had emigrated to the West a couple of years before and found the hunting life in the mountains more to his taste than straightforward labour, at once volunteered to accompany him. The offer was eagerly accepted, for it seemed suicidal to go alone, and as Dan had proved himself to be companionable, a clever shot, and well versed in hunting craft, the time had glided pleasantly away without their once encountering a soul.
Two men with a similarity of tastes cannot chum together in a little tent here and there in the mountains without becoming confidential, hence it was that before long George Harrington pretty well knew his companion’s impecunious history – that is, as much as he chose to tell, and on the other hand, not only had Portway, apparently without pumping, learned Harrington’s position, but had received an invitation to accompany him to England.
“Have another day,” Portway would say laughingly; “at present you are free. Who can say when you will enjoy such another succession of climbs as you have out here.”
“True,” Harrington said thoughtfully.
“When you get back, of course, it will be pleasant to inherit the money; but what about the wife?”
“Well,” said Harrington sternly, “what about her?”
“I mean,” said Portway hastily, “how do you know what she may be like? Take another view of the case – pass me the tobacco pouch – I am a selfish man as well as a poor one. You are giving me a delightful trip, finding me in food, a horse, rifle and ammunition, everything I could wish for, including a glass of prime old Bourbon whiskey. So I say, let’s keep it on as long as we can. By the way, how long have we been out here?”
“Going on for six weeks.”
“Which are like six days.”
“Ah, well,” said Harrington over and over again, “we will not give up yet.”
This conversation, or one very similar, occurred again and again before the day waned.
Dan Portway sat with his chin in his hands gazing down at the sleeping figure in the shade.
When Dan Portway smiled, his was a pleasant though rather a coarse face, and his changeful life had made him a man full of information, but when he did not smile his face was not a pleasant one, vice in more than one form having left its mark. When he looked at Harrington waking, he invariably smiled; but Harrington was sleeping, and Dan Portway did not smile now.
But he sat thinking of his companion’s prospects – wealth, a handsome wife, a life of luxury – and compared these prospects with his own. As he watched the sleeper’s frank, sun-browned face, he recalled everything he had told him about home, his father and grandfather. He noted the ring upon his finger – a heavy gold circle roughly beaten out of a piece of virgin gold. He took in his lineaments, and compared their ages, and he thought of the letters Harrington had among his traps in the tent miles away beneath the pines.
There were other little things, too, there in the saddlebags, all of which seemed to fit in with a misty chaotic set of ideas which floated through his brain. Lastly, his eyes seemed to be fascinated by his companion’s breast as he lay there with his head thrown back, his flannel shirt all open at the collar and chest, and as he gazed a ray of sunlight shot between the boughs, and fell right upon the white skin.
Dan Portway leaned a little more forward, and his gaze grew more intent, till all at once he let himself fall sidewise on the soft pine-needles.
For Harrington had made a restless motion, and then suddenly sprung up.
“Oh, hang it!” he cried. “Hi! Dan – bears!”
“Eh? Where?” cried Portway, in an excited whisper, as he rose to his knees and grasped the rifle at his side.
“In Noah’s ark, for aught I know,” cried Harrington, laughing. “Don’t seem as if we’re to find a grizzly. I just woke up in time to spoil your dinner.”
“What do you mean?”
“Cannibal dinner. I was being roasted. Sun is hot.”
As he spoke he gave his breast a vicious rub and buttoned the collar of his shirt.
“Come along. We’ll go round the other side of the hill and get back to camp. No bear to-day, but we may get a sheep.”
“All right,” was the reply; and Dan Portway’s countenance seemed to have been transformed; “will you lead?”
“Yes,” said the other, as he carefully examined his rifle, while Portway’s eyes contracted, and he glanced at his own rifle as if he were calculating odds.
“Come along, old chap, we’ve a long road to go,” said Harrington, as he led the way.
“Yes,” said Portway beneath his breath, as, instead of walking boldly and uprightly, he seemed to slouch along behind his companion.
The climb was so stiff, and in places so dangerous, that for some time after no word was spoken. But at last they reached a shelf on the mountain, running along by a profound ravine, down to the bottom of which it was possible to climb, but the task was risky.
“Bad to tumble here, Dan,” said Harrington suddenly.
“Yes,” said the other, with an involuntary shiver, and he drew nearer to his companion, who suddenly stopped at a projecting portion of the shelf, and, shading his eyes, began to scan the prospect toward where, in a perfect chaos of rocks, the sinking sun was gilding the glorious scene.
“We can easily get round to camp this way,” said Harrington, after a few moments, and he took a step or two onward. “Mind how you come, Dan. Hist! No gammon. Bears, by Jove?”
He pointed to a spot not a dozen yards away, where there were unmistakable traces of a grizzly having made his lair, and dragging round the little glass which hung from his shoulder, he adjusted it as he rested his rifle against the rock, raised it to his eyes, and began to search the hills and hollows for the game they sought.
He was leaning quite over the gulch, which fell almost perpendicularly beneath them, his back to Portway, who was behind, and who, acting upon the sudden impulse born of his cogitations while the other slept, suddenly raised his rifle with both hands back over his head, and drove the plated butt with all his force crash upon his companion’s head.
There was a wild cry, and the next moment Portway was leaning forward at the very edge of the precipice gazing down at the fallen body, which plunged and rolled, and then stopped upon a mass of rock, two hundred feet below, motionless.
Portway seemed as if turned to stone for the moment, then, rifle in hand, he ran back a dozen yards, and began to descend, slipping, leaping, and displaying wondrous activity in the perilous descent, till he reached the spot where George Harrington lay, and examined the inanimate form, seeing that the eyes were closed and that the blood was welling from a terrible gash over the eyes.
Portway raised his rifle, lowered it, shook his head, and glanced round, before standing the piece against the side of the precipice, as he saw that below them the gulch went down sheer at least five hundred feet.
Then, bending over his victim, he tore open his breast, gazed for a few moments at the blue stain, which stood out plainly on the white skin, and then rapidly emptied the pockets of his trousers. As he did so his eyes fell again on the glittering plain gold ring upon Harrington’s finger. This he hurriedly transferred to his own, seeing as he did so that a name
