It would have been easy to shoot Strangeways at that time, and he must have known it; yet, he was so much a gentleman that he accepted the risk, and had the decency to turn his back when circumstances compelled him to give a man the lie. Granger wondered whether courtesy was the motive; or whether he was only testing him out of curiosity, to see of what fresh vulgarity of deceit he was capable.
As he stood in the doorway, his gaze wandered from the broad shoulders of Corporal Strangeways, late stroke of the 'Varsity Eight, to the treacherous eyes of the gaunt grey beast before him which, by reason of its unusual markings and untimely appearance, had once and forever thrown Spurling's game away. There was something Satanic and suggestive of evil about those green and jasper eyes, and the manner in which they blinked out upon him from the furious yellow head. Were they prompting him to crime, saying, "Why don't you fire? He can't defend himself; see, his back is turned?" No, not that. He half-believed that the brute was endowed with human intelligence, and had betrayed his late master of set purpose—perhaps, in revenge for the many beatings he had received on the trail from Selkirk to Murder Point. There was a vileness in the creature's look that was degrading and stirredup hatred—and surely, the lowest kind of enmity which can be entertained by man is toward a unit of the dumb creation. That he should feel so, humiliated and angered Granger. Was there not enough of ignominy for him to endure without that? He drew his revolver, took aim at this yellow devil—but could not fire. The beast did not cringe and run away, zigzagging to avoid the bullets, stooping low on its legs, as is the habit of huskies when firearms are pointed at them; it sat there patiently blinking, a little in advance of its four grey comrades, with a mingled expression of amusement and boredom in its attitude, like a sleepy old bachelor uncle at a Christmas entertainment when Clown and Harlequin commence their threadbare jests and fooleries. He might have been yawning and saying to himself, "Hang it all! Why do I stay? I know the confounded rubbish by heart—all that these fellows will do and say."
Granger's hand dropped to his side; this wolf-dog looked so far from ignorant—so much wiser than himself. Could it be that he also was playing in the game? Was it possible that he also was intent on helping Spurling? Well, then, he should have his chance.
For himself the season for deception was at an end; he had lied to gain time for the fugitive, now let him see what truth could effect. He waded through the snow to Strangeways, tapped him on the shoulder, and was made painfully aware of the opinion held of him by the way in which the corporal screwed his shoulder aside.
"I suppose I seem to you a pretty mean kind of a beast?"
"I suppose you do."
"I seem so to myself; but I have an excuse to make—that this man once saved my life."
"So you're a hero in disguise?"
"No, but I couldn't go back on a man who had done that."
"I fail to see that that is a reason why you should have lied."
"I called it an excuse."
"In this case the words mean the same."
"Well, then, I had a reason: if the person whom Spurling murdered is the person whom I . . ."
"Indeed! So you knew that much, did you?" At mention of the word "murdered," Strangeways had swung fiercely round and confronted Granger.
"Yes, I know that much. And if the man whom Spurling murdered is the man whom I suspect him to be, I had intended to dispense with law and to exact the penalty slowly, up here whence there is no escape, myself."
"Then you'll be sorry to hear that you've lied to no purpose. The person whom Spurling murdered was not a man, you damned scoundrel."
Strangeways turned sharply away from him, and, moving as briskly on his snowshoes as the unpacked state of the snow would allow, commenced methodically to go about the store in ever widening circles. He evidently suspected that the fugitive was still in hiding there, or had been at the time of his arrival, and had since escaped, in which case the snow would bear traces of his flight. When he had searched the mound in vain, he turned his attention to the river-bed where his team of dogs was stationed. Granger, watching him from above, saw that he had halted suddenly and was bending down. Then he heard himcalling his dogs together and saw him harnessing them quickly into his sledge. Panic seized him lest Strangeways should drive away without telling him the name ofthis thing, which was not a man, which Spurling had murdered, andwhether the deed had been done in the Klondike. Also he was curious to see for himself what it was that he had found in the snow down there, which made him so eager to set out. He ploughed his way down the hillside, breaking through the surface and slipping as he ran, till he arrived out of breath at the river-bank. Then he saw the meaning of this haste; approaching the Point from the northward was a muffled track, partially obliterated by the snow which had since fallen, which, on reaching Murder Point, doubled back, returning northward whence the traveller had come. It meant to Granger that, while he and Strangeways had been seated together recalling old times in the store, Spurling had come back. For what reason? No man would fight his way through a blizzard without good purpose; he would lie down where he was till the storm had spent itself, lest he should wander from his trail. This man had everything to lose by turning back. Then he discovered that the snow was speckled with dots of black, and, stooping down, discerned that they were drops of blood. Some of the blood-marks were fresh; the tracks themselves had been made, perhaps, within the last three hours. Spurling must have met with an accident, and, returning to the Point for help, had seen the stranger's dogs and sledge, and turning northwards again had fled. So thought Granger.
Strangeways, in the meanwhile, was examining the feet of his leader. Presently he stood erect, and asked in a low voice, "Did you do that?"
"What?"
"Look for yourself."
Granger looked, and saw that the balls of the leader's forefeet had been gashed several times with a knife.
"How should I have done it?" he replied. "I've been in your company every minute since you arrived."
"Who did it, then?"
"You know as well as I."
"And what do you think of a man who could do that?"
"That he was very desperate."
"I should call him a Gadarene swine."
Strangeways stood in angry thought for a few seconds; then he jerked up his head, and asked, "Can you lend me another team of huskies? Be careful when you answer that you tell me the truth this time."
Granger smiled at the childishness of such threatening.
"You will gain nothing by speaking like that," he said. "Unfortunately for you, unlike Spurling, I am not afraid of death—I should welcome it. Yet, while I live, I am curious; therefore I will promise you help on one condition, that you tell me who has been murdered, and where."
Strangeways lifted his eyes and surveyed Granger, asking himself, "And is this statement also a lie?" But, when he spoke there were the beginnings of a new respect in his voice. "So you are not afraid of death?" he said. "Well, then, I owe you an apology for what I have called you, for I am; I am horribly afraid. I am afraid that I shall die before I have avenged this death."
"Tell me, who was it that was killed?" cried Granger, impatiently. "Was it a girl? There was a girl whom I loved in the Klondike; you don't know how you make me suffer."
"Don't I?" replied Strangeways, grimly; and then with affected indifference, "There are a good many girls in the Klondike; the body of this one was found washed ashore near Forty-Mile."
"What's her name?"
"That's what I'm here to find out."
"Did Spurling know that she was a woman when he shot her?"
"So you know that also—that he shot her? Whether he knew, I don't care; the fact remains that she is dead and that he is suspected."
"Only suspected?"
"Well, . . ."
"By God!" cried Granger, bringing down his fist in Strangeways' face, "but you shall tell me! Was her name Mordaunt, and was she his partner, and did she wear a man's disguise?"
Strangeways turned his head and dodged aside so that the blow fell lightly; drawing his revolver, he covered his opponent. Granger advanced close up, until the barrel of the revolver touched his face; then he halted and waited.
Strangeways watched him; looked into his eyes amazed; then lowered his weapon and laughed nervously. "Oh," he said, "I remember, you are not afraid of death."
"But I am of madness and suspense."
Strangeways did not reply at once. Perhaps a sudden understanding had dawned on him, pity and a vision of what it meant to live through the eternal Now at Murder Point. He may have been asking himself, "For the lack of one small untruth, shall I thrust this man into Hell?" At any rate, when he answered he spokegently. "No," he said, "she wore a woman's dress; be sure of it, your girl-friend is safe up there."
Granger looked at him steadily, wondering why he should have lied; than he took his hand and pressed it in the English manner, "I believe you," he said. Yet, at the back of his mind a voice was persistently questioning, "Do I believe him? But can I believe that?"
He was interrupted in his thoughts by Strangeways saying, "It's a pity that that poor brute should suffer; he's certain to die."
The corporal went near, levelled his revolver and shot the leader between the eyes. The bullet did its work; the dog shivered, and tottered, rolled over on its side, tried to rise again, then stretched itself out wearily as if for sleep at the end of a hard day's travel.
"You can do that for a mere husky," said Granger bitterly; "but you refuse to do it for a man."
"The husky had a harsh time of it in this world and has no other life."
"If that's so, he's to be congratulated; but there was the more reason why he should have been allowed to live his one life out. We wretched men are never done with life; if I were sure that there was only one existence and no reproaches in a future world, I could be brave to the end. It's this repetition of mortality, which men call immortality, that staggers my intellect, making me afraid—afraid lest there is no death."
Strangeways shrugged his shoulders and scowled. He did not like the subject—it caused him discomfort; there was so much left for him in life. He planned, when he had captured Spurling and seen him safely hanged, to buy himself out of the Mounted Police, return to England, and there live pleasantly at his clubin London and as squire on his estate. He would marry, he told himself; and though not the girl whom he had most desired, for he believed her to be dead, yet, like a sensible man, some other girl, who would be his friend, and bear his children, and make him happy. If once he could get out of Keewatin, having performed his duty honourably, he would do all that—when Spurling had been captured alive or dead.
Therefore he broke in on Granger roughly, inquiring, "Where are those huskies which you are going to lend me?"
"They are Spurling's huskies which he left behind when I lent him mine."
"How long ago was that?—If they're Spurling's, they must be pretty well played out."
"They are. They've rested for thirty hours more or less; but I don't think you'll manage to catch him up with them."
"Perhaps not, but I'll try; he can't be more than three hours ahead."
"Three hours with a fresh team is as good as three days."
"You forget the difference between the two men."
"No, I don't, for the one has the memory of his crime."
"It's the memory of his crime that'll wear him out, and that same memory that'll give me strength."
"Why? What makes you hate him so? Supposing he did kill a woman, it may have been an accident. She may even have felt grateful for the bullet, as I should have done just now had you shot me dead. It's horrible to kill anyone, but then the poor devil's fleeing for his life and he's suffering a thousand times more pain than he inflicted."
"Is he? Does he suffer the pain of the man who follows behind? Supposing a certain man had loved that woman and had lost her, and had planned all his life on the off-chance of meeting her again, dreaming of her day and night, and then had suddenly learnt that she was brutally dead by Spurling's hand on some God-forsaken Yukon River, where the ground was hard like iron so that no grave could be dug by the murderer, and her body froze to marble and lay exposed all winter through the long dark days, with the bullet wound red in her forehead, and her grey face looking up toward the frosty sky, till the spring came and the water washed her body under and threw it up in a creek near Forty-Mile, where a year later it was discovered mutilated and defiled, do you think that her lover would be glad of that? Do you think that he would pity the black-guard who could do such a scoundrelly deed as that?"
Strangeways was speaking wildly, his voice was trembling and his face was haggard and lined; he was crying like a child. "The man who could do a deed like that," he shouted, menacing the stars with his clenched hand, "the man who could do a deed like that is so corrupt that even God would search for good in him in vain. It's the duty of every clean man to hound him off the earth. While we allow him to live, we each one share his taint. I'll pray God every day of my life that Spurling may be damned throughout the ages—eternally and pitilessly damned."
When Granger could make his voice heard, "You don't mean that she was Mordaunt?" he cried. All this talk about a woman who had been lost and loved paralleled his own case—he took it as applied to himself.
Strangeways recovered himself with an effort, "No, no," he said huskily. "Mordaunt, you have told me, was a man. I was only supposing all that."
"But Mordaunt was not a man, but a woman in man's clothing."
Strangeways closed his lips tightly together, refusing to take notice, pretending that he had not heard. Granger spoke again. "Mordaunt was not a man," he said.
"In that case," answered Strangeways, "you know what the man suffers who is following behind. I will tell you no more than that."
"You've told me enough and I will help you; only pledge me once more on your sacred word that this body was found in a woman's dress."
Strangeways hesitated; then his eyes caught again the bleakness of the land and his imagination pictured the awful loneliness of life up there. Looking full on Granger he said, "On my most sacred word as a brother-gentleman, the body that was found was clothed in a woman's dress."
"Then, thank God, she was not Mordaunt!" said Granger; "but because he knew her to be a woman at the time when he killed her, I will help you none the less."
Having called together Spurling's huskies, they found them to be too weak for travel, with the exception of the leader, therefore they harnessed in the corporal's remaining four dogs, putting the yellow-faced stranger at their head. No sooner had they turned their backs and gone inside the store to bring out the necessary provisions, than the four old dogs, jealous of their new leader, hurled themselves upon him, burying their fangsin his shaggy hair, intent on tearing him to death—an old-timer husky can stand a good deal of that. He strained on the traces, exposing to them only his hindquarters, running well ahead, and keeping his throat safe. Not until the two men had clubbed them nearly senseless did they subside into sullen quietness; and then only so long as they were watched. Once a back was turned, the four hind dogs piled on to their leader and the fight recommenced.
"You won't go far with them," said Granger. He did not notice the look of reawakened suspicion which flickered in Strangeways' eyes. "You won't go far with them; the moment you camp and that yellow-faced beast gets his chance, he'll chew your four dogs to pieces. That's what he's there for, it's my belief—he's playing Spurling's game. He'll take you fifty or a hundred miles from Murder Point, and there leave you stranded."
"What would you advise?" This was spoken in a quiet voice.
"I would advise you to wait here till the summer has come, and then to proceed by water."
"But on snow I can follow his trail, whereas travel by water leaves no traces."
"What does that matter? Instead of following him, let him return to you, as he did to-night. You've driven him up a blind alley on this Last Chance River; he can only go to the blank wall of the Bay, and then come back."
"He can reach the House of the Crooked Creek."
"And if he does, what of that? He'll be touching the blank wall then. They won't want him. The first question that they'll ask him will be, 'And what haveyou come here for?' If he can't give a satisfactory account of himself, they'll place him under arrest. When you get news of that, you can go up there and fetch him."
"And if he doesn't get so far as that?"
"You can set out by canoe and drive him back, and back, till you come to the Bay, and he can go no further."
"He might hide, and I might pass him on the way—what then?"
"In that case he'd double back and come past Murder Point, trying to get out."
"In the meanwhile I should be a hundred, two hundred miles to the northwards, travelling towards the Bay on my fool's errand, and who would be here to capture him?"
"Why, I should."
"Precisely."
Granger started; the way in which that last word had been spoken had made Strangeways' meaning manifest. He blushed like a girl at the shame of it. "Surely you don't still distrust me? You don't think me such a sneak that, having got you out of the way, I'd let him slip by and out?"
"It looks like it."
"But, man, don't you realise that our interests are the same?"
"Since when?"
"Since you told me of a woman who was done to death on a Yukon river, and lay unburied all winter till the thaw came, and her body was washed down to a creek near Forty-Mile, where it lay through the summer naked, gazed upon, uncovered, and defiled."
"I fancy you knew all that when you helped Spurling to escape."
"Yes, but I didn't know that it was a woman, and I didn't know her name."
"And you don't know her name now."
"I do; it was Jervis Mordaunt who wore a man's disguise."
"I told you that she wore a woman's dress."
"I know. I know."
"Then do you mean to tell me that I lied?"
"Perhaps, but not to accuse you. You said it out of kindness, and that was partly true which you said. You meant that the body was naked when it was found."
"If you dare to speak of her like that again, I'll choke you, and run the risk of getting hanged myself. The land has debased you, as the Yukon debased your friend. I can read you; you're still half-minded to play his game, and that's why you want to turn me back."
"Yes, I want to turn you back. Spurling's a hard-pressed man and he's dangerous. You can judge of what he is capable by what has just happened. He's cunning and, in his way, he's brave; he wouldn't scruple to take your life. Your best policy is to wait—either here or at God's Voice, as you think best. The ice will soon be unsafe to travel; already a mile from here, where the river flows rapidly round from the south-west, the part on the inside bend is rotten. I had to guide Spurling round that. At first, before I saw you and knew who you were, I was tempted not to warn you, to let you take your own chance and go on by yourself, and, perhaps, get drowned; but now, after I have seen you and after what you have told me, I can't do that."
"So you were tempted to let me drown myself, and now you are repentant?"
Granger bowed his head.
"Then I tell you that if the ice were as rotten as your soul or Spurling's, I would still follow him, though I had to follow him to Hell. If I've got to die, I'll die game—and you shan't turn me back."
Granger ran out after him, calling him to stay, offering to guide him round the danger spot in his trail. But suspicion and untruthfulness had done their work. Only once did he turn his head, when at the crack of the whip the yellow-faced leader leapt forward in his traces. Then he answered him and cried, "He killed the woman I loved, and he shall pay the price though I follow him to Hell."
So far as is known, these were the last words which Strangeways ever said.
Granger returned to his shack and, closing the door, sat down beside the stove in his accustomed place. He commenced to fill his pipe slowly, stretching out his legs as if he were preparing for a long night of late hours and thoughtfulness. But he could not rest, his whole sensitiveness was listening and alert; the muscles of his body twitched, as if rebuking him for the delay which he imposed on them. He was expecting to hear a cry; whose cry, and called forth by what agony, he did not dare to surmise, only he must get there before it was too late. Somewhere between his shack and the Forbidden River he must get before the agony began. He rose up, and putting on his capote and snowshoes hurriedly, went out following Strangeways' trail. He had no time to realise the folly of his action—this leaving of his store unguarded and setting forth without an outfit at a season of the year when, perhaps, within a week the ice would break. He did not consider how far he might have to follow before he could hope to come up with Strangeways; nor what Strangeways would think of and do with him if, turning on a sudden his head, he should see the man who had lied to him coming swiftly up behind. He would probably shoot him; but Granger in his frenzy to save Strangeways' life did not think of that. His brain was throbbingwith this one thought, that if he did not catch him up before he reached the Forbidden River, he would have seen the last of him alive which any man would ever see in this world, unless that man were Spurling.
So now there were three men spread out across the ice, two of whom followed in the other's steps. The first man was racing to preserve his own life, the second was pursuing to take it, and the third was following with all his strength that he might save the pursuer's life from danger. Of these three the last man alone had no fear of death. The other two were so eager to live, and one of them took such delight in life! Yet, Strangeways was rushing to his destruction as fast as that evil yellow-faced beast, tugging at the traces with might and main, could take him—to where beneath the ice, or in some forest ambush, lay crouched the hidden death. And if he should die, whose fault would that be? Granger was man enough to answer, "The fault would be mine. I told him untruth till he could not believe me when I spoke the truth which would save his life."
Now that he was left solitary again, he resumed that old habit of lonely men of arguing with himself. Between each hurrying stride, he panted out within his brain his unspoken words, his thoughts gasping one behind the other as if his very mind was out of breath. Why had Spurling come back? Why hadn't he killed all ten huskies outright, and so prevented Strangeways from pursuing farther until the break-up of the ice? He would have gained a month by that. His deed bore about it signs of the ineffectual cunning of the maniac; it had been only worth the doing if carried out bitterly to the end. Yet Spurling had not gone mad; he was too careful of his life and future happiness to permithimself to do that. Then he must have done it for a threat, hoping by the daring and grim humour of his brutality to strike terror into Strangeways and warn him back. Perhaps this was only one of many such experiences which had occurred all along the trail from Selkirk, and the pursuer had recognised both the motive and the challenge. Well, if you're compelled to play the game of life-taking, you may as well keep your temper, and set about it sportsmanly with a jest. Even in this horrid revelation of character there was some of the old Spurling left.
Then his thoughts turned to Strangeways. He wondered, had he lied or told the truth when he asserted that the body was not Mordaunt's which was found at Forty-Mile? He hoped for the best, but he doubted. His manner had been against it, and so had Spurling's; they had both been keeping something back. Perhaps he had lied out of jealousy, because he could not endure to think that this girl, for whom he had been searching, who now was dead, had been loved by another man—and not a worthy man either, but one whom he despised.
(Granger knew that he also would have felt like that. The mere denial of such a fact would have seemed somehow to reserve her more entirely for himself.)
He had not been able to bear the thought that, now that she was beyond reach of all men's search, her memory should be shared with him by another man with an equal quality of affection—it had seemed to him like her hand stretched out from the grave to strip him of the few mementoes of her which he had. For these reasons he might even have lied truthfully, being self-persuaded that this Jervis Mordaunt was a different girl.
Granger heartily hoped that his suspicions might be mistaken, but . . . Whatever happened he must come up with him, and ask him that question once again. Maybe last time he had not spoken plainly; Strangeways had not grasped what he meant. He could not remember how his question had been phrased, but this time it should be worded with such brutal frankness that there could be no chance of error. He would lay hold of him strongly, and clasp him about the knees so that he could not escape. He would never release his hold till his doubts had been set at rest. He would say to him quite clearly, "I loved a girl in the Klondike who called herself Jervis Mordaunt; she passed for a man, and was clothed in a Yukon placer-miner's dress. She did not know that I loved her; so you need not grieve if this murdered girl whom you loved, and the one whom I call Mordaunt, were one and the same. I fled from the Shallows where we worked together, partly in order that she might not know that. Now will you tell me, once and for all, was this girl, whom Spurling murdered, called Mordaunt? If you love God, tell me the truth and speak out. I can bear the truth, but I cannot endure this suspense."
With the careful precision of a mind uncertain of its own sanity, he repeated and re-balanced his phrases, distrusting his own exactness, fearful lest he had not chosen such words as would make his meaning plain. Ah, but by his gestures, if language failed him, he would cause him to understand. For such news, even though it should be bad news, he would pledge his honour to help Strangeways in his search for Spurling. He would even volunteer to go single-handed and capture him himself—bring him down to Murder Point by guile,where Strangeways would be waiting to take him. The best and worst which he himself could derive from such a promise would be only that he should meet with death—but he should have thought of that offer earlier, and made it while Strangeways was with him.
At that worddeaththe purpose of his present errand flared vividly in his mind, and he hurried his pace.
Looking back across his shoulder through the darkness, for the moon was under cloud, he could just make out where his store pinnacled the mound at the Point; he had left the door open in the haste of his departure and, over the threshold slantwise across the snow, the fire from the stove threw an angry glare. It was only a mile from the Point to the bend, yet he seemed to have been journeying for hours. The surface of the river was difficult to travel because the snow which had fallen was wet; it shrank away from the feet at every stride. For this season of the year in Keewatin the night was mild; there was a damp rawness, but scarcely any frost in the air. If the ice had been rotten in the morning at the bend, it would be doubly treacherous now. Ah, but he had warned Strangeways! Surely he would be sufficiently cautious to half-believe him at least in that. When he came to where the river turned northwards, he would forsake the short-cut of the old trail and swing out into the middle stream, or work safely round along the bank. If he couldn't scent danger for himself, his huskies would choose their own path and save him, unless—unless, feeling the smoothness of the old trail beneath the snow, they should lazily choose that, or unless that leader of Spurling's should wilfully lead them astray; but surely the four hind-dogs would have sense not to follow him, and would hang back.
He kept his eyes on the darkness before him, but to the northeast all was shadowy; he could discern nothing. Yes, there was something moving over there. He judged that he had already traversed three-quarters of that interminable mile; surely he would be able to catch up with him now. The recent blizzard had wiped out the old trail, but he could still feel it firm beneath the snow; he was following in Strangeways' tracks—Strangeways' which had been Spurling's. Then he came to a point where the staler tracks, which were Spurling's, had branched out into mid-stream to round the bend; but he saw to his horror that Strangeways' had kept on to the left by the winter trail, toward the spot of which he had warned him—he had even suspected that that final warning was a trap.
Ah, there he was straight ahead of him; he could see him distinctly now. The moon, rising clear of cloud, made his figure plain. He called to him, and it seemed that he half-turned his head. He was keeping perilously near in to the bend. He called to him again, and signed to him with his arms to drive out. Then once more a cloud passed before the moon, making the land seem dead.
He advanced cautiously, moving slowly, testing the strength of the ice at each fresh step before trusting it with his weight. Underneath he could hear the lapping of the current as it rushed rapidly round the bend, and could feel the trembling of the crust beneath his feet, as a man does the vibration of an Atlantic liner when the engines are working at full pressure, and every plank and bolt begins to shake and speak. When he had come to where Strangeways had been standing, he stood still and listened. He could hear no sound of travel,no cursing a man's voice, urging his dogs forward, or cracking of a whip. Then he felt the ice sagging from under him, and the cold touch of water creeping round his moccasins. From a rift in the cloud, a segment of the moon looked out. Before and behind him lay the frozen expanse of river, with its piled-up banks on either hand, and its heavy blanketing of snow, smooth and level, making its passage seem safe. Far over to the right stretched the trail of Spurling, showing ugly and black against the white, where his steps and the steps of his dogs had punctured the surface. Just before him, three yards distant, the ice had broken open, leaving a gaping hole over whose jagged edges the water climbed, and whimpered, and fell back, like a fretful child in its cot, which has wakened too early and is trying to clamber out.
As Granger watched, heedless of his own safety, a hand pushed out above the current, the hooked fingers of which searched gropingly for something to which they might make fast. Granger, throwing himself flat in the snow, so as to distribute his weight, crawled towards it. The hand rose higher, and then the arm, followed at last by the head and eyes of Strangeways, but not the mouth. He had caught hold of a point of ice and was trying to pull himself up by that; but something (was it the swiftness of the current?) was dragging his body away from under him so that the water was still above his nose and mouth. Granger wormed his way to within arm-stretch and clasped his hand; but the moment he commenced to pull, the weight became terrific—more than the weight of one man—and he himself began to slide slowly forward till his head and shoulders were above the water. Something was tugging at Strangeways from below the river, so that his body jerked and quivered like a fisherman's line when a well-hooked salmon is endeavouring to make a rush at the other end.
Granger was leaning far out now, the surface was curving from under him and his chest had left the ice. Then he realised what had happened: the loaded sledge had sunk to the bottom of the river-bed, and was holding down the four rear-dogs by their traces; but the leader, by struggling, had fought his way to within a few inches of the outer air, and, clinging on to Strangeways' throat and breast, was fiercely striving to climb up him with his teeth to where breathing might be found, in somewhat the same manner as Archbishop Salviati did in Florence to Francesco Pazzi, when the Gonfalonier hurled them both out of the Palazzo window, each with a rope about his neck.
(Strange what men will think of at a crisis! Granger was grimly amused, and half-disgusted with himself. How absurd that of all things at such a time he should have remembered that!)
The weight of the four rear-dogs and the loaded sledge were gradually dragging the leader down, and, with him, Strangeways. He held on desperately; now and then, as he made a fresh effort, his yellow snout would appear above the water or the top of his yellow head—except for that, he might not have been there. But Granger was intent on Strangeways; staring into his eyes, which were distant the length of his arm out-stretched, he was appalled at the consternation they reflected, and the evident terror of the end. If he could only get at his knife, he might be able to effect something; but his knife was beneath his capote, in his belt,and both his hands were occupied, the one with supporting the drowning man, the other with preventing himself from slipping further.
He wanted to speak to Strangeways, but he could not think of any words which were not so trivial as to sound blasphemous on such an occasion. The man was growing weaker and heavier to hold; his eyes were losing their vision, and the water rose in bubbles from his mouth. There was only one last chance, that if he could support him long enough for the husky at his throat to release his grip and die first, he might be able to drag him out.
Though all this had been the work of only a few seconds, his arm was becoming numb and intolerably painful. Whatever it might cost him, he promised himself that he would not let go till hope was at an end. He was slipping forward again; he would soon overbalance. But what did that matter to one who did not fear death? After all, an honourable out-going is the best El Dorado which any man can hope to find as reward for his long life's search. If he were to die for and with Strangeways, he would at least prove to him that he was not entirely worthless.
Then, before it was too late, he found his words. "Be brave," he shouted hoarsely, "be brave! It is only death."
It would have seemed a preposterous supposition yesterday that the private trader at Murder Point should ever be in a position to bid the veriest scum among cowards to be brave. As he spoke, the intelligence came back to Strangeways' eyes, the fear went out from them and the features, losing their agony, straightened into an expression which was almost grave.His hand became small in Granger's palm, as though it were offering to slip away.
Some deep instinct stirred in Granger; he suddenly loved this man for the self-denial which that act betrayed. If there was to be a denial of self, however, he was emphatic that his should be the sacrifice. Was it this thought of sacrifice which brought religion to his mind—some haunting, quick remembrance of those wise words about "dying for one's friend"?
Quite irrationally and without connection with anything which had previously occurred, leaning yet further out at his own immediate peril, shifting his grip to Strangeways' wrist that he might hold him more firmly, he whispered, "Jesus of Galilee! Jesus Christ!"
The face of the drowning man took on an awful serenity, a look of holiness, as if at sight of something which stood behind Granger, which he had only just discerned. He even smiled. Suddenly, with the determination of one who had concluded and conquered an old temptation, he wrenched away his hand. Granger made one last effort to reach him, but the tugging of the beast below the surface, or its dead weight, had drifted him out of arm-stretch. He sank lower. The water rose, almost leisurely it seemed as if now certain of the one thing it had desired, higher and higher up his face till it had reached his eyes, quenched them, and nothing was left but a few bubbles which floated to the surface and broke, sparkling in the moonlight. Granger did not stir; as he had been paralysed, he lay there rigid with the black waters washing about his face and hands. Then very slowly, as though reluctant not to die, he drew himself back. When he had reached safety, rising up, he gazed around; the land looked more desolate than ever. The first words which he said were spoken sacredly, with bated breath. "And that man told me," he muttered, "that he was afraid of death. . . . To prefer to die at such a time, rather than risk my life, was the act of a man who was very brave." And next he said, "I wonder what were his last words when he crashed through the ice? I expect he said, 'Damn.' Well, that was as good as any other word to say; after all, all swearing, taken in a certain sense, is a form of prayer—a bluff assertion of belief in the divine."
Granger turned slowly about, and commenced to make his way back to the Point. At first he spoke aloud to himself as a thought occurred. "I distrusted that yellow beast of Spurling's from the first." "Now at any rate Spurling is safe." "I haven't yet discovered whether Mordaunt is dead,"—and so on. Then he ceased to speak with his lips, and his thoughts were uttered in the silence of his brain. They had all to do with Strangeways.
He wondered what vision had been his, causing him to smile as he sank. Did he think of that girl, and that he was going to meet her? Or of the old home in England? Or of his school-days? Or was it the Thames he thought about—of Oxford with its many towers, and the cry of the coach along the tow-path as the eight swings homeward up-stream, in the grey of a winter afternoon, to the regular click of the rowlocks as the men pluck their blades from the water, feather and come forward for the next stroke, making ready to drive back their slides as one man with their legs? He was certain that whatever happened, and however he should go out of life, did God spare him a moment's consciousness, it would be the vision of Oxford with its domes and spires, its austere and romantic quiet, its echoing cloisters and passages, its rivers with their sedges of silver and of grey, which would float before his dying eyes,—or would he think of Christ? Had Christ been the vision which this man had seen?
Strange thoughts for Keewatin! But death is always strange.
Nearly a month had gone by since the night on which Strangeways died. Not that time mattered much to Granger, for, like the immortals, men in Keewatin have dispensed with time: they have accepted as true the lesson which philosophers have been striving to teach the world ever since the human intellect first commenced to philosophise—that there are no such ontological facts as Time and Space. Among the men of this vast northern territory the outward expression of religion is rare; they do not often speak, and then only of such interests as are superficial to their lives. Yet here, in their fine neglect of the two sternest of self-imposed, human limitations, the religious instinct is manifest. As it would be sacrilege to count God's breaths, were that possible, so to them it seems a kind of blasphemy to number the recurrence of their own small perceptions when the Divine Perceived seems so entirely unconscious of their very existence. Hence it happens that one does not often hear a traveller speak of having journeyed so many days or miles; his division is more casual, and embraces only his own immediate actions—he has travelled so many "sleeps," nothing more.
As a rule, Indians are utterly deficient in the time-sense and can give no intelligent account of their age. Their calendar is enshrined, if they have one, in symbolswhich they use as decorations, painted on the inside of their finest skins. They make their reckoning of the years from some event which was once important to themselves, or to their tribe. Thus, stars falling from the top to the bottom of a robe represent the year of 1833, and an etching of an Indian with a broken leg and a horn on his head stands for the year in which Hay-waujina, One Horn, had his leg "killed." Back of that which is comparatively immediate to their own experience, they have ceased to count or to be inquisitive.