PAGE 2
The Brand
by
When he had prepared and eaten his lunch he seated himself before his panning-tub, a square box half filled with water melted from the creek ice, and began the process of testing his prospect.
Having worked down the gravel and sediment to a half-handful, he spread it with a movement of his wrists, leaving stranded at the tail of the black sand a few specks of yellow. These he eyed for a moment before washing them away.
“Too light–as usual,” he said, aloud. The dogs stirred and raised their heads. “Always pretty near, but not quite. But it’s here, somewhere, and I’ll get it if I can last out this damned silence. That rim-rock didn’t lie. And old Pitka didn’t lie, either. Nobody lies except–women.” He scowled at some remembrance, his whole face retreated behind a bristling mask of ferocity. He sat motionless over the tub of muddy water until the fire died out of the stove and the chill warned him that it was time to resume work.
For many weeks–how many McGill neither knew nor cared–he had pursued the routine of his search. He had penetrated this valley alone, unseen, in the late autumn, and every day since then he had labored steadily, mechanically, almost without physical sensation, for all feeling was centered in his memory, which never gave him time to consider his surroundings. Spring was coming now–the sun was already peeping over the southern hills in the middle of its daily journey–and during this time there had been but two interruptions which had roused him from his apathy. One had occurred when, in quest of fresh meat, he had discovered that he had neighbors ten miles to the west. He had seen their camp from the divide, then had turned and slunk away, cursing them for intruding upon his privacy. The other was when a herd of caribou had crossed. At that time he had given brief rein to his desire to kill, seeing ahead of his sights the face of the man who had sent him into the wilderness. He could have bagged half the herd, but checked himself in time, realizing that it was not Barclay at whom he leveled his rifle, but defenseless animals, the carcasses of which were useless.
Barclay! The name maddened McGill. He wondered dully why he continued to work so steadily when Barclay had robbed him of the need for gold. The answer to this, he supposed, was easier than the answer to those other questions that forever troubled him–he had to do something or die of his thoughts, and he knew no other work than this. Even in his busiest hours memories of Barclay and the woman obtruded themselves.
It was after dark when he had fired the hole a second time and returned to his cabin. He had not reached bed-rock and this fact irritated him–he was growing very irritable, it seemed. Lighting his pipe of rank “sheep-dip” tobacco when the supper-dishes were finally cleaned and the dogs fed, he once more prepared for the profitless process of panning. But he noticed that this sample of gravel was different to any he had yet found, being of a peculiar ashen color. He felt it with practised fingers and discovered it to be gritty and full of sediment.
“Feels good,” he said, aloud, “but I’ll bet it’s barren.”
He had panned so many samples that all eagerness, all curiosity as to the outcome, had long since disappeared, therefore his movements were purely perfunctory as he dissolved the clay lumps and washed the gravels down. He paused half-way through the operation to dry his hands and relight his pipe, then fell to thinking of Barclay and the woman once more, and remained so for a long time. When he resumed his task it was with glazed, unseeing eyes. He was about to dump the last dregs carelessly when something just slipping over the edge of the pan caught his eye and caused him to tilt the receptacle abruptly.