Hetty recognized the tension in his voice, and something that seemed to answer it thrilled in her; but she still protested, and the man, who flung an arm about her waist, swung her off her feet. He did not let her go until he set her down, flushed and gasping, among the pines outside.

Then she laughed. "I'm not sure you could have done that in England, Walter."

"No," said Ingleby. "Anyway, you wouldn't have let me, but we can't stop to talk now. Esmond may come back at any time, and there is a good deal to do." He turned from her suddenly. "You have got those fellows'

carbines?"

"Oh yes," said another man. "We'd better bring along their cartridges and heave them in the river too. We haven't hurt either of them much, considering."

Ingleby signed to the rest, though he still held Hetty's arm. "Now," he said, "the sooner we light out of this the better it will be for everybody."

XXVII

THE BLOCKADE

The moon was high above the white peaks, and a stinging frost was in the air, when Ingleby and Leger sat a little apart from a snapping fire behind a great redwood trunk that had been felled across the trail in the constricted entrance to the canon. It was wide of girth, and lay supported on the stumps of several splintered branches breast-high above the soil, with the rest of its spreading limbs piled about it in tremendous ruin. On the side where the fire was some of them had been hewn away, and a handful of men lounged smoking in the hollow between them and the trunk. Another man stood upon the tree, apparently looking down the valley, with his figure cutting blackly against the blueness of the night.

Sewell leaned against a shattered branch a few feet away from Ingleby, gazing about him reflectively. He noticed that the great b.u.t.t of the fir was jammed against the slope of rock that ran up overhead, too steep almost for the snow to rest upon it, and that the top of the tree was in the river some twenty yards away. The stream frothed and roared about it in a wild white rapid, though long spears of crackling ice stretched out behind the boulders, and there was a tremendous wall of rock on the farther side. It was absolutely unscalable, and from the crest of it ranks of clinging pines rolled backwards up a slope that was almost as steep.

It was evident that n.o.body coming from the police outpost or the commissioner's dwelling could approach the fallen tree except by the trail in front, and on that side the branches formed an entanglement an agile man would have some difficulty in scrambling through, even if n.o.body desired to prevent him, while two or three of the men beside the fire had rifles with them. The rest had axes. Sewell, who noticed all this, glanced towards them thoughtfully. He could not see their faces, but their silence had its significance, and there was a vague suggestion of resolution in their att.i.tudes. Most of them were men of singularly unyielding temperament, who had grappled with hard rock and primeval forest from their youth up.

"It is a tolerably strong position, and it's the strength of it that particularly pleases me," he said. "If there were any prospect of his getting in Esmond would no doubt try it. As it is, he will probably find it advisable to stop outside and compromise."

"I'm glad you're satisfied," said Leger. "Still, it's a little unfortunate you were not here this morning. In that case we might have found some other means of getting over the difficulty, though I'm not sure that there was any."

Ingleby glanced sharply at Leger. His face was clear in the moonlight, and it was expressionless, but his tone had been suggestively dry, and for just a moment an unpleasant fancy flashed upon Ingleby. It was certainly unfortunate that Sewell, whom everybody looked to for guidance, had been away that day, and the fact might have had significance for any one who doubted him. Ingleby, however, had unshaken confidence in the man and thrust the thought from him. Sewell smiled as he turned to Leger.

"I was looking for a deer," he said. "Anyway, you had Ingleby."

"Ingleby," said Leger, "is usually where he's wanted. Some men have that habit. It's a useful one, though I'm afraid I haven't acquired it. In fact, I fancy I'm rather like Trooper Probyn. He was addicted to turning up just when it would have been better for everybody if he had stayed away."

He turned from them somewhat abruptly and strolled towards the men about the fire, while Sewell looked thoughtful as he filled his pipe.

"Leger doesn't appear to be in a particularly pleasant mood, but he's right in one respect," he said. "It would have been a good deal better if he and Hetty had been anywhere else when Esmond turned up at the bakery. Of course, they couldn't help it, but the result of it is going to be serious. It is not exactly convenient that the thing should have happened now."

Ingleby made a gesture of comprehension as he glanced towards the men about the fire. Their big axes gleamed suggestively, and the rifle of the man upon the tree twinkled coldly where the moonlight rested on the line of barrel.

"It's all of it unfortunate," he said deprecatingly. "I suppose I'm responsible--but I don't quite see what else anybody could have expected me to do. I couldn't leave Hetty in Esmond's hands. It was out of the question. The police wouldn't have much difficulty in making her out an accessory."

Sewell smiled. "That was all that occurred to you?"

"Yes," said Ingleby. "I think so. I don't seem to remember anything else. Anyway, it was sufficient."

He made a little forceful gesture which suggested even more plainly than what he said that the thought of leaving Hetty exposed to any peril was intolerable.

"And you inconsequently decided to put up a bluff of this kind on the British nation because Esmond might involve in difficulties a girl with whom you are not in love. I'm presuming you are not in love with her?"

Ingleby seemed a trifle disconcerted. "No," he said sharply. "Of course I'm not. What made you suggest it?"

Sewell laughed. "Well," he said, "for one thing, if you had been in love with her, you could scarcely have done anything that would have made the fact clearer."

There was silence for a minute or two, and Ingleby leaned upon the tree with his thoughts in confusion. He was not in love with Hetty Leger, but it was certainly a fact that her arrest had filled him with an almost unaccountable consternation. He also remembered the curious little laugh with which she had clung to him, and that it had stirred him as no trifling favour Grace Coulthurst had ever shown him had done. The commissioner's daughter had, however, certainly never leaned upon his shoulder with her arms about him, though he had on one occasion, when she was half-frozen, practically carried her into her father's dwelling.

The thought of it was, in a curious fashion, almost distasteful, as well as preposterous. His regard for her was largely that of a devotee, an aesthetic respect which would have made any display of purely human proclivities on the part of the G.o.ddess a trifle disconcerting.

There are men like Ingleby whose life is, partly from inclination and partly from force of circ.u.mstances, in some respects one of puritanical simplicity, especially in the back blocks of England's colonies; and, startled by Sewell's suggestion, he tried to reason with himself as he leaned against the tree. He remembered now how he had thrilled to the girl's touch as, half-crying and half-laughing, she had rested in his arms a few hours ago, and he could not admit the almost unpleasant explanation that this was because they were man and woman. Still, he had felt her heart beating upon his breast, and something in his nature had, it seemed to him, awakened and throbbed in response to it. It was, he felt, not sensual pa.s.sion; it was not love, since it was Grace Coulthurst he loved; and his confusion grew more confounded as he vainly strove to cla.s.sify it. Ingleby, as one who did the obvious thing, and was usually doing something unless he was asleep, had seldom been led into any attempt to unravel the complexities of human thought and emotion. Men of his temperament are as a rule too busy for anything of the kind. It is material facts that interest them, and their achievements are usually apparent and substantial, written in that country on hard rock and forest or on the orchards and wheatfields that smile where the wilderness has been.

"Well?" said Sewell at length.

Ingleby made a little gesture. "The thing is done. Why I did it doesn't, after all, greatly matter. We have the results of it to face just now."

"Precisely! That's why I'm pleased you chose a very convenient spot to chop the tree in. There's one of them becoming apparent already."

He pointed across the fallen log, and the man who stood upon it made a little sign. The tree was in the shadow, but beyond it lay a narrow strip of moonlit snow, upon which the dusky pines closed in again. A man moved out into the strip, walking cautiously, and carrying a carbine. He stopped abruptly, dropping the b.u.t.t of it with a little thud, and, turning his head, he apparently glanced at somebody behind him.

"They've chopped a big tree right across the trail," he said.

His voice rang clearly through the nipping air, and Ingleby almost envied him as he stood unconcernedly still, a dusky, motionless object, with a blacker shadow projected in front of him on the gleaming snow.

He, at least, had no responsibility, and was there to do what he was bidden, while the law would hold him guiltless. The brief and decisive attempt on the outpost had scarcely given Ingleby cause for thought, but it was different now. There was nothing exhilarating in standing still and wondering what course the police would take, while other men have felt misgivings when brought face to face with const.i.tuted authority with arms in its hand.

Sewell in the meanwhile moved quietly towards the fire.

"You will leave this thing to me, boys," he said. "Above all, keep your hands off those rifles. It's a bluff we're putting up."

By this time several other men had moved out upon the strip of snow, and one who came up from behind walked past them and stopped not far from the tree. Ingleby could see his face in the moonlight, and recognized him as Esmond. He looked up at the man who, though he had handed his rifle to a comrade, still stood upon the log regarding him quietly.

"Well," he said, "what are you doing there?"

"Seeing that n.o.body gets over," was the uncompromising answer.

Esmond laughed, as though he had partly expected this. "There are no doubt more of you behind there. If you have one, I would prefer to talk to your recognized leader."

Sewell sprang up upon the tree. "I think I can venture to claim my comrades' confidence," he said. "In any case, I am quite willing to accept the responsibility for anything that has been done."

"You may be asked to remember that," said Esmond drily. "Do you mind explaining why you felled this tree?"

"I think the man who answered you already made that clear. To prevent anybody's getting over. Once you recognize that it would be difficult to do it without our permission, we'll go a little further."

"Then you are deliberately placing obstacles in the way of the police carrying out their duty? I warn you that it may turn out a serious matter."

Sewell laughed. "I'm not sure the question is a very happy one. It is rather too suggestive of Monday morning in England. Still, I suppose what we mean to do amounts to that, although we will have pleasure in permitting you to enter the valley when you wish, on one or two perfectly reasonable conditions."

"It remains to be seen whether you can keep us out." Esmond raised his voice a trifle. "Climb up on that log, Trooper Grieve, and let me know who Prospector Sewell has with him," he said. "You have authority to fire on anybody who tries to prevent you."

It seemed to Ingleby that Esmond had displayed a good deal of tact. He was aware that in an affair of the kind the right start counts for a good deal, and that if the miners permitted the trooper to survey their position it might lead to an unwished-for change in their att.i.tude. If they did not, it would make them the aggressors, and there was the further difficulty that they would probably shrink from offering violence to a single man.

"The trooper must not be hurt, boys, but he must not get up on the log,"