Blake's Burden

Clarke lighted his pipe and drawing his seat as near the stove as possible opened an English newspaper, which contained some news that interested him. A short paragraph stated that Captain Bertram Challoner, then stationed at Delhi, had received an appointment which would shortly necessitate his return from India. This, Clarke imagined, might be turned to good account, but the matter demanded thought, and for a time he sat motionless, deeply pondering. His farming had prospered, though the bare and laborious life had tried him hard, and he had made some money by more questionable means, lending to unfortunate neighbours at extortionate interest and foreclosing on their possessions. No defaulter got any mercy at his hands and shrewd sellers of seed and implements took precautions when they dealt with him.

His money, however, would not last him long if he returned to England and attempted to regain a footing in his profession, and he had daringly schemed to increase it. Glancing across the room, his eyes rested on a bookcase, with a curious smile. It contained works on hypnotism, telepathy, and psychological speculations in general, and he had studied some with ironical amusement and others with a quickening of his interest. Amidst much that he thought of as sterile chaff he saw germs of truth, and had once or twice been led to the brink of a startling discovery. There the elusive clue had failed him, though he felt that strange secrets might be revealed some day.

After all, the books had served his purpose, as well as kept him from brooding when he sat alone at nights while the icy wind howled round his dwelling. He passed for a sage and something of a prophet with the primitive Dubokars, his Indian friends regarded him as a medicine man, and both had unknowingly made his search for the petroleum easier. Then, contrary to his expectations, he had found speculators in London willing to venture a few hundred pounds on his scheme, but the amount was insufficient and the terms were exacting. It would pay him better to get rid of his associates. He was growing old; it would be too late to return to his former life unless he could do so soon, but he must make a fair start with ample means. The man had no scruples and no illusions; money well employed would buy him standing and friends. People were charitable to a man who had something to offer them, and the blot upon his name must be nearly forgotten.

First of all, however, the richest spot of the oil field must be found and money enough raised to place him in a strong position when the venture was put on the market. He had failed to extort any from Challoner, but he might be more successful with his son. The man who was weak enough to allow his cousin to suffer for his fault would no doubt yield to judicious pressure. It was fortunate that Bertram Challoner was coming to England, because he could be more easily reached. This led Clarke to think of Blake, since he realized that Challoner was right in pointing out that the man was his greatest difficulty. If Blake maintained that the fault was his, nothing could be done; it was therefore desirable that he should be kept out of the way. There was another person to whom the same applied; Clarke had preyed on Benson's weakness, but if the fellow had overcome it and returned to farm industriously, his exploitation would be no longer possible. On the other hand, if he failed to pay off his debts, Clarke saw how he could with much advantage seize his possessions. Thus both Blake and Benson were obstacles, and now they had ventured into the icy North it would be better if they did not reappear.

Clarke refilled his pipe and his face wore a sinister look as he took down a rather sketchy map of the wilds beyond the prairie belt. After studying it for a time he sank into an attitude of concentrated thought. The stove crackled, its pipe glowing red, driving snow lashed the shiplap walls, and the wind moaned drearily about the house. Its occupant was, however, oblivious to his surroundings and sat very still in his chair, with pouches under his fixed eyes and his lips set tight. He looked malignant and dangerous, and perhaps his mental attitude was not quite normal. Close study and severe physical toil, coupled with free indulgence, had weakened him; there were drugs he was addicted to which affected the brain, and he had long been possessed by one fixed idea. By degrees it had become a mania, and he would stick at nothing that might help him to carry his purpose out. When at length he got up with a shiver to throw wood into the stove as the room grew cold, he thought he saw how his object could be secured.

A month before Clarke spent the evening thinking about them, Blake and his comrades camped at sunset in a belt of small spruces near the edge of the open waste that runs back to the Polar Sea. They were worn and hungry, for the shortage of provisions had been a constant trouble and such supplies as they obtained from Indians, who had seldom much to spare, soon ran out. Once or twice they had feasted royally after shooting a big bull moose, but the frozen meat they were able to carry did not last long, and again they were threatened with starvation.

It was a calm evening with a coppery sunset flaring across the snow, but intensely cold, and though they had wood enough and sat close beside a fire with their ragged blankets wrapped round them they could not keep warm. Harding and Benson were openly dejected, but Blake had somehow preserved his cheerful serenity. As usual after finishing their scanty supper, they began to talk, for during the day conversation was limited by the toil of the march. By and by Harding took a few bits of resin out of a bag.

"No good," he said. "It's common fir gum, such as I could gather a carload of in the forests of Michigan. Guess there's something wrong with my theory about the effects of extreme cold." Then he took a larger lump from a neat leather case. "This is the genuine article, and it's certainly the product of a coniferous tree, while the fellow I got it from said it was found in the coldest parts of North America. Seems to me we have tried all the varieties of the firs, but we're as far from finding what we want as when we started."

"Hard luck!" Benson remarked gloomily.

Harding broke off a fragment and lighted it. "Notice the smell. It's characteristic."

"The fellow may have been right on one point," said Blake. "When I was in India I once got some incense which was brought down in small quantities from the Himalayas, and, I understood, came from near the snow-line. The smell was the same, one doesn't forget a curious scent."

"That's so. Talking about it reminds me that I was puzzled by a smell I thought I ought to know when I brought Clarke out of the tepee. I remembered what it was not long since and the thing's significant. It was gasoline."

"They extract it from crude petroleum, don't they."

"Yes; it's called petrol on your side. Clarke's out for coal-oil, and I guess he's struck it."

"Then he's lucky, but his good fortune doesn't concern us and we have other things to think about. What are you going to do, now we don't seem able to find the gum?"

"It's a difficult question," Harding answered in a troubled voice. "I'd hate to go back, with nothing accomplished and all my dollars spent, and take to the road again. Marianna's paying for this journey in many ways, and I haven't the grit to tell her we're poorer than when I left. She wouldn't complain, but when you have to live on a small commission that's hard to make, it's the woman who meets the bill."

Blake made a sign of sympathy. He had never shared Harding's confidence in the success of his search and had joined in it from love of adventure and a warm liking for his comrade.

"Well," he said, "I've no means except a small allowance which is so tied up that it's difficult to borrow anything upon it, but it's at your disposal as far as it goes. Suppose we keep this prospecting up."

"If Clarke's mortgage doesn't stop me, I might raise a few dollars on my farm," Benson remarked. "I'll throw them in with pleasure, because I'm pretty deep in your debt."

"Thanks," said Harding. "I'm sorry I can't agree, but I wouldn't take your offer when you first made it, and I can't do so now my plan's a failure. Anyway, we're doing some useless talking, because I don't see how we're to go on prospecting or get south again when we have only three or four days' food in hand."

He stated an unpleasant truth which the others had characteristically shirked, for Blake was often careless and Benson had taken the risks of the journey with frank indifference, though they had the excuse that after nearly starving once or twice they had succeeded in getting fresh supplies. Now, however, their hearts sank as they thought of the expanse of frozen wilderness that lay between them and the settlements.

"Well," said Blake, "there's a Hudson's Bay factory somewhere to the east of us. I can't tell how far off it is, though it must be a long way, but if we could reach it, the agent might take us in."

"How are you going to find the place?"

"I don't know, but a Hudson's Bay post is generally fixed where there are furs to be got, and there will, no doubt, be Indians trapping in the neighbourhood. We must take our chances of hitting their tracks."

"But we can't make a long march without food," Benson objected.

"The trouble is that we can't stay here without it," Blake rejoined with a short laugh.

This was undeniable, and neither of his companions answered. They were unkempt, worn out, and ragged, and had travelled a long way through fresh snow on short rations in the past week. Ahead of them lay a vast and almost untrodden desolation; behind them a rugged wilderness which there seemed no probability of their being able to cross. Lured by the hope of finding what they sought they had pushed on from point to point, and now it was too late to return.

By and by Blake got up. "Our best chance is to kill a caribou, and this is the kind of country they generally haunt. Since the sooner we look for one the better, I may as well start at once. There'll be a moon to-night."

He threw off his blanket and picking up a Marlin rifle, which was their only weapon, strode out of camp, and as he was a good shot and tracker they let him go. It was getting dark when he left the shelter of the trees and the cold in the open struck through him like a knife. The moon had not risen yet and the waste stretched away before him, its whiteness changed to a soft blue-grey. In the distance scattered bluffs rose in long dark smears, but there was nothing to indicate which way he should turn, and he had no reason to believe there was a caribou near the camp. As a matter of fact, they had found the larger deer remarkably scarce. He was tired after breaking the trail since sunrise, and the snow was loose beneath his big net shoes, but he plodded towards the farthest bluff, feeling that he was largely to blame for the party's difficulties.

Knowing something of the country, he should have insisted on turning back when he found they could obtain no dog-teams to transport their supplies. Occasionally the Hudson's Bay agents and patrols of the North-West Police made long journeys in Arctic weather, but they were provided with proper sledges and sufficient preserved food. Indeed, Blake was astonished that he and his comrades had got so far. He had, however, given way to Harding, who hardly knew the risks he ran, and now he supposed must take the consequences. This did not daunt him badly. After all, life had not much to offer an outcast, and though he had managed to extract some amusement from it he had nothing to look forward to. There was no prospect of his making money – his talents were not commercial – and the hardships he could bear with now would press on him more heavily as he grew older. These considerations, however, were too philosophical for him to continue. He was essentially a man of action and feeling unpleasantly hungry, and he quickened his pace, knowing that the chance of his getting a shot at a caribou in the open was small.

The moon had not risen when he reached the bluff, but the snow reflected a faint light and he noticed a row of small depressions on its surface. Kneeling down, he examined them, but there had been wind during the day and the marks were blurred. He felt for a match, but his fingers were too numbed to open the watertight case, and he proceeded to measure the distance between the footprints. This was an unreliable test because a big deer's stride varies with its pace, but he thought the tracks indicated a caribou. Then he stopped, without rising, and looked about.

Close in front the trees rose in a shadowy wall against the clear blue sky; there was no wind, and it was oppressively still. He could see about a quarter of a mile across the open, but the darkness of the wood was impenetrable and its silence daunting. The row of tracks was the only sign of life he had seen for days.

While he listened a faint howl came out of the distance and was followed by another. After the deep silence, the sound was startling and there was danger in it, for Blake recognized the cry of the timber wolves. The big grey brutes would make short work of a lonely man and his flesh crept as he wondered whether they were on his trail. On the whole, it did not seem likely, though they might get scent of him, and, rising to his feet, he felt that the rifle magazine was full before he set off at his highest speed.

The snow was loose, however, and his shoes packed and sank; his breath got shorter, and he began to feel distressed. There was no sound behind him, but that somehow increased his uneasiness and now and then he anxiously turned his head. Nothing moved on the sweep of blue-grey shadow and he pressed on, knowing how poor his speed was compared with that the wolves were capable of making. At length it was with keen satisfaction he saw a flicker of light break out from the dark mass of a bluff ahead and a few minutes later he came, breathing hard, into camp.

"You haven't stayed out long," Benson remarked. "I suppose you saw nothing."

"I heard wolves," Blake answered drily. "You had better gather wood enough to keep a big fire going, because I've no doubt they'll pick up my trail. However, it's a promising sign."

"I guess we could do without it," Harding broke in. "I've no use for wolves."

"They must live on something," Blake rejoined. "Since they're here, there are probably moose or caribou in the neighbourhood. I'll have another try to-morrow."

"But the wolves."

"They're not so bold in daylight. Anyhow, it seems to me we must take some risks."

This was obvious, and when they had heaped up a good supply of wood Harding and Blake went to sleep, leaving Benson to keep watch.

CHAPTER XXIII

THE CARIBOU

When Blake was awakened by Harding, the cold was almost unendurable, and it cost him a determined effort to rise from the hollow he had scraped out of the snow and lined with spruce twigs close beside the fire. He had not been warm there, and it was significant that the snow was dry, but sleep had brought him relief from discomfort and he had found getting up the greatest hardship of the trying journey. In answer to his drowsy questions, Harding said he had once or twice heard a wolf howl in the distance, but that was all, and then lay down, leaving Blake on guard. He sat with his back to a snowbank which afforded some shelter and imagined from his sensations that the temperature must be about fifty degrees below zero. The frost bit through him, stiffening his muscles until he felt that if vigorous movement were demanded of him he would be incapable of it, and dulling his brain. He could not reason clearly, though he had things to consider, and he looked about with heavy eyes, trying to forget his physical discomfort, while his mind wandered through a maze of confused thought.

There was a half-moon in the sky, which was pitilessly clear, for cloudiness might have made it warmer; when the firelight sank he could see the slender spruce trunks cutting against the silvery radiance and the hard glitter of the snow. Everything was tinted with blue and white, and the deathly cold colouring depressed him. Then he began to consider their position, which was serious. They were worn out and half-fed; their furs were ragged, and shortage of money and the difficulty of transport had forced them to cut down their camp equipment. Indeed, looking back on the long march, he was surprised that they had escaped crippling frostbite, although both Benson and Harding were somewhat lame from the strain which the use of snowshoes puts upon the muscles of the leg. There was, moreover, a risk of this becoming dangerous.

He imagined that it must be two hundred miles to the Hudson's Bay post and recognized that the chances were against their reaching it; but just then a howl rang, harsh and ominous, through the frosty air, and with a nervous start he reached for his rifle. The wolves had scented them, and, turning his back to the light, he spent some minutes gazing fixedly at the glistening white patches among the straggling trees, but could make out none of the stealthy, flitting shapes he had half expected to see. It was encouraging that the wolves had not overcome their timidity of the fire. Keen hunger might have driven them to an attack, and Blake had no illusions about the result of that. However, since the fierce brutes were not starving, they must have found something to eat, and what a wolf could eat would feed men who were by no means fastidious. Seeing nothing that alarmed him, Blake resumed his musing.

Their search for the gum had proved useless and he pitied Harding, who had staked his future upon its success. The man had not complained much, but Blake knew what he must feel and thought with compassion of the lonely woman who had bravely sent his comrade out and was now waiting for him in the mean discomfort of a cheap tenement. It was not difficult to imagine her anxiety and suspense.

Next he began to ponder his own affairs, which were not encouraging, though he did not think he really regretted the self-sacrificing course he had taken. His father had died involved in debt, and Blake suspected that it had cost Challoner something to redeem the share of his mother's property which brought him in a small income. That it had been carefully tied up was not, he thought, enough to guard it from the Blake extravagance and ingenuity in raising money. Afterwards the Colonel had brought him up and sent him into the army, doing so with a generous affection which was very different from cold charity, and demanded some return. Then Bertram had never been jealous of the favour shown his cousin, but had given him warm friendship, and Blake, who was much the stronger, had now and then stood between the lad and harm. He had done so again in Bertram's greatest need, and now he must not grumble at the consequences.

Of late they had seemed heavier than formerly, for in tempting him Clarke had made a telling suggestion – suppose he married? This appeared improbable; for one thing, no girl he was likely to be attracted by would look with favour on a man with his reputation, but he had thought a good deal about Millicent Graham during the weary march. He imagined that she had inherited enough of her father's reckless character to make her willing to take a risk. She would not have a man betray his friend for an advantage that he might gain; she had a courage that would help her, for love's sake, to tread a difficult path. Still, there was no reason to believe that she had any love for him, or indeed that she thought of him except as a stranger to whom she had, perhaps, some reason to be grateful. Resolutely breaking off this train of thought, he threw fresh wood upon the fire and sat shivering and making plans for the march to the factory, until Benson relieved him. When the grey dawn broke above the trees he got up stiff with cold and after eating his share of a very frugal breakfast carefully examined his rifle. Though he kept it clean of superfluous grease, there was some risk of the striker and magazine-slide freezing, and a missfire might prove disastrous. Then he glanced up between the branches and noticed the low, dingy sky, while he thought it was not quite so cold.

"I'm going to look for a caribou," he said. "I'll be back by dark."

"We'll have snow," said Harding. "If there's much, you'll find it hard to get home."

"I'd find it harder to do without breakfast and supper, which is what may happen very soon," Blake rejoined. "One can eat the tripe de roche which grows upon the stones, but I don't know where to look for it, and a North-West Police trooper who once tried it told me that it made him very ill."

"Anyway, you had better take one of us along."

"With the axe?" Blake said, laughing. "It's bad enough to reach a caribou with a rifle, and Benson's as poor a hand at stalking as I know, while a day's rest may save you from getting a snowshoe leg. As we haven't a sledge, it would be awkward to carry you to the factory."

They let him go, but when he reached the open his face hardened. The sky had a threatening look, the snow was soft, and there were wolves about, but he was comparatively safe while daylight lasted and food must be found. During the morning he saw wolf tracks, but no sign of a deer, and at noon sat down for a few minutes in a sheltered hollow and managed to light the half-frozen pipe he kept in an inner pocket. He had brought nothing to eat, since they had decided that it would be prudent to dispense with a midday meal, and getting stiffly on his feet by and by, he plodded from bluff to bluff throughout the afternoon. For the most part, they were thin and the trees very small, while so far as he could make out the country between them was covered with slabs of rocks and stones. It was utterly empty, with no sign of life in it, but he continued his search until the light began to fail, when he stopped to look about.

No snow had fallen, but the sky was very thick and a stinging wind had risen, while he would have trouble in reaching camp if his trail got drifted up. He knew he should have turned back earlier, but there was what seemed to be an extensive wood in front, and he could not face the thought of returning empty-handed to his scanty, unearned supper. The grey trees were not far away; he might reach them and make a mile or two on the back trail before dark, though he was weary and hunger had given him a pain in his left side.

Quickening his pace, he neared the bluff, which looked very black and shadowy against the snow, though the latter was fading to a curious, lifeless grey. The trees were stunted and scattered, which made it possible for him to get through, though there were half-covered, fallen branches which entangled his big shoes. He could see no tracks of any animal and hardly expected to do so, but in a savage mood he held on without much caution until he entered a belt of broken ground strewn with rocky hillocks. Here he could not see where he was going and it was almost dark in the hollows, but he had found that chance sometimes favours the hunter as much as careful stalking. Stopping for breath a moment, half way up a steep ascent, he started, for a shadowy object unexpectedly appeared upon the summit. It was barely distinguishable against the background of trees, but he saw the broad-tined horns in an opening and knew it for a caribou.

There was no time to lose, since the swift creature would take flight in an instant, and almost as he caught sight of it the rifle went up to his shoulder. For a moment the foresight wavered across the indistinct form, and then his numbed hands grew steady, and, trusting that nothing would check the frost-clogged action, he pressed the trigger. He felt the jar of the butt, a little smoke blew in his eyes, and he could make out nothing on the crest of the ridge. It, however, seemed impossible that he had missed and next moment he heard a heavy floundering in the snow among the rocks above. He went up the slope at a savage run and plunged down a precipitous hollow, on the farther side of which a half-seen object was moving through the gloom of the trees. Stopping a moment, he threw up the rifle and after the thin red flash the deer staggered and collapsed.

Running on in desperate haste, he fell upon it with his hunting knife; and then stopped, feeling strangely limp and breathless, with the long blade dripping in his hand. Now the caribou lay dead before him, the strain of the last few minutes made itself felt. Surprised when exhausted and weak from want of food by an opportunity he had not looked for, he had forced upon himself sufficient steadiness to shoot. It had cost him an effort; the short fierce chase had tried him hard, and now the reaction had set in. For all that, he was conscious of a savage, exultant excitement. Here was food, and food meant life.