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Harold Lounsbury, of whom doubtless you have heard, and who disappeared in the Clearwater district six years ago. I will be accompanied by Mr. Lounsbury's uncle, Kenly Lounsbury, and I wish you to secure the outfit and a man to cook at once. You will be paid the usual outfitter's rates for thirty days. We will arrive in Bradleyburg September twentieth by stage. Yours sincerely, Virginia Tremont.
Rivers gleamed, marshes lay yellow and somber in the sun, the dark forests stretched until the eyes tired; but nowhere were there any homes, any villages or pastures, not a blaze upon a tree, not the smoke of a camp fire. Bradleyburg was already obliterated and lost in the depths of the woodland. The silence was incredible, as vast and infinite as the wilderness itself.
Lookout for Jeffery Neilson and his gang they seen some of my dust. I'm too sick to go to recorder in Bradleyburg and record claim. Get copy of this letter to carry, put this in some safe place. The only condition is you take good care of Fenris, the pet I raised from a pup. You'll find him and my gun at Steve Morris's. I felt myself going and just did get hear.
"He had some sort of definite plan a vacation place to go but he never told me what it was. He told me he was going into Clearwater. He had to have money he was in debt and besides, he was engaged to marry me. The last word I ever heard of him was a note he wrote from Bradleyburg. I was just a girl then and I've waited ever since.
Long ago the wilderness had claimed him for its own; his home was the dark forest from which even now he was emerging. Bradleyburg was simply his source of supplies and his post office, the market for his furs. He had reached back and stroked the warm nose of his horse. "Another half mile, old fellow," he said gently.
If we were on the other side of the river, and we had horses, we could push through and get out easy enough. But we haven't got horses even Buster is drowned and it would be a hard fight to carry supplies and blankets on our backs, for the long hike down into Bradleyburg. It would likely be too much for you. Besides, the river lays between.
Some of them were faithful and trustworthy animals, but many were half-broken, many cowardly and vicious. On those he rented he took the risk; he would be charged on the books for all those that were not returned to their owners at Bradleyburg by October twentieth.
For a few days Bill and Virginia had been captives in the cabin, and they held high revels in celebration of their completion. Now they could go forth into the drifts again. It did not mean, however, that the time was ripe for them to take their sled and mush into Bradleyburg. The snow was still too soft for long jaunts.
It was not the first time that people of the forest had paused on the hill at twilight to look down on Bradleyburg. The sight always seemed to intrigue and mystify the wild folk, the shadowed street, the spire of the moldering church ghostly in the half-light, the long row of unpainted shacks, and the dim, pale gleam of an occasional lighted window.
But Bill Bronson had a higher law than self. Long ago, in front of the ramshackle hotel in Bradleyburg, he had given a promise; and he had reaffirmed it in the gleam of the Northern Lights not many nights before. There was no one to hold him to his pledged word. There were none that need know; no one to whom he must answer but his own soul.
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