure that was bulgy rather than fleshy, a face that was puffy rather than fat, eyes that were piggy rather than small. From the thin and sandy hair on his smooth cranium to the tips of his glistening shoes he was gross and smug. It was evident that he took great care in an endeavor to make his appearance pleasing and impressive by a nice taste in shirts and neckties and by an assiduous devotion to his barber and his manicure, but he could not eradicate the selfish lines about his mouth, could not extinguish the avid gleam in his little eyes, could not dull the flush of self-indulgence on his countenance.

“I have a proposition for you,” said Vasiliev, abruptly. “You are a financier—you know money—and I think we can get together.”

Mr. Strohm wearily flicked the cigar ash to one side.

“Many people come to me with propositions. What is it—mining?”

“Yea.”.

“You know where there is a rich claim and you want a grubstake. I'm afraid,” said Mr. Strohm, in a tired voice, “I'm afraid at this time—”

“It's not as simple as that. Nor as small.”

“Ah. Something big?”

“Tremendous.”

Mr. Strohm looked at him curiously for a while, then went back and sat down at the desk. He locked his fingers together over his bulging waistcoat and lean far back in the swivel chair, closing his eyes, cocking the cigar toward the ceiling.

“You seem in earnest, Mr. Vasiliev,” he remarked, lazily.. “Put your cards on the table.”

Vasiliev did so.

For the next two hours the dark girl in the outer office explained to callers that Mr. Strohm was engaged in an important conference and could not be disturbed under any circumstances.

CHAPTER V

Disaster

SEVERAL days later it came to Keith's ears that Vasiliev had left Haileybury and had gone up on the Red Lake rush.

“Just as I figgered,” he said to himself, smiling. “He give up.” Then he dismissed Vasiliev from his mind. But he did not, as Mr. Strohm quietly ascertained from day to day, make any move toward leaving town himself. He had told Vasiliev the truth when he said he had no intention of seeking the hill of gold. It was his secret and it pleased him to keep it, the illusion that he had beaten the North at last. It was a mild sort of mania with him.

Morning after morning he came to the office as usual, a vague pride in his heart as he unlocked the door with PRESIDENT inscribed upon it. Every one in town knew that Keith had little to do with the actual management of the company; he was no business man; his son, a square-jawed, energetic youth, was the moving force. Kei did little more than sign papers that were handed to him and occasionally take part in ponderous directorial meetings.

The company, so far as he knew, was prospering.

“We're gettin' along all right, ain't we Billy?” he would ask, anxiouy, once in a while. “Sellin' lots of machinery, hey?”

“Fine,” Billy would answer. “Competition is kinda stiff, dad, and we're just a new company but once we get over the hump we'll get along like a house afire.”

“Don't want any of the boys to lose money through me, Billy. If it hadn't been for them sinkin' their money we'd never have no company at all, ye know. All friends of mine, Billy. Lots of them boys would be pretty hard hit if anythin' happened.”

“No need to worry, dad. We've got a few notes outstanding but they'll give us lots of time. We'll likely get the Pike Lake Mine contract next we and that'll be the biggest one we've landed yet. Everything's all right.”

So the old man was satisfied. As long as the friends who had put money into the company were protected he worried not. He knew that with some of them, friendship had overruled their better judgement and there had been predictions that Keith's notorious hard luck would pursue him in business as inevitably as on the trail; he was anxious to prove this verdict wrong.

Then, suddenly. Bill was forced to admit that everything was not all right.

“We lost the Pike Lake Mine contract, dad,” he said, gloomily, one morning.

“Lost it, hey? How come?”

“The Imperial got it. Gave 'em a price we couldn't meet.”

“Well, well. The Imperial, hey? Ain't our prices as low as any?”

“As low as we can make 'em. We've always been willing to take a low profit for the sake of getting the business but I'm hanged if I see how the Imperial gave 'em the price they did. They'll lose money on it sure.”

Within a week two more contracts, which had been virtually assured, were lost to the Imperial. Regrets were expressed. But the Imperial had offered bids it would have been folly to refuse.

“They're tryin' to freeze us. out,” declared Billy.

“Who's behind this here Imperial?” asked the old man.

“Nobody knows. Montreal capital, I think.”

“Kin we hold out? Don't want none of the boys to lose money, ye know, Billy.”

“We could hold out easily if it happened at any other time. But here's these two big notes coming due and we've lost those contracts we were counting on.”

“Thought ye said they'd give us more time?”

“I'm sure of it. But if they don't—it's good night.”

“Go and see 'em, Billy. Make sure.”

So Billy saw about the notes and when he came back to the office he slumped dejectedly into his chair.

“We're done for, dad!”

“Done for? How come, Billy?”

“Strohm has those notes”

“Strohm?”

“The shark! You know him. These people owed him money and be came on them sudden for it. Said he'd accept our notes. He's got us tied up in a bag.”

“But how can he do that, Billy? We don't owe him no money.”

“We do now. He's got our notes. Both of 'em. Unless he agrees to renew we're out of luck.”

“But Billy—what does he want with our notes?” The old man was puzzled and confused. He could not make head nor tail of Bill's patient explanations. Business, he confessed, was like Greek to him.

“Go and see him, Billy?” he said, at last. “Go and see this fellow Strohm. Tell him he's got to renew them notes.”

“Fine chance!” sniffed Billy. “I'll bet we'll find Strohm is one of the guys behind the Imperial. He's got us, dad. We haven't a chance in the world.”

“Go an' see him, anyway. Can't let none of the boys lose any money on account of me, Billy.”

BILLY called on Mr. Strohm, remarking hat he might as well go and talk to an octopus, but when he returned he was frankly puzzled.

“What does he say, Billy?” inquired the old man, eerly. “What does he say?”

“Hanged if I can figure it out, dad. He was as nice as pie. That greasy old moneylender acted as if he didn't care if we never paid those notes. Made 'em payable on demand but said he wouldn't push us.”

“Well,” said the old man, “I'm glad that's settled.”

“Settled!” shouted Billy. “Settled, my eye! Listen, dad, do you realize just where we stand?”

For an hour Keith listened to figures. He wandered in a daze of dollar marks. His head ached. He understood very little of it all but at last Billy had dinned into his head the fact that the company was in a precarious position and that unless a contract they had been seeking from a Kirkland Lake company within the week materialized they would be at the mercy of Strohm.

“We're up against it bad,” Billy concluded. “We've got to raise fifty thousand dollars. I don't know what Strohm's game is. He was smooth and nice to me. Said he had just taken over the notes as a matter of convenience, along with a lot of others, and that he was in no hurry for the money. He can't be behind the Imperial, as I thought, or he would have put the screws on us right away.”

“Mebbe he isn't up to any game at all,” said the old man, mildly.

“I know him. He's got something up his sleeve. Don't worry. We have to get those notes paid up and get on our feet in a hurry. We couldn't raise any more money I suppose?”

“Not from the boys. I wouldn't ask 'em. Wouldn't want it to get around that we was up against it, Billy.”

“Well, we are up against it. If that Kirkland Lake contract doesn't come through I don't know what we'll do.”

They waited, with alternating doubt and hope.

They lost the Kirkland Lake contract. The Imperial got it at a suicidal figure. Billy threw up his hands.

“That finishes us!” he declared, bitterly.

“Do you mean the company's busted, Billy?”

“It is if Strohm chooses to call those notes.”

“Why then—then the boys will all be losin' their money, hey?”

“Most of it. We're in pretty deep. But who could figure losing all those contracts in a row. Almost any one of 'em would have helped us out a lot. Here we are with machinery on our hands, another note due from the bank next month and Strohm may come down on us like a thousand of brick any minute.”

“Hmmm! Guess we'd better get busy and do somethin', hey Billy?”

“That's the worst of it. We can't do anythin.”

“I'll ny and think of somepin', Billy.” The old man ambled out of the office, his hands in his pockets. Bill wagged his head affectionately.

“Hopeless,” he muttered. “He's hopeless. He's got no more idea how we stand right now than King Tut!”

HARD LUCK KEITH was surprised to find himself trembling as he left the office. It was time, he knew, to convert the hill of gold from an illusion into a fact.

The hill of gold would solve everything. It was their only hope.

And if there were no hill of gold at all!

He would not even have his precious illusion left then. The prospect was unthinkable. Not only would the company be wrecked, not only would his old friends lose the money they had invested on the strength of his name, but he would never more be able to walk down street in the morning telling himself that he had beaten the North at last because he owned a hill of gold!

Above that disquieting fear that there might be no hill after an rose the sinister shadow of his destiny of misfortune, in which he had by now come to believe so implicitly.

“But they couldn't take it away from me,” he said to himself. “No one knows of it—no one but Vasiliev, and he's gone. Billy would see that it was handled right, in a business way. Nothin' fer me to do but go up and stake the claims.”

The more he studied the matter the more clearly he saw that there was only one course open to him. In the hill alone lay their salvation—in that gorgeous hill that had captivated his imagination ever since the Indian had whispered his secret and died. For something must be done, he knew. He flinched at the very thought of the company's impending ruin. He would go down in the annals of the North as an unlucky man who had capped his luckless career by dragging his friends to disaster with him.

Even so, he was still undecided when he returned to the office for he was afraid of the consequences of failure. Billy was waiting for him.

“Strohm called up,” he said. “Wants to see you.”

“Wants to see me, hey?”

“Asked for the president of the company. That's you. Better go over now.”

“What d'ye think he wants Billy?”

Billy shrugged. “Perhaps he's decided we're not a good risk,” he said, gloomily. “Go and talk to him, dad. Go and talk to him.”

So Keith went to talk to Strohm, his trepidation deepening when he was forced to wait in the outer office for fifteen minutes before being admitted to the presence of the financier. He could not imagine why Strohm should want to see him so shortly after his talk with Billy, and when the fat man went through the preliminaries of hand-shaking, cigar-lighting and weather discussion, without coming to the point, his anxiety increased.

At last Mr. Strohm was settled back in his swivel chair, the cigar cocked toward the ceiling, the fingers locked across his bulging waistcoat, Keith sat nervously on the edge of his chair.

“Well, Mr. Keith,” remarked Strohm, affably. “I suppose you wonder why I asked you to come in and see me. It's about the notes, of course.”

“Oh, yes. Them notes.”

“Your son was over asking about them and I assured him I was in no hurry for the money. It's a big amount, so naturally I didn't care to fix any stated time for payment. I had to make them payable on demand. At the same time, Mr. Keith, I would have preferred to talk to you directly. You being president of the company—”

“Billy looks after most of the money end of it, ye see.”

“I understand that. Perfectly. Perfectly, Mr. Keith. But still, you are the president. What I wanted to tell you was this, Mr. Keith.” Here Mr. Strohm tilted down the swivel chair and leaned across the desk, chewing at the cigar. “I'm going to do the best I can to give you all the time you need on those notes—all the time you need—but there's a possibility, a bare possibility, that I may have to them within a month or six we. I won't do it unless I really have to—but you know what business is. My money is pretty well tied up at present and there is just that chance that I may have to make use of those notes. Mind—I'm saying it's just a chance—but I thought it would be only fair to you to let you know well ahead of time. I believe in being fair in these things, so I'm telling you this so you won't be caught unprepared. I'm a fair man, Mr. Keith,” orated Strohm, “and I wouldn't want to put any one in an unpleasant position—business or no business.”

“It's good of ye to let me know.”

“I'm glad you think so, Mr. Keith. I'm glad you think so. I try to be fair. Well,” said Mr. Strohm, rising and shaking hands warmly, “that's all I wanted to tell you. All the time you want, if I can possibly arrange it—but there's just that chance that I might have to present those notes in a month—or six weeks. Good-by, Mr. Keith. Good-by.”

He ushered the old man into the outer office, past the sleek stenographer, out into the street, slapping him affably on the back in the meanwhile and Keith found himself on his way to his own office before he fully realized that the interview was over.

A month or six weeks!

That didn't give them much leeway. He surmised that Mr. Strohm had taken this delicate way of informing him that the money would indeed be demanded at the end of that time. Still, he reflected, in his simplicity, it was mighty good for Strohm to even let them know that far ahead.

But the company was facing disaster. Of that there was no doubt. He had a month or six weeks in which to avert the crash.

On his way back to the office he made his decision. He stood at the crossroads of his life. At the end of one was a valley of shadow while the other rose to a glittering hill of gold.

His face was tense when he returned to Billy.

“Well, what is it? What did he say?”

“He gives us a month or six weeks.”

“A month or six weeks! We're done for, dad. Done for.”

“Mebbe,” replied the old man grimly. “Me, I can't understand it all. I'm goin' on a little trip, Billy, I'm only in the way here. Fix it up as best as ye can. I'm goin' on a little trip.”

CHAPTER VI

Blood and Gold

KEITH left town unobtrusively. He was taking no chances so he first went to Timmins, in the Porcupine field, then doubled back to the railway and went on to Cochrane at the junction of the T. & N. O. and the Transcontinental.

The maneuver was wasted effort.

A dissolute hanger-on of the mining camps by the name of Tibbs boarded the train the day he left Haileybury. Tibbs followed him to Timmins. Tibbs got drunk in the gold camp and very nearly missed his quarry but located him in Cochrane next day. Then, because he knew Keith's canoe by sight and because he nosed around the station baggage room until he saw that the craft had been checked through to an obscure station on the Transcontinental in northern Quebec, he was able to send a telegram of importance to Mr. Joseph Strohm.

Tibbs was very drunk in Cochrane for a week after Mr. Strohm reached the town in response to his message, because his master paid him well. Strohm was in a mood to pay him well, for although Keith had left Cochrane two days previous to Strohm's arrival, the plump financier found Vasiliev waiting when he reached the junction of the railways.

“Everything has worked out wonderfully so far,” he said, rubbing his hands. “Wonderfully. Just as we planned. I put his company on the rocks—hinted that he had to have the money in six weeks at the most—and he started out directly.”

“For the hill,” said Vasiliev, hoarsely. He had been loafing about a little village up toward End-of-Steel ever since his departure from Haileybury, impatiently awaiting word from Strohm. He had reasoned that to set out for the hill of gold Keith must come first to Cochrane, since the Indian who had held the secret was from one of the James Bay tribes. The days of waiting had left him haggard and nervous.

“For the hill, of course,” declared Strohm. “Where else? It's his only hope. Ah, now we can follow him!” His piggy eyes were shining with greed and excitement.

“He went on alone?”

“Alone. Yes.”

“As I thought. It will be easier to make him come to terms.”

Mr. Strohm chuckled. “He'll have no witnesses. And we'll have each other—eh Vasiliev?” He nudged his companion in the ribs. “Even if it ever came to law it would be his word against ours. Two to one.” He shook with silent mirth and his eyes became mere slits.

“We'd best be off. We haven't any time to lose.”

“No—you're right,” said Strohm, immediately serious. “We can't dilly-dally like this. If we ever lose track of him—”

“We won't,” Vasiliev assured him.

Next morning they left Cochrane and within the day had reached the little station on the railway, where they learned that Keith had gone north, following the river.

IT WAS a turbulent river and there were frequent portages; it was not long before Mr. Strohm regretted his insistence that he should be allowed to go with Vasiliev, for he was soft and flabby, his muscles unused to the toil of paddling and packing. But the thought of the hill of gold was like balm to his aching limbs. They struggled and the hill awaited them as an incredible goal.

Fresh, clean breezes swept about them and the trees along the river banks were misty green, backed by walls of spruce and balsam that towered to the horizon. They saw not the beauty for their hearts seethed with greed. As they pushed their way farther into the wilderness each man drew more and more into himself, each went on in a tense and eager silence, obsessed by the one purpose.

It was not difficult to follow Keith's trail. Vasiliev was a good bushman and each portage told him a story. His chief fear was lest Keith should delay, so that they might suddenly come in sight of him, but the old man was well in advance, continuing farther and farther up the river.

“The Indian said something about a creek,” said Vasiliev to his companion. “I caught that much of what he said before he died.”

“We could have followed closer. We may have passed the creek by now.”

“Not yet.”

They met an Indian that day who told them of seeing Keith in camp by the river the previous night and toward sundown they found the remains of the camp-fire at the mouth of a swiftly flowing creek.

“This must be the place,” Vasiliev decided. “We'll have to take a chance on it.”

“An expensive chance, if you're wrong,” sniffed Strohm. He was jumpy and uneasy, fearful lest they should lose Keith's trail.

They stayed there that night and early in the morning set out up the creek. The stream was almost hidden by the dense tangle of undergrowth extending from either bank and Vasiliev turned the canoe directly into the screen of branches, which whipped their faces and rustled complainingly about them. The dense forest seemed to begrudge even the rapid water its winding path toward the river and a constant twilight seemed to overhang them. They seemed to be in a ravine of towering trees, so narrow was the stream.

At last the bush thinned out and the creek was flanked by high cold slabs of rock and tumbled boulders, all gray under a darkening sky. They came to a place where blackened embers showed some one had camped there but a short time before.

“This is the creek,” said Vasiliev.

“Is the hill—do you think the hill can be far away?” Strohm was trembling with excitement.

“We'll have to go very carefully. He may be camping almost any place along here. We'd best wait until dark, then go on up-stream.”

Strohm chafed at the delay but Vasiliev was insistent. They waited until night before going farther up the creek.

Then in the darkness they paddled on against the current. It was a black night and lowering clouds hid the stars. Strohm grew tired and fearful of the gloom. Vasiliev was a black shadow in the stern, steadily guiding the canoe into the darkness ahead.

A crimson pinpoint of light caught his eye.

“Quiet!” he said, in a low voice.

The canoe crept on.

The pinpoint of light became larger. It was on the shore to the left. The embers of a camp-fire glowed in the night.

Never did Vasiliev paddle so cautiously as he did then. There was not a sound. At his whispered order, Strohm, the least experienced of the two, rested his paddle across the gunwales and sat motionless in the bow. The canoe slowly passed the somber smear of crimson and went on up-stream until a bend intervened and the distant glow was hidden from their view.

“That's where he's camping,” whispered Vasiliev. “He must have is there all day. We must be near the hill of gold.”

A WHITE rock and a dead tree, the Indian had said, and Keith had found the place the previous afternoon.

Ht pitched his camp and went on up the hillside, through the undergrowth until he came out on top of the white rock that rose like a cliff from the borders of the stream.

It gave him a commanding view of the country beyond. Before him lay a bleak and hopeless sweep of barren rock, like a petrified sea, with sparse clumps of trees in the distance.

But of a hill there was no sign.

The country was perfectly flat; it was a huge plateau of boulders; the only eminences were the trees that rose on the far side of the dreary plain. A little weed lay directly across from him, an evergreen bush several acres in extent but the country all about it was flat and barren.

For a while he was bewildered. His worst fears assailed him in all their force. The Indian had told him the river he must follow, the location of the creek, the landmarks near the hill—he had not erred. But where was the hill?

To be sure, as the fellow died, he had tried to specify his instructions further. He had mutter something about the sundown, but to that Keith had paid little attention. He had, he thought, received sufficient directions. Once he reached the white rock' it would be an easy matter to find the hill.

Puzzled, he gazed all about. The horizon was bare, save where the evergreen bush rose against the sky; elsewhere all was flat rock and tumbled boulders.

There was some connection between the white rock upon which he stood, and the setting sun. That he remembered, but the Indian had been unable to make it clear. It was close on sunset now and the glowing here was.sinking in a welter of crimson beyond the evergreen bush. The tops of the trees were ragged silhouettes in the fiery glare.

He gazed patiently toward the west.

The sun sank lower. He felt that he was making a fool of himself. What connection could the sunset have with the hill of gold? Superstition! An odd thought crossed his mind that perhaps this was some gigantic tribal jest—the sun itself at evening forming hills of gold among the clouds.

Suddenly he gave a mutter of astonishment.

The sun had gone suddenly down beyond the green bush. The trees were not dense and ordinarily the light would have gleamed redly through the trees but now the sun itself seemed to have disappeared, although it could not have reached the horizon. At the borders of the bush the trees stood darkly against the flaming sky, but in the center of the woods a great dark object rose against the sunset. It had been invisible before, shielded by the trees, but now it stood in blank relief as a crude, conical shape in the middle of the bush.

Keith left the flat rock and hastened down across the barren plateau, skirting his way among the tumbled boulders. The bu was but a few hundred yards away but in his excitement it seemed that he would never reach it and when at last he came into the lengthening shadow of the woods the object he had seen outlined against the sun had disappeared. It was hidden by the trees again but he scrambled through the undergrowth, into the depths of the bush.

There, at last, jealously surrounded by the trees that circled a little clearing, he came upon the hill of gold.

HIS knees were trembling. His hands shook as he moved about a tremendous dome of rock, touching here and there at irregular wrinkles and splotches that gleamed dully in the fading light.

The surface of the great dome literally glittered with gold. There was incalculable wealth in its seams.

He knelt on the ground by the hill, tearing away the moss that covered the sloping rock. Free gold in the enormous dome, tree gold beneath the moss.

The hill was a monument to all the wealth of the Gold Country. It rose majestically in the middle of the bush, old and gray, beaten by the rains and snows and gales of many years—laden with riches.

Kath sat down on a fallen tree near by and gazed at the dome of rock. He felt weak with the access of his triumph.

The hill was about twenty feet in height and sloped gradually to its apex from the borders of the clearing. A glacial freak. Gold gleamed on its surface in tortured seams like the veins on the back of an old man's hand.

Keith got up and circled the dome of rock. He scrutinized the dull splotches, felt of them as though to assure himself that his eyes were not deceiving him. It was gold. There was no doubt of it. This hill was packed with gold and this little bush grew above a treasure house that culminated in the dome.

His eyes shone. His heart pounded with a wild elation. This was the end; this was the goal; this was what he had striven for these many years.

“It's mine,” he muttered.

Twilight had fallen before he finally aroused himself to more definite action. Reluctantly, he left the somber dome of rock that rose gloomily from the clearing and made his way to the northeast corner of the bush. There he erected a discovery post, in a cairn of stones. He smoothed away a place at the top of the post with his knife, and therein wrote his name and the hour.

This asserted his claim to the hill of gold and would suffice for the time being. In the morning he would begin staking out his claims.

The next day was insufficient for the work, for he had a right to nine claims and this meant much labor, trudging across a great tract of country all around the golden hill. He had to put up his corner posts, pace out his distances, and when night came he still had work to do.

He was impatient to be on his way back down the river for he would not feel safe until he had reached the recording office.

He was sleeping when Vasiliev and Strohm passed up-stream in the darkness and when morning came he went out over the plateau of rock toward the green bush, confident that he was the only white man in all that wilderness.

He did not know when he left his camp that two pairs of eyes were watching.

He spent the day completing the staking of his claims, work that took I far afield. All day he was watched as he toiled in the glaring sun and he was watched as he came down across the plateau and vanished among the boulders toward the creek.

Had he even looked back before he went down to his camp he might have seen the two impatient figures making their way among e rocks, toward the clump of trees that masked the hill he had visit no less than half a dozen times that day.

AFTER supper he decided to return to the hill once again before setting out on his journey back to the railway. He had taken samples but, on looking them over, he was not entirely satisfied. They were rich but somehow they did not seem to do justice to the hill. He would go back, he decided, and get samples that were even more spectacular.

The sun had set when he returned across the plateau and the little bush looked gloomy and forbidding as he approached.

He chuckled to himself as he reflected that this uninviting copse of trees shielded a golconda from the eyes of men. The old Indian who had first stumbled on the secret kept it well. Unable to claim the gold himself because of his race he had kept knowledge of it from the hated whites. It belonged to Keith now—Hard Luck Keith, who had lived among the Indians and had known their ways and had been a friend to all of them.

He made his way toward the bush. As he reached the shadow of the trees he heard a sound that left him tense.

It was a voice!

His teeth clenched.

A voice? Here? He must be dreaming. Some passing murmur of the wind in the branches overhead. Some deceptive whisper of the undergrowth!

He heard it again. A human voice, gruff—the tones raised in anger.

He was overwhelmed by a fatalistic disappointment. His brain was swept by confusion. Silently, mechanically, he went forward.

There were two voices. He could distinguish words—

“You promised fifty-fifty!”

Vasiliev!

He recognized the voice immediately. He had known all along that Vasiliev was the man he must fight for the hill of gold. But how came he here at this time? And who was with him?

Then came a patient voice in oily tones—

“You misunderstood. Ten per cent. is all you get. You are just my agent—my guide—”

A splutter of wrath.

“Your guide! You fat crook! Would you have ever known of this place if it hadn't been for me?”

“Would you have ever found it if it hadn't been for me?”

Keith crept forward and peered through the branches. He saw Strohm and Vasiliev facing one another at the foot of the hill of gold.

He was immensely surprised when he saw Strohm. Then in a flash he divined the association between these two—they had forced him to seek the hill—they had followed....

They were quarreling. Vasiliev's face was flushed with rage. Strohm, plump, imperturbable, was smiling.

“Here is the agreement you signed,” he was saying, as he took a folded sheet of paper from his pocket. “At least it is a copy. You will notice that it reads no more than ten per cent—”

Vasiliev tore the paper from his hand.

“It's a fake!” he snarled. “You changed those figures—”

“Prove it.”

“I'll go in with Keith and you won't get anything.”

“Keith will laugh at you and you know it. Then you'll get nothing. Ten per cent. is better than that.”

The old man saw Vasiliev reach swiftly for his hip. Metal flashed. A revolver pressed against Strohm's waist.

“Now,” said Vasiliev, coldly. “We'll just change the figures on that agreement and put the date ahead. You won't put anything like this over on me.”

Patiently, Strohm shook his head.

“You must stand by it.”

“I'll give you five seconds. Then I'll blow you into Kingdom Come.”

Mr. Strohm smiled sadly.

“One—two—three—”

“Ten per cent.”

“Strc, I'll kill you where you stand. Four-”

“No.”

“Five!”

Vasiliev pressed the trigger.

It snapped dully. He pressed it again and again. The revolver was not loaded.

“I took the trouble to remove the shells,” remarked Strohm, casually.

Vasiliev was at a loss for words or actions. He stared fixedly at Strohm for a moment. Then he turned on his heel and began walking toward the bush.

Old Man Keith, from his hiding place, could see Vasiliev's angry frown, could see the white, even teeth biting at the strong, black mustache.

Then, with a start of surprise, he saw that Strohm was drawing a revolver from his own belt

“Where are you going?” Strohm called out, softly.

“To Keith!” snapped Vasiliev.

Strohm raised the revolver very deliberately and aimed it directly at the retreating figure.

Instinctively, the old man, hidden in the thicket, gave a cry of warning.

Vasiliev wheeled in his tracks. He plunged to one side as the weapon barked.

Then he sprawled on the ground as the revolver spoke again, the echo of the first shot roaring among the trees.

Vasiliev's right arm flung out Something flashed in the gloom.

Strohm gasped.

His mouth twitched. His eyes stared. The blade of a hunting knife stuck full in his fat throat

The revolver dropped from his fingers and clattered onto the rock. He swayed. He clutched vainly at the length of steel. Then he tumbled in a heap.

There was a bright splotch of blood on the hill of gold.

CHAPTER VII

Pursuit

KEITH was silent, motionless with horror.

He saw Vasiliev stand for a moment, staring at the body slumped down by the base of the hill. Then Vasiliev wheeled about, peering anxiously into the bush. Keith could not move a muscle and with a hopeless resignation he saw Vasiliev quiver with surprise. The killer had seen him.

Vasiliev strode over toward the thicket his face twitching. The cld man stood erect. They faced one another.

“I know I heard some one call out,” said Vasiliev, dully.

Keith did not answer. Vasiliev went on—

“You saw it?”

The old man nodded.

Vasiliev's lips drew back from his strong teeth.

“He deserved it.”

The old man found voice. He said, huskily—

“Neither of ye had any right here.”

Vasiliev did not appear to hear him. He turned and regarded the supine body on the rocks. Strohm's head sagged horribly to one side and a pool of blood was widening.

“We've got to get together on this,” he said.

The old man laughed, shortly.

“Get together?” he cried. “Do ye take me for a fool, Vasiliev? The two of ye were here to jump my claims. The fight was between ye both. It's a hangin' matter.”

“But we've got to get together!” Vasiliev declared, excitedly. “If you keep quiet we can both have the hill—”

Resentment flamed in Keith's heart.

“It's my hill anyway,” he snapped, scornfully. “Am I likely to keep quiet for such scum as ye are, Vasiliev? Am I likely to protect ye and let ye share in the claims ye would have stole from me if ye could?”

“You'd better,” said Vasiliev, slowly and intensely. “Unless,” he added, “you want to join him!”

He pointed toward the sprawled corpse by the hill of gold.

UP TO this time Vasiliev had been acting and talking like a man in a daze, but now he seemed to realize the situation in all its clarity. While Keith was still grasping the portent of the threat, understanding that his own death would be Vasiliev's only hope of escape, the murderer whirled about and plunged toward the corpse of Strohm.

In the limp hand of the dead man was the revolver!

Keith was unarmed. He followed instinct. He turned and fled. Branches slashed his face; he tripped and stumbled over roots and stumps; the undergrowth tangled about his legs; he dodged hither and thither, heading toward the outskirts of the bush.

He heard Vasiliev shout hoarsely.

The revolver-banged. It sounded like a thunderclap in his ears. He careened over a stump, lurched, sprawled into a low clump of bushes on hands and knees, scrambled to his feet and crashed headlong into a wall of branches. They threshed about his head but he broke his way through.

He could hear the bushes far behind crackling and snapping wildly as Vasiliev plunged in pursuit.

The revolver barked viciously again.

The old man stumbled on through the undergrowth, and as he ran he cast a frightened look behind.

He could not see Vasiliev although he could hear his pursuer floundering through the brush.

Keith was panting. He could not keep this up long. If he remained in the bush, sooner or later he would give out. Vasiliev, he knew, was desperate now, bent on murder to shield murder. If he left the shelter of the woods he would be defenseless out on the barren, rocky plateau, without shelter, and he would be shot down. In his wild flight he found the way barred by a fallen tree. He was about to scramble over it when he hesitated, his eye catching the hint of a hollow in the dank grass that grew about the trunk. He plunged down into the grass, scrambling into the space beneath the tree. It was a mere depression in the earth, barely enough to accommodate his slight body, but he wriggled into the hollow, reaching out at the same time to brush back the tall grass so that it would again conceal his hiding place.

He was just in time. Footsteps thudded in the earth. Twigs snapped. He could hear the labored breathing of Vasiliev as the fellow came running out of the bush, straight toward the fallen tree.

He waited in agony.

Vasiliev pounded along through the heavy grass and then his footsteps became slower.

Keith caught his breath. Had he left a clear trail through that grass?

Vasiliev moved about uncertainly. Keith heard him clear his throat. He glanced sideways and his heart jumped as he caught a glimpse of his pursuer's heavy boot, not five inches away.

Vasiliev stood there for a few seconds. Keith lived a century.

Then Vasiliev suddenly leaped over the en tree and went hastening on through the undergrowth, with twigs and branches crackling at his heels. The old man was weak with relief. He lay there in his cramped refuge, sweat standing out on his forehead, listening to the retreating footsteps of the murderer.

“Can't stay here long,” he told himself.

If Vasiliev failed to find him in the woods he would lie in wait for him at the camp. Keith knew the fellow would shoot him at sight. His only hope was to get to the camp first and take instant flight down the creek.

He listened, anxiously.

Vasiliev was still in the deep bush, some distance away by now. He was systematically beating through the undergrowth.

Keith crept out of his hiding place, raised his head above the level of the grass, and looked cautiously around.

The way was clear.

He made his way carefully through the grass, toward the outskirts of the little wood. Everything depended on silence. He crept swiftly, yet noiselessly as an Indian, his feet avoiding the dry twigs on the ground, his arms pushing aside the branches at his side.

In the distance he could still hear Vasiliev searching for him, hunting as assiduously as a bloodhound, and with a heart as merciless.

Keith crept on through the bush until at last he emerged from the undergrowth at the verge of the woods and faced the bare plateau between him and the river. It was twilight, but the great expanse of rock was as open as a blank page.

He started across the barren space. There were boulders here and there that afforded some slight shelter and he ran from one to the other, occasionally crouching down and looking back. The outlines of the bush were becoming blurred with approaching night but there was no sign of Vasiliev.

Keith was half-way across the plateau when Vasiliev emerged from the woods, revolver in hand. He caught sight of the old man at once, running across between two great boulders, and at that he gave a shout of triumph.

He leveled the revolver and fired.

The bullet chipped off a bit of rock that skittered close by Keith's feet. The old man glanced behind, dodged to one side, then fled across the intervening space toward the river. He did not try to seek the shelter of the boulders, but he ran zigzagging this way and that, across the rocks. Once he slipped and fell but he was up again in a moment, unconscious of his torn and bleeding hands.

Vasiliev fired again but again he missed that fleeing target and when once more he pressed the trigger it snapped on an empty chamber. He cursed. There were shells in his pocket. Strohm's revolver was a .38, as was his own, and swiftly he loaded the weapon. This took time, and when he took up the pursuit again, Keith had disapjjeared beyond the rim of the rock.

THE old man slid and stumbled down the hillside toward the camp by the creek. Every instant he expected to hear the bark of the revolver behind him again. All his energies were bent on gaining the camp before Vasiliev should come within sight from across the plateau.

He plunged down among the rocks, tore through the undergrowth and came within sight of his camp. The canoe was drawn up on shore; his rifle lay across his packsack. He reeled, stumbled, fell upon the weapon, then turned.

His eyes scanned the top of the slope and at that moment the tall figure of Vasiliev was silhouetted there against the steely sky of twilight. The old man pulled the trigger—not to kill but to wound—but the light was uncertain.

The effect, however, was immediate. Vasiliev heard the whine of the bullet past his ears and he flung himself down among the rocks. Down in the shadows by the river, with the tall trees overhanging, he could scarcely discern the old man, but at last he saw him, crouched by the canoe, the rifle at his shoulder. He flung up the revolver.

Keith fired again.

There was a spatter of rock dust in Vasiliev's face. He realized that he was not well hidden and for the next moment all his attention was devoted to concealing himself and he wriggled back up over the slope, into the shelter of two great boulders.

The old man had gained his end. He had driven Vasiliev to cover and that sufficed for the time being. He concealed himself in the bushes and lay there, the rifle trained on the boulders, patiently waiting for darkness.

For five minutes neither made a move. Then Vasiliev cautiously peeped out of his hiding place.

A bullet clipped through the brim of his hat. Hastily he withdrew.

The twilight deepened. Shadows melted with the black waters of the river and gloom veiled the hillside.

The old man left the shelter of the bushes. He had the advantage, for the boulders were still apparent at the top of the slope, but darkness obscured the river bank. He put his packsack into the canoe. The paddles were in place. His tent was still on shore but it would have to be left behind.

He folded up the blankets, however, and carefully put them in the bottom of the canoe. He had moved noiselessly and there had been no sound from the top of the slope.

Then Keith moved swiftly and with no regard for silence. He shoved the canoe out into the water, the keel grating with a clattering uproar over the pebbles. He leaped into the stern, grasped a paddle and sent the frail craft out into mid-stream.

A stabbing little flash Of light came from among the rocks, a bullet flipped into the water with a splash. Keith turned the canoe down-stream, rested his paddle across the gunwales, and snatched up the rifle. He fired back toward the place where the light had flashed as the revolver barked. There was a great crashing among the branches about the camp. Rocks were bumping and rolling down the slope and splashing into the water.

He picked up the paddle again and bent low in the stern. The blade rose and fell in short, powerful strokes. The canoe skimmed across the water into a friendly wall of darkness.

Vasiliev, back on shore, emptied his revolver after the vague shape of the canoe that sped away into the gloom. But he knew he was beaten. Keith had escaped him. Keith would reach the railway first and register his claim to the hill of gold. Keith would tell of the murder of Strohm. An appalling dread descended on him. He was possessed by a ghastly panic. He turned and ran up the shore toward his own camp. Trees and bushes extended out over the water. He crashed into them, unseeing, stumbled into the water, slipped and fell among the rocks, sprawled into the shallows, picked himself up and plunged on up the shore.

One purpose pounded at his mind.

He must overtake Keith. The old man must never reach the railway.

Vasiliev scrambled along the bank of the creek. His heart was thudding. His mouth was dry and hot. His eyes were staring. When at last he reached his own camp he snatched up his rifle and blankets, flung them into the canoe, pushed the light craft out into the water, and then paddled desperately down-stream in pursuit of Keith,

CHAPTER VIII

The flooded forest

NIGHT seldom held terrors for Keith. Many times he had traveled in the wilderness after dark, in the rain of spring, the moonlight of summer, the gales of autumn, the blizzards of winter. The uncanny changes that darkness makes in the forests, rivers and mountains, affected him not at all.

But this night it was different. His nerves were taut. Death crept behind him. The darkness that enveloped him was haunted with formless terrors.

The creek was very quiet. The rocky banks rose like mysterious walls, without shape or substance and the lucent sky above was like the skylight to a prison. His paddle rose and fell and water swirled that sent the craft leaping ahead. The current was with him and he made good progress, but he knew that the current was with Vasiliev as well.

The silence was profound. It was the silence of a dead world. It was a silence that aroused insane and abominable fancies; it seemed as if he were the only man left on earth, paddling through eternal blackness down an interminable river.

Once in a while some animal would rustle through the bushes at the water's edge; it would be a sound quick, significant of fear. Keith would feel his muscles twitch. Fear ruled the wilderness at night and this time he was under its spell. So was Vasiliev, paddling desperately behind, with the ghost of Strohm demanding further blood from the shadow of the hill of gold.

When he left the creek and glided out onto the open river he had devised a plan,

Over to the east, on the Chibouc River, men had been building a great dam. It was to be a colossal reservoir and the construction had been going on for close on two years. A railway had been built from the main line of the Transcontinental to the point on Chibouc where the workers toiled at the mammoth dam.

“If,” he reflected, “I can portage over to the Chibouc and paddle down to where they're buildin' this here dam I can take the train to the main line. I'll beat Vasiliev out to Cochrane by hours.”

This was his scheme, its only drawback being the night portage to the other river. But he knew of a place where the two rivers were but a mile apart, although a swamp lay between, and he resolved to take the chance. If he tried to race Vasiliev directly to the main line he would fail, for the fellow was younger. Keith, sturdy old bushman though he was, knew that the years had robbed his muscles of their resiliency and his body of its strength. He was no match for his pursuer in such a race.

His only hope was to outwit the man who hastened on his trail. If he lost, it meant death, for only by his death could Vasiliev escape the consequences of Strohm's murder, only by his death could Vasiliev win the hill of gold.

Shadows lay heavily across the river, reaching out from the wooded shores and there was a dim moon which left a ragged pathway of light in the middle of the stream. He forged his way on through the appalling stillness, the terrible blackness, following the course with practised eye, guiding his craft swiftly down the windy waterway.

IT MUST have been after midnight when he came to the place where he would portage over to Chibouc.

He discerned it by an abrupt break in the gloomy skyline to his left, a deep depression in the wooded bank, and he turned the canoe toward the shore. The shingle grated beneath the keel. In the dim light he peered about him. He had judged correctly. He was at the entrance to a little valley, a dark and gloomy place, and there was a trail of sorts through there, across the swamp to Chibouc.

He folded up his blankets and lashed them inside the canoe, put the light pack upon his back, then raised the canoe upon his shoulders. The weight was considerable, for he was tired, but by a judicious method of balancing, acquired by years of practise, he was able to lessen the strain upon his muscles. Then, bowed under the burden, he strode forward into the valley.

It was pitchy dark between the hills and he had never been over the trail before. Overhanging branches banged smartly at the bottom of the canoe. He had to pick his way carefully for a loose stone might have meant his downfall.

The moon came out from behind a cloud and showed him the faint path ahead, winding on up the hill. He set his jaw for the climb. The canoe swayed from side to side. His knees bent under him. Sweat streamed down his forehead into his eyes. He struggled upward.

“Not in the shape I used to be,” he muttered. Keith could remember the time en he would have packed a canoe up such a slope without turning a hair.

Pebbles rolled under his feet, went tumbling down the hill. The canoe brushed through leaves and branches with a scraping sound that was intensely clear in the still night. This disturbed him for he knew he was still within sight of the river and Vasiliev might be along at any time.

His heart was pounding, his throat felt full and hot when at length he reached the top of the slope. He put down the canoe and rested for a moment. Far below he could see the smooth black river, the moonlight glinting on water like onyx and the forest rose in dark magnificence beyond. The hooting of an owl in the somber distance was a lonely sound that rang sadly through the deep stillness.

There was no sign of Vasiliev. Keith felt a momentary elation. “I've shook him all right, I guess,” he said to himself, and when he was rested he resumed his burden and went on his way toward the swamp.

The moon was low in the sky and clear of the clouds. Keith was at the top of the slope, an ungainly figure beneath the swaying canoe.

Vasiliev, paddling desperately around the river bend, caught a fleeting glimpse of this strange apparition silhouetted against the silver sphere, before Keith went on down the other side of the hill, into the maw of darkness.

Had Vasiliev been a moment later he would have missed it. He would have continued on down the river, unconscious of the old man's ruse.

But luck, as he considered it, was with him.

“Trying to give me the slip, eh!” he said. 'Going over to the Chibouc.”

A twist of the paddle and his canoe sped toward the shore.

THE swamp was a nightmare.

Burdened by the canoe, Keith left the high ground and descended, into an area of dank grass and low bushes. The grass gleamed like strips of silver under the moon. The ground became softer underfoot. His heavy boots squelched in mud.

Mosquitoes were buzzing about his head by now, with a low and persistent humming. His hands gripped the gunwales of the canoe so he was powerless against them. The insects swarmed about him in a cloud, lighting on his face, his neck, his hands, stinging him incessantly. He suffered them in silence.

There were patches of open water that glinted evilly in the uncanny light, and these he skirted, going ankle deep into mud that clung to his feet. A croaking of frogs rose throatily on the night air from far ahead. He passed by a little cedar grove and the sweet odor was grateful after the stench of the marsh border.

Before long he came to a place where a great expanse of dead bushes lay before him, rising from a soggy mass of mud and water and dry grass and he plunged into this frightful desert with faltering stride. He did not know whether or not he was on the right trail—indeed there was no trail at all—and the end of it might be that he would sink into a morass from which escape would be impossible. The canoe became heavier with every step.

The dry dead branches threshed about his knees. The ground shook like jelly and yielded to his tread. Mud gripped his boots like a million clamorous fingers. A feeling of intense loathing rose within him, a violent disgust for this sepulchral place that he was traversing.

The canoe appeared to be forcing him down into the soft earth. Its weight was tremendous now. The mud was close to his knees. It was an effort to raise either foot. He floundered and struggled. The mud sucked at his boots like a live monster.

Once he stumbled headlong and for a terrible minute he was pinned beneath the canoe, flat in the mud. He was almost suffocated before he managed to exert all his strength in a violent effort to raise himself. Then he was standing upright again, knee-deep in the cloying swamp, struggling to get free and finally with a wrench and a lurch he was plunging on his way again.

It seemed interminable but at last he came to firmer ground and there he rested, his breath coming, in deep sobs. The moon had gone behind a cloud and the terrible swamp was just a dark blot in the night gloom. When he felt able to go on again he rose wearily and hoisted the canoe over his head. Then he struggled on up a rocky slope.

When he reached the top of the slope he saw the Chibouc lying far below in the valley. The hillside was wooded but the going was not so difficult and he made his way down toward the stream with a sigh of relief. It was still quite dark but he made few missteps and bore the canoe down-hill with mechanical precision.

At the river he rested again for a little while. His eyes were smarting for want of sleep. His body was sapped of strength. He was not refreshed when he finally shoved the canoe out into the stream but he dashed cold water into his face and then stepped into the stern.

This was the last lap of his flight. By morning he would reach the Chibouc Dam.

CLOUDS dotted the sky and the black walls of trees closed in on the river. Stream, shores and forest lost outline, were deprived of their entities and became an amphitheater of sibilant darkness.

The canoe slipped smoothly through the gloom, through the invisible waves, past the indistinguishable ranks of trees into the black gulf of night. Water dripped and splash lightly from his paddle.

To Keith, crouching in the stern, it had become an endless and senseless repetition of futile labor for the darkness gave no hint of progress and the canoe seemed to float motionless in a great cavern. He labored toward a goal invisible and passed nothing, drew away from nothing, drew closer to nothing on the way. Once in a while, as though to assure himself against this incredible supposition, he looked up to the ragged line of tree-tops that marked a vague boundary between forest and sky; and that rigid and uneven silhouette imparted an instant sense of motion to the craft. When he looked down again he seemed once more to be vainly struggling toward a silent and unattainable destination that existed only in his mind, toiling wearily under the grave gaze of the encompassing forest.

He was almost asleep. He had traveled far and he was very tired. His arms rose and fell stiffly. It was not ordinary weariness that possessed him now; it was a drugged fatigue, an overwhelming exhaustion. He had paddling so steadily for so many hours that he began to think he might fall asleep and paddle on and on through sheer habit and automatic response. He smiled faintly as he thought of arriving thus at Chibouc Dam, crouched dead asleep in the stern, paddling with clockwork precision, like a corpse obstinately refusing to acknowledge death.

There was a cold breeze. Morning must be near. He could hear the wind stirring the leaves and branches and rippling the waters until the great dark cavern in which he toiled was alive with frightened whisperings.

Instinctively his mind caught at the fact that despite the lightness of the breeze the disturbance of the water was profound; the rippling was not the rippling of a sluggish stream in the morning wind but that of a lake. The wind seemed to be brushing across a great expanse of water and it had an edge to it, chillier by far than the exhalations of the forest.

As time passed a gray veil rose out of the water and darkness left the sky. Night was creeping from the woods. Mists were rising.

As the light increased, the outlines of the forest became even more obscure than they had been by night for a heavy fog blotted the river. Keith could only see the little patch of smooth water immediately ahead of the canoe. Beyond that everything was gray, with distort shapes rising like abrupt grotesques once in a while near by.

An hour passed and the fog was impenetrable. Keith was puzzled. He sensed a change in the river. He could not define it but instinct told him there was something wrong.

He rested the paddle across the gunwales and peered into the mist. At that instant the bow of the canoe collided heavily against something rigid. The light craft quivered violently as though afraid.

For a moment he thought he had run ashore or against a rock, but then he saw that it was a tree, rising directly out of the river. He gaped. Not a dead tree, but a tall poplar, growing up from the water. The branches swept across his face as the canoe drifted and he ducked to a swishing of leaves and bending twigs.

Then he saw that there were other trees growing from the water all about him. He backed water, but the stern of the canoe thudded dully against an unyielding body.

Just then the wind negligently drifted the mists away for a moment and the veil lifted slightly, enough to reveal the serried ranks of tree trunks on all sides. The water gleamed and from the water jutted scores of these straight, slender pillars, before him, behind him, to right and to left.

It was incredible.

Keith saw that he had drifted somehow into an immense lake—a lake from which grew a forest. The tree trunks near at hand were vaguely distinguishable and then they merged to an infinite mass in the foggy distance.

He was utterly bewildered. The river had vanished. There were no banks. He be to wonder if he had ever been on the river at all.

There remained only a smooth floor of steely water under the mist, a floor studded with innumerable trees.

Nothing like it had ever happened before. He wondered if he dreamed. The river had vanished; it had become a lake in which a forest grew.

He felt aggrieved at this miracle. Nature had deliberately cheated him. He had trusted in a stream to remain a stream and it had lured him into strange and frightful waters; its friendly and invisible banks had slipped away from him in the darkness and the fog and had left him lost on an unknown sea. He felt the fear of the incomprehensible. The foundation of all things, the accepted order, had been abruptly and inexplicably swept away; all his cunning, all his instinct, all his skill was set at naught.

“Queer!” he muttered.

The sound of his voice was comforting. At least he was not dreaming.

A gust of wind stole through the trees and all the forest rustled and shook in an infinite inanity; gray waters lapped against hundreds of tree trunks and sloshed soggily against the wet leaves of the undergrowth.

He dipped the paddle into the water, straight down, and the blade struck bottom less than three feet beneath the surface.

He grinned, ashamed of his first tremors.

“River must 'a' run over its banks,” he said, audibly. “The bush is flooded.”

And at that moment, from the depths of the fog, he heard a cry—a childish cry, wild with terror.

CHAPTER IX

Rising Water

KEITH peered into the mist.

The cry was repeated. It was a solitary wail of agonizing fear and it came from somewhere among the flooded trees.

“Sounds like a youngster,” he muttered.

At any rate it meant that there were human beings near, people of whom he could inquire his whereabouts and who would put him right on his way toward Chibouc Dam again. He gazed about and saw that although the bush was flooded he was in a poplar forest that had very little undergrowth. The water was not high enough to reach the branches of the trees, otherwise progress in a canoe would have been impossible. He judged that he could make his way through the bush by paddling, although the risks at best were great for at any time some projecting stump or limb might upset his canoe.

He turned in the direction of the wailing cry, which was now repeated again and again.

It was uncanny, paddling through this forest, with te silent trees ranged all around him, the water lapping at their slender trunks. Now and then he had to skirt clumps of low bushes that just rose above the surface, occasionally fallen trees barred his way, but at length he came to a sort of avenue in the wood, where there was open water, trees ranged along either side. This was evidently a flooded road and he followed it through the rising mists that steamed and swirled above the surface of the water.

In time he saw a small cabin at the end of the lane of water. There had been a fence around the place but now it was inundated. He distinguished the place where the gate had been and paddled triumphantly through it.

From the cabin the cries ensued.

Crouched in the doorway of the log building he saw a small boy, a lad of ten or twelve years who stared at him with wide and tearful eyes. He was a shock-headed little chap, in a ragged pair of breeches and equally ragged shirt, and he had been crying but now he stared solemnly as Keith approached.

The canoe bumped against the threshold of the door.

“What's the matter?” asked the old man.

“Thought I was goin' t' get drowned,” the child piped.

“How?”

The boy's eyes widened. He gestured to the water that covered the yard about the cabin, that gleamed through the trees of all the surrounding forest.

“Water's comin' up,” he replied.

Keith stepped out of the canoe into the doorway, slipping the chain about a convenient nail. The interior of the cal was still dry but he saw that the place was empty. There was no stove, not a stick of furniture.

“How come ye to be here?” he asked. “And why is the water risin'?”

The child had followed him into the cabin and now stood before him, looking up with candid eyes.

“Pa 'n' ma and the rest of the kids moved out yesterday,” he told Keith. “They've finished the big dam at Chibouc, see? The water's been risin' ever since mornin' so they told us we had to get out or we'd be drowned. 'Course they made it good with pa—but we had to get out just the same.”

“But they didn't leave you behind?”

The boy shook his head.

“No, I sneaked back here this mornin'. I forgot my knife. The one I got at Chrismas, see!” He delved into a pocket and produced a battered blade, holding it out proudly for Keith's inspection.

“How did you get back?”

“Walked. The water wasn't very high then. I figgered I could get here and back again before it hit the road. But gosh she come up fast. I get in here and by the time I found my knife the water was up in the yard.” The lad wagged his head seriously. “By golly I thought I was done for. So I start hollerin' and I hollered and hollered and nobody come and I was just about ready to give up and climb out on the roof when you come along. Take me back up the road, eh mister! I mean the place they've got marked out to show the water won't go up no higher. Of course, all around here—” he waved vaguely, “it's all done for. It's goin' to be all under water after this. Where'd you come from, mister? Funny you ain't heard about the dam. If you come down river this mornin' you took a mighty big chance. But say, let's get outa here, mister?”

The situation was quite clear to Keith now. With completion of the dam the waters of the Chibouc had been backed up by the closing of the sluices. That explained the flooding of the forest, explained why he had blundered in among the trees when he had fancied himself safe out on the open river. It was a miracle that he had not continued on down the stream. He might have been swept over the dam. But for the accident of hearing the child's cry he might have sought to regain the river and been carried to his death.

The child was waiting impatiently.

“How far away is the railway?” the old man asked.

The boy shrugged.

“It ain't far. You take me out of this, up the road to where pa and ma are stayin' up by the workmen's houses and it ain't but a little piece to the railway. The dam ain't far from here, see!”

“All right, son, I guess we'd better be gettin' started.”

Keith strode over to the door.

He froze with astonishment He stared out over the inundated yard. His eyes widened. His hands clenched convulsively.

For there, in the gateway, was a canoe. And in the canoe crouched Vasiliev, a rifle at his shoulder.

THE old man jumped back into the doorway at the instant the rifle spoke. A bullet thudded into one of the logs and a chip dropped into the water.

Keith would never forget the startling appearance of his pursuer. Vasiliev was covered with mud from head to foot. He too had crossed the swamp. He was unshaven, his eyes were red-rimmed, his clothes were torn and dirty. There was a look of maniacal intensity on his face.

Vasiliev too had been lost on the river. Vasiliev had found the lane of water among the trees, the lane that had at one time led from the cabin to the river bank, and had followed it. With a thrill of incredulous surprise he had recognized Keith's canoe outside the building as he came through the gate and the next moment Keith himself appeared in the doorway. Then Vasiliev shot.

The old man sprang back into the cabin. He was unarmed. His rifle was in his own canoe, outside the door.

Vasiliev paddled closer.

Keith realized that he was trapped. He had not even been able to close the door.

He looked wildly about. The youngster, his mouth oval with amazement, his eyes round with fear, was standing beside him.

“Behind the door, quick!” ordered the old man, shoving the laid away from him. The boy scampered for shelter.

The window on the far side of the cabin caught his eye. If he could make his escape and regain his own canoe, once get his hands on the rifle, he would have a chance. He sprang over toward the window.

There was a dark square space in the middle of the floor, where a trapdoor leading to the cellar had been removed. Just as he was beside it he saw Vasiliev again. The man had paddled directly up to the door of the cabin. The rifle was aimed at Keith.

He had no chance oi escape.

Even as he tried to leap across the open trap the rifle barked.

Keith felt something pluck at his side. Weakness assailed him. His head was perfectly clear but he could not make his muscles respond to his will.

The black hole in the floor shot up toward him. He tried to clutch at the beards but they evaded his fingers.

Then he tumbled down through the opening. Cold water struck him with a shock. He sank down into blackness.

VASILIEV lashed his canoe by the threshold and came into the cabin, rifle still in hand. He went over to the trap and peered down.

It was very dark in the cellar. He caught the gleam of water but nothing more.

For a long time he waited there, listening. There was no sound.

At last he bent down. He saw that there was a crude ladder leading from the flooded bottom of the cellarway up through the opening in the cabin floor. He dragged this ladder up through the trap, brought it over to the door of the cabin and flung it outside into the water.

Then he smiled.

There was no doubt of it. Keith was dead. Vasiliev had converted defeat into victory. The hill of gold was his now. Strohm and Keith had been in his way. Both were gone. Keith's body lay in the flooded cellar of this obscure and deserted cabin, and would never be found.

Thoughtfully, Vasiliev went over to the doorway and looked out. No one had seen him. There was only a great expanse of water gleaming through half-inundated trees, and the lane of water led to the river. He gave up the idea of seeking the mainland in order to inquire his way. Better to return to the river and paddle on, anything to get away from this place.

He got back into his canoe and paddled off through the yard, a weary smile of triumph on his cruel face.

AFTER Vasiliev had disappeared from sight among the trees, the little boy peeped out from behind the door. He glanced fearfully around, then tiptoed across the floor toward the trap. There he knelt, speaking in a hoarse whlsper—

“Mister! Mister! Are you there, mister?”

There was no answer.

“Mister!” cried the child, frightened.

A labored sigh rose from the darkness. Then an old and weary voice—

“Is—is he—gone?”

“Yes, he went away mister. Did he shoot you? He didn't see me at all for I hid quiet behind the door. You can come up now, mister.”

“I'm—hurt!”

The child peered down into the gloomy cellar. He could distinguish a gray face, a pair of groping hands that clung to the wet earth walls.

“Can't you get out?”

“Lower—the ladder. Perhaps I can—make it.”

The child looked all around. The ladder was gone. He ran to the door, remembering that Vasiliev had cast it away into the yard but it had disappeared. He came back to the opening in the floor.

“He took the ladder away,” explained the child shrilly. “You can't climb out, can you?”

As his eyes grew accustomed to the light he saw that Keith was standing waist deep in water. The old man came splashing over toward the trap and raised his hands but they fell fair short of the opening in the floor.

“Isn't there anything?” he asked, and the boy saw that his face was contracted with pain. “Isn't there a rope—a pole?”

Wildly, the little boy looked all around, then shook his head.

“There ain't a thing, mister. Pa took everythin' away.”

“You'll have to—go for—help,” gasped the old man. “I'm wounded—and the water's rising—down here. Can't ye—can't ye handle a canoe?”

“I'll try.”

“Be keerful in it, lad. I wouldn't let ye go—but there's no other way. Get help—or I'll be—drowned.”

Without a word, trembling with excitement, the boy leap to his feet and went over to the door. He peeped out. Vasiliev had disappeared. The old man's canoe was tethered by the door.

Once in a while, as a special favor and under strict supervision, the lad had been allowed to paddle his father's canoe about the little bay at the end of the lane, so he was not wholly unused to the craft. Carefully, he took his place in the stern, gingerly dipping the paddle into the water. The canoe swung out across the flooded yard, he guided it through the gate somehow and then turned it up the lane of trees that led toward what was now the mainland.

THE darkness of the cellar was formidable and the distant square of light that marked the opening in the floor above was a mockery.

Keith was weak in body and confused in mind. He was standing waist deep in water, leaning against the muddy walls of his strange prison, holding himself erect with all his flagging strength. He was wounded, he could feel blood on the side of his shirt, and his ears were ringing. He found it difficult to think definitely. His mind persisted in seizing on all sorts of obscure ideas. The opening in the floor exerted a hypnotic effect upon him; he regarded it hopelessly. It was unattainable.

The water, he knew, was rising. He could hear it trickling through some opening in the walls. He tried to locate the place but when he moved the effort left him suddenly weak.

He dug his thumb into the mud at the water-line, leaving a depression. About an inch above he made another depression, and farther up he made another. This was to register the rise of the water.

He was wretchedly weak.

Vasiliev had won after all. The hill of gold had been snatched away. The old man smiled faintly and grimly. That was his destiny. To find gold for others. It had always bn that way. He had known it from the beginning.

Even if he were rescued from this place, Vasiliev would beat him in the race for the recording office, for Keith knew that his wounds would require attention—perhaps days would pass before he could go out to the railway. Possession is nine points of the law. The man who records first is the man who wins. Vasiliev would win.

Keith saw himself returning beaten. The company was wrecked. His friends had lost their money. He had lost his hill of gold. The North had crushed him utterly and he was an old man.

It did not matter very much if he were not rescued.

After a while his trembling fingers fumbled for the depression in the wall. He found it, directly at the water-line, then groped for the one above. It was there, but there was no third water-mark. His hand brushed the wet wall impatiently. Then he groped beneath the water and found the first depression he had made.

So! The water was indeed rising. And very rapidly too. If it rose above his head he would have to swim until the water brought him within reach of the edges of the trap. But he knew that in his weakened condition that was out of the question. He would not last three minutes.

He was utterly discouraged, profoundly weak and weary. It was the end. His destiny of misfortune was culminating here, in this foul, dark cellar, with water creeping mercilessly about him. The hill of gold, that splendid illusion which had enriched the last few months, had lured him to this ignoble finish.

Dully he began to scrape another hole in the wall, to mark the inevitable rise of water, then another and another. He noticed that the water had risen to the level of the second depression he had originally made.

Minutes passed.

The water, which had been at his waist when the boy left, was now about his chest, and he was so weak that he was clinging to the wet walls for support. Even should the boy reach the mainland safely, Keith knew he could expect no help for many minutes yet.

Judging by the rate of the water's rise he would be drowned by then.

He groped toward the marks in the wall. The third depression was covered.

CHAPTER X

The Opening of the Sluices

TIME ceased to have any meaning. The old man clung to the slimy wall in the gloom and the water rose about his armpits. He had given up hope.

Another little hole in the wall had disappeared.

He remained on his feet by sheer will power. There seemed to be not a vestige of strength remaining in his body. In a rough sort d way he had bound up the wound in his side with a handkerchief and a strip torn from his shirt. He did not know whether or not the wound was serious. He knew he had lost blood.

In all the peril of this damp and gloomy prison he found his thoughts reverting constantly to the hill of gold. It seemed incredible that he had lost it after all. It had been the majestic goal of all his bitter years, the colossal prize that compensated for all his trials and defeats. And he had lost it.

“Luck!” he muttered, over and over again.

He thought of a day when he had said to Vasiliev, “Why should I not leave my destiny alone?” He should have left his destiny alone and destiny would not have revenged herself so cruelly.

The water was at his throat.

His clutching hands slipped along the wet walls. He almost sank into the depths. His fingers scrabbled at the mud. He clung for a hold.

The last depression he had marked in the wall was now under the level of the water.

He might have let himself go, might have let himself sink back to end it all at once but some instinct kept him clinging vainly there. He wondered if he could swim over to the place beneath that square of light and try to reach for the edges of the trap. He essayed a move and knew that he had not strength to reach that far. Even so, the trap was too far above the water-line.

The sluices down at Chibouc Dam were all closed and the country above the great concrete barrier was being slowly flooded as the waters of the river were thrown back upon its banks.

Again he reflected on his destiny, that had brought him down the Chibouc on this day of all days.

The water was at his chin.

He had to hold back his head to keep his mouth above the level.

It would soon be over.

His fingers slipped from the wall and he slid down into the water. For a moment he was submerged, and then he struggled up, gasping. The shock of the cold water about his head seemed to revive him from a lethargy that had is creeping about him.

It the water come!

He was ready for it. There was nothing left in life for him now that he had lost his hill of gold.

He waited.

A long time went by. The water was still at his chin but it had gone no higher.

He fancied that he must have misjudged. It had seemed that minutes passed but no doubt it had been merely a matter of seconds. He steeled himself for the inevitable rise.

After a while he raised his hand and found that the water was only about his neck. Imagination! But when minutes passed and he found that the water had receded almost to his shoulders he was possessed by an overwhelming hope.

VASILIEV had regained the river.

With the rising of the mists he was able to keep to the main waterway. The land on both sides of the stream was flooded. The trees stood forlornly, rising from the gleaming water.

Vasiliev knew of the Chibouc Dam and he reasoned that the closing of the sluices must have caused this flood. He remembered having read of the project a long time ago. Many acres of bush country were to be sacrificed for the sake of the power this dam would develop.

He could see no available place to land so he decided to paddle toward the dam itself and there seek the shore. It would be quicker and he would find himself not far from the railway. Then to record the hill of gold as his own!

For nearly half an hour he paddled on down between the inundated banks of trees until at last, when he came round a bend, the vast reservoir lay before him. It was in a great bowl formed by the surrounding hills and the smooth water gleamed and shone in the morning sun.

The great dam was a white line at the far end of the lake it had formed. On the hillsides he could see white houses and toward the end of the dam were tents and shacks. Above rose the sweep of the green hills to the blue sky.

He tum the canoe toward the eastern shore and for a while he made good progress.

But at last he became aware that the bow of the canoe persisted in pulling away from him. He bent his back to the paddle but in spite of all his efforts he drew no closer to the distant shore and he saw instead that he was drifting down toward the dam.

He was puzzled. Unless the sluices were open there could be no such current. Perhaps it was just some vagary of the stream. All the same he became frightened and paddled desperately to get the canoe over toward the shore. It seemed to respond at first, but then the bow swung about at the first second he relaxed his efforts.

There was a current and it had the canoe firmly in its grip.

The white line of the dam drew closer. Then he saw that two of the great sluices were open.

There was, a silver gleam where the smooth water poured over. The sun sparkled on it malevolently.

Vasiliev's whole soul was tom with fear. Sweat rolled down his face as he toiled to wrest the canoe from the clutching grasp of the terrible current. His breath came in sobs. And all the time the canoe was carried along at greater speed.

He saw men standing out on the dam, waving at him. He heard a dim and distant sound of shouting. The great smooth floor of water beneath him drew him irresistibly on toward the concrete wall, toward those dreadful gates where the water slid over with a sullen rumble.

Still he paddled. It was no use. His most violent efforts had not the slightest effect on the swift course of the canoe. The current was a force colossal and unconquerable and it hurled the frail canoe full toward the dam, directly toward the silver roll of water.

Vasiliev gave a great cry of despair. He saw a man in overalls standing above the open sluice, waving his arms. A rope writhed in the air. Vasiliev grabbed at it, missed, and then the canoe shot down the smooth cliff toward a boiling torrent from which rose a delicate white veil of drifting spray.

THE little boy had not been allowed to go with the rescuers who went to the cabin and found Keith, still alive, in the half-flooded cellar, but the old man asked for him as soon as he had been put to bed in the workmen's hospital at the dam.

“Come here, son,” he said, weakly, as the lad entered the neat white apron. “I want to shake hands with ye.”

“Gosh, I'm glad they got you out in time, mister,” said the boy, placing a grimy little paw in Keith's grasp. “1 paddled and paddled and paddled and the canoe got stuck on a stump, and 'en I paddled again and near lost my way oncet and 'en,” he took a deep breath, “'en when I got to shore I had to run over so far till I come to our house. So when I got there, pa he was goin' to lick me right away 'cause they couldn't find me no place, and 'en I told him about you so he said, 'Holy Moses!'—that's what he said, 'Holy Moses! The man'll be drowneded sure!' so he jumped over to the phone and he phoned to 'em' down at the dam and he told 'em you was in the cellar and couldn't get out and if the water didn't stop comin' up you'd be drowned. And 'en they laugh at him, they did, and said he was crazy and you ould 'a' heard pa cuss 'em out. He swore somepin' awful, by golly, right over the phone, mind you. Oh gosh but it was great—I wish I could cuss like pa can when he gets mad—and after a while they said all right they'd open the sluices but if he was lyin' to them about there bein' a man drowndin' in the cellar they'd send him to jail for fifty years. So then pa and that other man started out in the canoe and they bnung you back.”

“Thanks to you, lad. They tell me I'll be out of here in a day or so and then I'm goin' to buy ye all the candy ye can eat.”

The youngster's eyes were still shining with excitement.

“But that other fellow—the one that shot at you. Did y' hear about hint. When the sluices was opened he got caught in the current—”

“Yes, I heard about him.”

There was something in the old man's tone that made the boy hesitate. He had prepared a graphic recital of the death of Vasiliev but he abandoned it now, reluctantly. He shuffled from one foot to the other.

“When do I get the candy?”

“Just as soon as I get out of here. Nurse says it'll be two or three days. I wa'n't bad hurt.”

The lad scratched his head reflectively.

“If—if it's all the same to you, mister—I wonder if I could have a new knife instead. That's what I went back to the house for, remember—and I come away without it after all.”

“Ye can have the best knife there is in town, and the candy too—and anythin' else ye can think of. And when ye grow up I'm goin' to ask your pa to let me put ye through college.”

“Gosh, mister—you must be rich!”

“Oh, I'm not bad off,” said old man Keith. He gazed toward the ceiling and smiled.