  Murky Nichols was a changed man. His spirit had been broken. No longer he assumed his defiant attitude, his blustering, cock-sure manner. His sins had found him out. He had been caught in the toils of the long-reaching arm of the police. Whenever he was spoken to, he answered in monosyllables. For the most part, he sat brooding, eyes downcast, tormented by his thoughts. A short time before the police party prepared for its departure, he stirred from his lethargy and beckoned to Sergeant Richardson. “There’s a few things I’d like to tell yuh. I know what yuh all think—that I’ve always been a bad egg an’ a crook. Yuh believe I’ve been runnin’ stolen fur through to the coast here fer a good many years. But that ain’t the truth.” “What is the truth?” inquired Richardson. “First, Sergeant, I’d like tuh ask yuh a question. How long do yuh think it’s been since I found out about the pass?” “I can’t imagine, Murky. Tell me.” “Eight years,” replied the outlaw. “It was eight years ago that I found it.” “You found it?” “Yeh,” drawled Nichols. “It was me. I was prospectin’ then an’, whether yuh believe it or not. I’d always been honest—never done a wrong thing. It was in the spring o’ the year. I’d been havin’ some hard luck the previous summer, pannin’ gold up along the Lobstick River. I was broke all the followin’ winter an’ when spring come Wandley staked me to a grubstake fer another try at gettin’ back what I’d lost. “Durin’ the winter I had talked with an ol’ Indian, who used to live on Settlement River. He told me that about twenty years before a white prospector had made a big strike in the foothills west o’ Settlement Mountain. I decided to go there, though as a usual thing I don’t put much stock in these yarns o’ the Nitchies. “So jus’ before the first big thaw, I slips out there, while the frost is still in the ground an’ builds me a small shack. Mebbe yuh saw it—a little way back from the ravine that yuh come into before reachin’ the pass. Well, I prospected through that country an’ one day I struck it rich. Nothin’ very big, sergeant, but it looked good to me then. I had nearly two thousand in gold by midsummer. I was able to square my account with Wandley, an’ I had a nice little nest egg to keep me goin’. “One day, lookin’ for new pockets, I slipped down into the ravine an’ begins to follow it up. I kept movin’ westward an’ after a while I reached the end an’ saw that big crevice in the rock. Bein’ kind o’ curious, I walked through an’ came out into the pass.” The gloomy face of the big prospector brightened perceptibly. He paused, mumbling to himself. Just then he was living in the past. “At first, I couldn’t hardly believe what I seen. Here was a big valley in the very heart o’ the mountains. I remembered the ol’ Nitchie yarn about Blind Man’s Pass. I began wonderin’ if this was it. I made up my mind that it wouldn’t do no harm to investigate. I spent two weeks out there an’ finally when I went back to Wandley’s, I had a secret. I knew that ’most everybody would be glad to hear the good news. “The first man I see at Wandley’s is O’Connell. He’s been busy all summer freightin’ supplies. I guess he’d about cornered ever’ available pack-horse in the country. Him an’ Hart, ’count o’ the bad condition of the trails, wasn’t makin’ very good headway. O’Connell tells me he has thousands o’ pounds to take out, an’ no way to do it. He has a big shipment ready to send ’round to the coast but don’t durst tackle it. “‘Which way yuh going?’ I asks. “‘Yellowhead Pass,’ he answers. “‘Kind o’ long trip,’ I says. “‘Yeh, it sure is,’ O’Connell shoot back. ‘An’ I dread it. The trails down that way is mighty near impassable.’ “It was jus’ on the tip o’ my tongue to tell him about my discovery, when somethin’ makes me change my mind. There’d be nothin’ in it fer me if I tells what I knew, an’ besides I figgered I ought to be paid fer all the trouble I’d been put to. So I says to him: “‘O’Connell, what’ll yuh give me if I take that stuff through fer yuh?’ “He didn’t answer right away, ’cause he thought I was jokin’. He winked at Wandley an’ laughed. “‘Yuh wouldn’t get very far,’ he tells me. “‘Mebbe not,’ I says to him, ‘but I’m willin’ to take the chance. Jus’ name your price.’ “‘If yuh really mean it,’ O’Connell gasps, ‘yuh can have the whole blamed contract an’ good luck to yuh. The summer rains have made the trails so bad that I won’t be able to get through fer another month.’ “We talked an’ figgered fer a while an’ finally I gets the contract. I’m to get nine hundred dollars an’ keep seven hundred fer myself. I could tell by the way he acted that he thought he’d beat me pretty bad in the deal. So did everybody else. They was all laughin’ up their sleeves, thinkin’ about what a fool I had made o’ myself. Wandley calls me to one side. “‘Murky,’ he says, ‘yuh jus’ made a hasty contract. Yuh better change your mind before it’s too late. You’ll lose all the money yuh made up in the hills this summer an’ mebbe a lot more besides. O’Connell knows he can’t make a cent on that west coast shipment, an’ you’re playin’ right in his hands. Yuh better see him now before he leaves an’ tell him you’ve changed your mind.’ “‘What would you like to bet I can’t make it?’ I asks him. “‘You may be able to make it, but you’ll lose money. Don’t try it, Murky. Yuh ain’t no packer to begin with. It stands to reason that if O’Connell is afraid o’ it, it’s no good.’ “I thanked him, but I stuck to the contract in spite of what everybody said. I bought some pack-horses an’ O’Connell lent me five o’ his. My greatest trouble was to find packers I could trust to keep their mouths shut about the pass. You see, I wanted to keep that a secret. It took me nearly two weeks to get my crew together an’ load up the stuff. “In order to deceive everybody,” Murky resumed after a short pause, “we started out in broad daylight over the regular trail leading to the Yellowhead. They all jeered at us when we left Wandley’s. Two days out, we left the trail, circled back, an’ then one dark night slipped down into the ravine an’ entered the pass.” At this point, Sergeant Richardson interrupted the narrator. “To whom was the shipment consigned?” he asked. “To a free trader named Bentley,” Nichols promptly replied. “He was jus’ opening up a new tradin’ post in the Goose Lake country.” “Well,” Murky continued, “we made a quick trip. I was able to pay my packers almost double what they generally got. Comin’ back, we took plenty o’ time so as to make it appear that we had gone by the Yellowhead route. But even at that, we was weeks ahead o’ the schedule. O’Connell nearly fell out o’ his skin. He didn’t know what to say an’ neither did Wandley. O’Connell offered me other contracts an’ fer two years I made some easy money. Then one day he comes to me, an’ by the look on his face, I could see somethin’ was up. “‘Look here, Murky,’ he says, ‘there’s somethin’ wrong about all this. I’ve been watchin’ yuh. Yuh ain’t been takin’ none o’ the stuff through the Yellowhead. What yuh been doin’ with it?’ “‘I don’t know as that’s any o’ your business,’ I comes back. ‘As long as the shipments reaches their destination, yuh ain’t got no kick.’ “‘Yuh’ve found a shorter route,’ accused O’Connell. “‘Well, what if I have?’ “‘It ain’t fair to the shipper,’ he says. ‘Suppose it leaks out that he’s payin’ all this extra mileage. What’ll happen to me?’ “‘It don’t never need to leak out,’ I said. “But O’Connell is hot-headed, an’ he informs me that he’s through. He goes away in a huff, an’ I don’t see him again fer nearly a week. Then he comes over an’ tries to make a dicker with me. “‘How much cash money will yuh take to show me your route?’ he says, fingerin’ a roll o’ bills. ‘This thing has gone far enough.’ “‘I ain’t in the markey today,’ I told him a little huffy. ‘Yuh can do your own west coast packin’ over any route that yuh like. I won’t even listen to yuh.’ “He offered me fifteen hundred dollars but I refused. Finally he goes away, an’ fer nearly a year packs his own stuff through the Yellowhead, nursin’ a sore spot in his chest. In a way, it was kind o’ hard on me too. It had got so that I depended on the money I received from him fer the work I did. After a while, my capital dwindled down to jus’ a few hundred dollars. I could see I had to go back to work. “Along about that time, a Nitchie breaks into the warehouse at Fort Point o’ Call an’ steal a lot of valuable fur. One o’ my packers heard it. The thief was a friend o’ his. He had the stuff cached up in the foothills but was afraid to move it for fear he’d get caught.” Murky ceased speaking and sat for several minutes deep in thought. Then he turned upon Sergeant Richardson. “Yuh see, I was gettin’ kind o’ desperate, sergeant. This was a big temptation. My money was runnin’ low. I thought it over fer a long time an’ finally made a dicker with the thief. I agreed to take the fur off his hands an’ dispose of it, gettin’ one-third o’ the money fer my trouble. “We didn’t have no difficulty at all takin’ the fur through the pass, an’ less than three weeks later I had the money it brought safe in my pocket. The man what bought the fur was a free trader who had been in on some shady deals before, an’ I knew he’d keep his mouth shut. “I guess the money sort o’ turned my head. It was all so easy an’ simple, that I encouraged the half-breed to try his luck again. The second time we was successful. Then I went into the business wholesale. I got my packers to steal too. Ever’ man I hired was a crook. I needed a good confederate so I made a proposition to La Qua an’ he accepted it. Pretty soon I had agents all over the country. “My business grew like a snowball rollin’ down hill. It seemed like I couldn’t stop it. I laid my plans so well, it was pretty hard fer yuh fellows to catch me. I made friends with Hart an’ O’Connell again, agreein’ to take out their shipments at a reduced rate. When they accepted my offer, they didn’t know I was usin’ them as a sort o’ screen to hide my real work—to keep yuh mounties guessin’. “In the last two years I’ve made close to two hundred thousand dollars. I was takin’ out stolen fur on such a big scale that it didn’t seem wise to sell to the free traders any longer. It was too dangerous. So I went to Seattle an’ made arrangements with Captain Reynolds to come up here with his yacht several times durin’ the year. I built the wharf an’ warehouse. I think ever’thing would be all right today if—if—” “Yes,” encouraged the policeman. “If—” “If it hadn’t been fer Daddy McInness,” Nichols concluded. “I’m not so sure about that,” Corporal Rand cut in. “We’ve been suspicious of you for a long time, Murky. The death of Daddy Mclnness merely brought matters to a head. Murder is a terrible thing, Nichols.” At mention of the word, the prospector went suddenly deathly white. “I didn’t kill him!” he croaked. “Before God, I tell yuh—” The sentence ended in a groan. Murky turned his head guiltily and looked into the slowly dying fire. For a long time he sat, eyes fixed sombrely on the darkening mass. It was symbolic of his own case—charred hopes and the ashes of defeat, where once had burned brightly the consuming flames of avarice. |
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