Chapter Chapter 62 · BOOK IV CHAPTER XV

"There's something the matter with Jim," the Prodigal 'phoned to me from

the Forks; "he's gone off and left the cabin on Ophir, taken to the

hills. Some prospectors have just come in and say they met him heading

for the White Snake Valley. Seemed kind of queer, they say. Wouldn't

talk much. They thought he was in a fair way to go crazy."

"He's never been right since the accident," I answered; "we'll have to

go after him."

"All right. Come up at once. I'll get McCrimmon. He's a good man in the

woods. We'll be ready to start as soon as you arrive."

So the following day found the three of us on the trail to Ophir. We

travelled lightly, carrying very little food, for we thought to find

game in the woods. On the evening of the following day we reached the

cabin.

Jim must have gone very suddenly. There were the remains of a meal on

the table, and his Bible was gone from its place. There was nothing for

it but to follow and find him.

"By going to the headwaters of Ophir Creek," said the Halfbreed, "we can

cross a divide into the valley of the White Snake, and there we'll

corral him, I guess."

So we left the trail and plunged into the virgin Wild. Oh, but it was

hard travelling! Often we would keep straight up the creek-bed, plunging

through pools that were knee-deep, and walking over shingly bars. Then,

to avoid a big bend of the stream, we would strike off through the bush.

Every yard seemed to have its obstacle. There were windfalls and tangled

growths of bush that defied our uttermost efforts to penetrate them.

There were viscid sloughs, from whose black depths bubbles arose

wearily, with grey tree-roots like the legs of spiders clutching the

slimy mud of their banks. There were oozy bottoms, rankly speared with

rush-grass. There were leprous marshes spotted with unsightly

niggerheads. Dripping with sweat, we fought our way under the hot sun.

Thorny boughs tore at us detainingly. Fallen trees delighted to bar our

way. Without let or cease we toiled, yet at the day's end our progress

was but a meagre one.

Our greatest bane was the mosquitoes. Night and day they never ceased to

nag us. We wore veils and had gloves on our hands, so that under our

armour we were able to grin defiance at them. But on the other side of

that netting they buzzed in an angry grey cloud. To raise our veils and

take a drink was to be assaulted ferociously. As we walked we could feel

them resisting our progress, and it seemed as if we were forcing our way

through solid banks of them. If we rested, they alighted in such myriads

that soon we appeared literally sheathed in tiny atoms of insect life,

vainly trying to pierce the mesh of our clothing. To bare a hand was to

have it covered with blood in a moment, and the thought of being at

their mercy was an exquisitely horrible one. Night and day their voices

blended in a vast drone, so that we ate, drank and slept under our

veils.

In that rankly growing wilderness we saw no sign of life, not even a

rabbit. It was all desolate and God-forsaken. By nightfall our packs

seemed very heavy, our limbs very tired. Three days, four days, five

days passed. The creek was attenuated and hesitating, so we left it and

struck off over the mountains. Soon we climbed to where the timber

growth was less obstructive. The hillside was steep, almost vertical in

places, and was covered with a strange, deep growth of moss. Down in it

we sank, in places to our knees, and beneath it we could feel the points

of sharp boulders. As we climbed we plunged our hands deep into the cool

cushion of the moss, and half dragged ourselves upward. It was like an

Oriental rug covering the stony ribs of the hill, a rug of bizarre

colouring, strangely patterned in crimson and amber, in emerald and

ivory. Birch-trees of slim, silvery beauty arose in it, and aided us as

we climbed.

So we came at last, after a weary journey, to a bleak, boulder-studded

plateau. It was above timber-line, and carpeted with moss of great depth

and gaudy hue. Suddenly we saw two vast pillars of stone upstanding on

the aching barren. I think they must have been two hundred feet high,

and, like monstrous sentinels in their lonely isolation, they

overlooked that vast tundra. They startled us. We wondered by what

strange freak of nature they were stationed there.

Then we dropped down into a vast, hush-filled valley, a valley that

looked as if it had been undisturbed since the beginning of time. Like a

spirit-haunted place it was, so strange and still. It was loneliness

made visible. It was stillness written in wood and stone. I would have

been afraid to enter it alone, and even as we sank in its death-haunted

dusk I shuddered with a horror of the place.

The Indians feared and shunned this valley. They said, of old, strange

things had happened there; it had been full of noise and fire and steam;

the earth had opened up, belching forth great dragons that destroyed the

people. And indeed it was all like the vast crater of an extinct

volcano, for hot springs bubbled forth and a grey ash cropped up through

the shallow soil.

There was no game in the valley. In its centre was a solitary lake,

black and bottomless, and haunted by a giant white water-snake,

sluggish, blind and very old. Stray prospectors swore they had seen it,

just at dusk, and its sightless, staring eyes were too terrible ever to

forget.

And into this still, cobweb-hued hollow we dropped--dropped almost

straight down over the flanks of those lean, lank mountains that fringed

it so forlornly. Here, ringed all around by desolate heights, we were as

remote from the world as if we were in some sallow solitude of the moon.

Sometimes the valley was like a gaping mouth, and the lips of it were

livid grey. Sometimes it was like a cup into which the sunset poured a

golden wine and filled it quivering to the brim. Sometimes it was like a

grey grave full of silence. And here in this place of shadows, where the

lichen strangled the trees, and under-foot the moss hushed the tread,

where we spoke in whispers, and mirth seemed a mockery, where every

stick and stone seemed eloquent of disenchantment and despair, here in

this valley of Dead Things we found Jim.

He was sitting by a dying camp-fire, all huddled up, his arms embracing

his knees, his eyes on the fading embers. As we drew near he did not

move, did not show any surprise, did not even raise his head. His face

was very pale and drawn into a pucker of pain. It was the queerest look

I ever saw on a man's face. It made me creep.

His eyes followed us furtively. Silently we squatted in a ring round his

camp-fire. For a while we said no word, then at last the Prodigal spoke:

"Jim, you're coming back with us, aren't you?"

Jim looked at him.

"Hush!" says he, "don't speak so loud. You'll waken all them dead

fellows."

"What d'ye mean?"

"Them dead fellows. The woods is full of them, them that can't rest.

They're all around, ghosts. At night, when I'm a-sittin' over the fire,

they crawl out of the darkness, an' they get close to me, closer,

closer, an' they whisper things. Then I get scared an' I shoo them

away."

"What do they whisper, Jim?"

"Oh say! they tell me all kinds of things, them fellows in the woods.

They tell me of the times they used to have here in the valley; an' how

they was a great people, an' had women an' slaves; how they fought an'

sang an' got drunk, an' how their kingdom was here, right here where

it's all death an' desolation. An' how they conquered all the other

folks around an' killed the men an' captured the women. Oh, it was long,

long ago, long before the flood!"

"Well, Jim, never mind them. Get your pack ready. We're going home right

now."

"Goin' home?--I've no home any more. I'm a fugitive an' a vagabond in

the earth. The blood of my brother crieth unto me from the ground. From

the face of the Lord shall I be hid an' every one that findeth me shall

slay me. I have no home but the wilderness. Unto it I go with prayer an'

fastin'. I have killed, I have killed!"

"Nonsense, Jim; it was an accident."

"Was it? Was it? God only knows; I don't. Only I know the thought of

murder was black in my heart. It was there for ever an' ever so long.

How I fought against it! Then, just at that moment, everything seemed to

come to a head. I don't know that I meant what I did, but I thought it."

"Come home, Jim, and forget it."

"When the rivers start to run up them mountain peaks I'll forget it.

No, they won't let me forget it, them ghosts. They whisper to me all the

time. Hist! don't you hear them? They're whispering to me now. 'You're a

murderer, Jim, a murderer,' they say. 'The brand of Cain is on you, Jim,

the brand of Cain.' Then the little leaves of the trees take up the

whisper, an' the waters murmur it, an' the very stones cry out ag'in me,

an' I can't shut out the sound. I can't, I can't."

"Hush, Jim!"

"No, no, the devil's a-hoein' out a place in the embers for me. I can't

turn no more to the Lord. He's cast me out, an' the light of His

countenance is darkened to me. Never again; oh, never again!"

"Oh come, Jim, for the sake of your old partners, come home."

"Well, boys, I'll come. But it's no good. I'm down an' out."

Wearily we gathered together his few belongings. He had been living on

bread, and but little remained. Had we not reached him, he would have

starved. He came like a child, but seemed a prey to acute melancholy.

It was indeed a sad party that trailed down that sad, dead valley. The

trees were hung with a dreary drapery of grey, and the ashen moss

muffled our footfalls. I think it was the _deadest_ place I ever saw.

The very air seemed dead and stale, as if it were eternally still,

unstirred by any wind. Spiders and strange creeping things possessed the

trees, and at every step, like white gauze, a mist of mosquitoes was

thrown up. And the way seemed endless.

A great weariness weighed upon our spirits. Our feet flagged and our

shoulders were bowed. As we looked into each other's faces we saw there

a strange lassitude, a chill, grey despair. Our voices sounded hollow

and queer, and we seldom spoke. It was as if the place was a vampire

that was sucking the life and health from our veins.

"I'm afraid the old man's going to play out on us," whispered the

Prodigal.

Jim lagged forlornly behind, and it was very anxiously we watched him.

He seemed to know that he was keeping us back. His efforts to keep up

were pitiful. We feigned an equal weariness, not to distress him, and

our progress was slow, slow.

"Looks as if we'll have to go on half-rations," said the Halfbreed.

"It's taking longer to get out of this valley than I figured on."

And indeed it was like a vast prison, and those peaks that brindled in

the sunset glow were like bars to hold us in. Every day the old man's

step was growing slower, so that at last we were barely crawling along.

We were ascending the western slope of the valley, climbing a few miles

a day, and every step we rose from that sump-hole of the gods was like

the lifting of a weight. We were tired, tired, and in the wan light that

filtered through the leaden clouds our faces were white and strained.

"I guess we'll have to go on quarter-rations from now," said the

Halfbreed, a few days later. He ranged far and wide, looking for game,

but never a sign did he see. Once, indeed, we heard a shot. Eagerly we

waited his return, but all he had got was a great, grey owl, which we

cooked and ate ravenously.