CHAPTER XVITHE CORPORAL HEARS NEWSDURINGthe weeks of his convalescence in Chief Louis’ smoking tepee, Roger Bracknell spent much of his time in reflecting on the news which the chief had given him. Reviewing the story calmly and dispassionately, he could find nothing to weaken the conclusion which the half-breed himself had reached. The dynamite and the winter thunder, with the description of the broken trail and the strange conduct of the unknown man in deliberately over-running Rolf Gargrave’s camp, were almost conclusive evidence. Some one had planned that Rolf Gargrave should die; and his death had been as surely a murder as if the man who had planned it had taken a rifle with which to do the deed. Who was the man?As often as he asked himself this question, the corporal found his thoughts reverting to his cousin. Had Dick Bracknell, having married Rolf Gargrave’s daughter, deliberately planned the murder of the millionaire? His heart revolted at the thought, but he could not escape from it. Dick had been hard pressed. He was already a fugitive from justice when he had arrived in the North and, so far as the corporal knew, that arrival had been a secret one. He would be quite unknown—even to Rolf Gargrave. No one would suspect him,and the plan he had chosen was itself so novel, that but for the Indians noticing his absence from the camp, and carrying the sticks of dynamite back to Chief Louis, it must have escaped detection.The more the corporal thought of it, the more black seemed the case against his cousin. Rolf Gargrave was a clever man, and powerful, and he had had his own plans for his daughter. Dick Bracknell must have known that when he heard how Joy had been trapped into marriage, he would be very wrathful, and calculating on the father’s intervention he must have decided to get rid of him, in the hope of sooner or later trading upon Joy’s inexperience of the world. One day, whilst he was reflecting on the problem, unable to touch certainty anywhere, a thought occurred to him, and when Chief Louis entered the tepee he promptly asked a question—“Louis, when was it that the stranger called at your camp for guides to help him to find Rolf Gargrave? I mean what time of the year was it?”The chief considered for a moment. Then he answered gravely. “It was two moons before ze ice break up.”“You are sure?” asked the corporal.“Certain!”“That would be March or a little later,” said the corporal thoughtfully. “And Dick fled from England about Christmas. If he came straight through he might do it comfortably.”“Dick! Who ees dat?” asked the chief quickly.“He is the one man I know who may have been interested in Rolf Gargrave’s death. You mayhave heard of him? He is known in the North as Koona Dick!”“I hav’ not him seen, unless he vas ze stranger mans who come to my camp dat day. But of him I hav’ heard. He is bad mans, he want shooting. He sell whiskey—mooch whiskey, to ze Porcupine Sticks, an’ dey fight till seven be dead in ze snow. Also he take their catch of fur for ze whiskey, an’ when ze winter it come, dey freeze, an’ ze babes die. Yes, of him, I have heard, an’ he is very bad mans. So he is ze mans dat come to my lodges dat day, an’ dat blow up ze trail for Rolf Gargrave so dat he die.”“I have not said so yet,” answered the corporal thoughtfully, “but I am afraid that there can be little question of it. Some day when I meet him I shall put the question to him plainly, and learn the truth.”“You know dis mans, Koona Dick?”“Yes! He is my cousin.”As he received the information the half-breed flashed a quick glance of sympathy.“Le diable!” he said. “Dat is strange. But so it does befall. One pup of ze litter he ees a good dog, and he grows to ze collar-work naturally; but anoder he is bad, he snarl like ze wolf, he is a thief, he will not do ze work. So is it with ze sled-dogs and with men! It is passing strange, but I hev’ often beheld it, and it is so!”The corporal nodded his assent. He had often wondered at the crooked strain which had sent his cousin on wild courses to dishonour, but could find no consolation in the thought that given certaincircumstances the way of dishonour was almost inevitable. He rose from the couch of skins, and moving stiffly towards the fire, thrust in a spruce twig, and with it lit his pipe. Then he turned to the chief.“I wonder how soon I shall be able to take the trail, Louis?”The half-breed shook his head. “Not yet. Ze leg dat hav’ been broken, it is not good for snow-shoe work. No! It ache like le diable! You must wait—wait till ze ice break up, then you go down ze river in a canoe. Dat will be ze easy way. Yes.”A mutinous look came on Roger Bracknell’s face. Having so long lived an active life, he was growing tired of the monotony of the encampment, and as he felt the strength returning to his leg was more and more inclined to make the attempt to reach civilization as represented by the police-post. There was news to send to Joy Gargrave, news that might profoundly affect her life, and it was desirable that she should receive it at the earliest possible moment.“I do not think that I shall wait until then, Louis. They will give me up for lost, at the post, and besides I have news for a certain person—”“Is the news good?” interrupted the chief. For a moment the corporal did not reply. Was the news he had to send Joy Gargrave good? In one way, yes! It would suffice to remove any lingering doubt as to the effect of the shot that she had fired when she had gone to meet Dick Bracknell in thewood. He would be able to assure her, on the evidence of Dick himself, that she was not responsible for the mischief that had been done. That assurance, as he knew, would mean the lifting of a weight of apprehension from Joy’s heart. In another way, however, the news was bad. Dick Bracknell was still alive, and that meant that she was still bound to him, and that on the first favourable opportunity he might assert himself. His mind was still balancing the good and evil of the case, when Louis, who had been watching his face, spoke again.“There is no need to speak. Ze news it is not good! Therefore there is not any cause for haste. Ill news does not grow worse for keeping, and the trail it is bad these days, for there is mooch snow.”“Nevertheless, I shall make the endeavour, Louis! I will borrow a man and a dog team and meat from you, and in one week I will take the trail. If I find it too much for me, I can return.”The chief nodded. “As you please. Ze dogs are yours, also ze meat an ze mans, though ze hunters are from ze camp just now. But if you mus’ go, you mus’. It is le diable in ze race that drives you forth, corp’ral.”“The devil in the race?” laughed Bracknell. “I do not understand, Louis. What do you mean?”“I mean ze unrest that dwells in ze men of your tribe. It drives them forth, for good or ill, to ze conquest of ze lands. It makes them seek ze stick which runs through ze earth——”“The pole, you mean, Louis.”“Ze pole, yes! And when got, what good? It makes them dat they cannot sit by ze fires in warm tepees, but must go hunt ze bald-faced bear, or dig ze frozen earth for gold dat somewhere white squaw may fling it from ze window.”“Yes!” laughed the corporal. “You put the truth—rather brutally. We are rather given that way. But it isn’t the devil, Louis, it is the genius and instinct of our race for conquest that drives us—that and the dream of the home-woman, I suppose.”Chief Louis nodded. “Oui! maybe; and you haf’ ze dream corp’ral.”Corporal Bracknell stopped his perambulation of the hut, and stared at his companion.“Now how the dickens do you know that, Louis?”“I have seen it in your eyes. You speak of Rolf Gargrave, an’ twice, only twice you hav’ speak of Gargrave’s daughter, but there were dreams in ze eyes then, and a soft note in ze voice, and I know dat she is what you call ze home-woman. Oui! I know dat is so.”The corporal’s face flushed, and he did not deny it. For one moment as he stood there, he had a vision of Joy Gargrave, young and beautiful and a fit mate for any man, and in that moment there were dreams in his eyes. Three seconds later realities asserted themselves, and the soft light died from his eyes. He gave a little bitter laugh, and without speaking resumed his perambulations.Chief Louis watched him for a moment then he said tentatively, “There be difficulties ahead, corp’ral.”“Yes,” nodded Bracknell, “grave difficulties! What would you do, Louis, if you wanted a maid to wife?”“I should offer a large price—blankets, guns, tobac!”Roger Bracknell laughed at the notion of offering a large price for Joy Gargrave, and then mooted the real difficulty.“But if it was not a matter of price, Louis, rather of another man! What then?”“Then I would him fight. Always maidens are caught with strength. They love a man. Dat is ze law of life and of mating. Ze strong wolf in ze pack he hav’ ze pick an’ ze strong bull-moose he hav’ ze herd; an’ ze strong man he take ze maid. I have looked on ze world and so is it! Yes! Love like all dings else is ze spoil of ze strong!”Bracknell did not reply for a moment. In that hour the law of the primeval wilds appealed to him strongly, but he knew that it was not the way for him.“Yes,” he said, “it is the law of the wilds, but not of my race. I carry a law that is the law of man, and he who kills whether for love or hate dies therefor. The thing is impossible!”Chief Louis grunted disapprobation. “Ze law of ze wild is better. For dat reason I dwell in ze lodges of my mother’s people, where ze strong rule.”He knocked the ashes from his pipe, and withoutadding more passed out of the tepee. Roger Bracknell still continued his perambulations, exercising his injured leg, and as he walked his mind was busy with what he felt was to become the problem of his life. He loved Joy Gargrave. He confessed it frankly to himself. He had loved her since that day when in the woods at North Star she had offered him her hand as a token that she counted him among her friends! But what good was it? The whole thing was so hopeless so long as Dick Bracknell lived. And if he died, would the outlook be any the less hopeless? He could not tell, but he was afraid not; for friendship was not love, and Joy Gargrave, as he was sure, was not a woman to give her affection easily.As he thought despair gripped him, and the tepee’s skin walls seemed too narrow a prison-house. He threw on his fur coat and mittens and went outside. Driven by his thoughts, he left the encampment, and, walking stiffly, moved down the river trail. He had walked perhaps a mile and a half, when out of the woods broke a couple of laden sledges, and two men of the tribe. They were from the hunters, and as they passed they saluted him gravely, according to the manner of their race.“How! How!”He responded in kind, and continued to walk on. He had proceeded but a little way however when a thought occurred to him. These men had been away on the main river. They might have news of the outer world. Instantly as the thought came to him, he turned in his tracks and began to return tothe encampment. When he reached there the two hunters were not to be seen, but when he entered his own tepee he found Chief Louis sitting by the fire, smoking. There was an impassive look on his face, but in his eyes was a light that could not be hidden, and the white man knew that the chief was excited. The corporal did not remark upon the fact, however, but deliberately filled his pipe, and seating himself, smoked on as if he had noticed nothing. After a little time Louis spoke.“Ze hunters they hav’ sent meat, mooch meat!”“Yes,” answered Bracknell. “I met two men of the tribe just now.”“There is meat for a potlach (feast), but dat is not ze way of my people. We are not as ze wolves which eat all, even ze bones, an’ then run hungry until a new kill is made.”“There is much wisdom in such prudence,” answered Bracknell, wondering when the half-breed would unfold his news.“It is ze way of ze white mans, and it is ze way of ze wise, therefore do we eat and leave meat that we may eat again.”The corporal nodded, but said nothing, and after a pause Chief Louis spoke again. “Of ze two men you met, one was Sibou.”“Ah! Sibou, who with Paslik went as guide with the stranger who wished to overtake Rolf Gargrave?”“Oui! Sibou, who went with ze stranger mans who blow ze bottom out of ze trail that Rolf Gargrave die!”Roger Bracknell waited. He felt that he wason the verge of some revelation, but he concealed his impatience and maintained an unperturbed demeanour, knowing that such would commend him to his host. The half-breed puffed stolidly at his pipe for a full minute, then he spoke again.“Sibou brings not meat alone, he brings news.”“News.”“Oui! Of ze stranger mans who dynamite ze trail!”“Is that so?”“Dat is ze news which Sibou bring to me. He say dat six days ago, ze stranger mans come to ze hunting camp to buy meat. He have with him fine dogs and two bad Indians. He offer for meat one good rifle and many cartridges, an’ Sibou sell him meat. Also he know him for ze stranger mans; but ze stranger he does not know Sibou, whose face was last winter mauled by a bald-faced grizzly to whom he did not give ze trail. The stranger mans he camp with the hunters for ze night, and ze two Indians they smoke with Sibou and ask questions, many questions.”“Yes,” said Bracknell, as the chief paused. “What about?”“hey ask about a white mans of ze name of Koona Dick!”“Great Scott!”“Also they ask if anything be known of anoder white mans a policemans who is lost, an’ Sibou, whose tongue is a silent one, ask ze name of ze policemans.”“Did he get it?” asked the corporal quickly.“Oui! Ze name was Corporal Bracknell, which is you.”“By Jove, yes! But who———”The half-breed checked him by raising his hand, and continued, “Sibou hav’ in mind dat ze trail was blown up for Rolf Gargrave, and he is cautious. He told of your sled which was found, and of ze dead wolves, but he say nodings dat we find you an’ dat you are with me; and presently the two bad Indians go back to the stranger mans who is in a tepee which Sibou has set for him. Sibou he follow, and he lie in ze snow outside ze tepee, and with his knife he cut a hole in the tepee dat he may see and hear. Ze stranger mans is by ze fire, and Sibou see ze face of him, whilst his men talk. When they tell of ze sled and ze dead wolves, ze white mans he smile as a man well pleased; an’ dat is everything, except dat next morning he go north with ze meat he hav’ bartered for. Such is ze tale of Sibou. What tink you, corporal?”“Think! It is no time for thinking, it is the time for action. There’s some infernal work afoot, and I start on that man’s trail tomorrow. Whatever his game may be now—and it’s a mystery that passes my comprehension—he’s the murderer of Rolf Gargrave, and I’ll get him if I follow him to the Pole! But the story puzzles me! Those Indians asked about Koona Dick. Why should they do that?”The chief shook his head. “Dat I cannot tell.”“It’s odd, very odd! Koona Dick is the one man who may reasonably be suspected of a motivefor getting rid of Rolf Gargrave. That I know, but——”He broke off as a thought occurred to him, and then remarked thoughtfully, “The question may have been a mere bluff of Dick’s. He may after all have recognized Sibou and set his men to ask the question in order to discover whether your man had any knowledge of his name! Yes, that may be it! But I will find him, and I will learn the truth. Louis, can I have a team and stores for the morning? And Sibou also? He knows the man and I do not. Of course the service will be paid for from Regina.”The chief nodded his head. “Ze dogs are yours, with the stores, also Sibou goes with you. But you will find ze trail hard, for dat leg he is not yet strong.”“It will grow stronger every day, and with Sibou to pack the trail I shall do well. I start at dawn in the morning.”“Then,” said Louis, rising, “I will go, and ze teams select for you. Ze dogs shall be of ze best.”He went out leaving Roger Bracknell in a whirl of conflicting thoughts.CHAPTER XVIIA LONELY CABINCORPORAL BRACKNELLand Sibou had left the hunting camp of the tribe two days and were following the trail of the white man and the two Indians who had visited it more than a week before. The trail, though it was old, was well defined, for there had been no fall of snow in the interval, and the frozen surface of the wilderness kept the trail fresh, and made it easy to follow. It was evident to both of them that their quarry travelled fast, for the distances between the camping places were greater than was usual, and it was clear that those whom they followed had some need for haste. What it could be the corporal could only guess, and guessing under the circumstances was not a very profitable occupation. And there were other signs which gave room for speculation. Now and again the party ahead of them had halted for a little time, and two of the men had left the dogs and the sled, as their tracks showed. These halting places, as the corporal was quick to observe, always occurred when some small stream fell into the main river, or when some accessible gully or creek opened from the banks.“What do you make of it, Sibou?” he asked when they had reached the fifth halting place of this sort.The Indian who had followed the tracks of two of the gullies to the point where they reversed glanced at those which now lay before them. Then he waved a mittened hand.“These men be looking for something.”“Or some one!” commented the corporal thoughtfully.The Indian gave a grave inclination of his head. “It is not good to follow every trail,” he said in his own tongue. “Sometime perhaps we shall find a trail that does not return on itself, then we know they find what they seek and we follow.”“Yes,” answered the corporal, “that is the best way, I think. We will push on and not waste time on these excursions.”They pressed forward and passed two more of these deviations from the main track without troubling to follow them. Just before daylight faded, when they were hugging the bank looking for a suitable camping place, the Indian called the corporal’s attention to a small creek the entrance to which was masked by low-boughed spruce trees.“Yes,” said the corporal, “that should do. Those banks and trees should break this wind.”They turned the dogs towards it, and negotiating a snow wreath which the wind was piling up, they entered the sheltering creek. Sibou was leading, packing the trail, and the corporal clinging to the gee-pole of the sled, saw him come to a most unexpected halt. Bracknell moved forward.“What is the matter, Sibou?”The Indian did not speak, but pointed silently at the snow, and looking down the corporal sawthe unmistakable trail of snowshoes. The tracks were quite fresh, and were so unexpected that Bracknell was himself astonished. He stared at them as Crusoe must have stared when he found the footprints on the shore of his island. Who had left that tell-tale trail? Perhaps a wandering Indian. Maybe some solitary prospector caught by winter, or possibly the man whom he was seeking, the murderer of Rolf Gargrave. His heart beat quickly at the thought and, still staring at the trail which came down the bank of the creek and then turned away from the river, he considered the matter carefully, and then gave instructions.“Follow it, Sibou, and find out where it goes and who made it. I will pitch camp and wait here for you.”The Indian nodded gravely and departed and Bracknell busied himself with pitching camp. He had already lit the fire and fed the dogs, and was busy with the beans and bacon when Sibou returned.“Well?” asked the corporal expectantly. “Did you find him?”“Yes,” was the reply. “There is one Indian and one white man. They are in a cabin at the head of the creek.”Bracknell was conscious of a sudden excitement.“Did you see the white man? Is it——”Sibou shook his head. “I saw him, but it is not the man we follow; and he is very sick with the coughing sickness!”The corporal’s excitement died as quickly as it had risen.“Did you speak with him, Sibou?”“No,” replied the Indian. “There was no need. I saw his face as he came to the cabin door. It is not the man.”Corporal Bracknell bent over the fire. He was disappointed, but he did not show it. He turned the bacon in the pan then he looked up.“We will have supper first, then I will walk up the creek as far as the cabin, and have a talk with this white man. He may know something of the man we follow.”Sibou made no reply, and when the meal was ready they ate it in silence, and smoked whilst they drank the coffee. Then Bracknell arose.“I go now, Sibou. I shall return before sleeping time.”The Indian offered no objection to this, and knocking the ashes from his pipe the policeman left the camp. Even in the darkness he had no difficulty in following the trail up the creek, and presently the smell of burning wood informed him that he was in the neighbourhood of the cabin. He looked round carefully and descried it in the shadow of the trees on the right bank, and began to ascend towards it. When he reached it there was no clamour of dogs such as might have been expected had there been a team there, and as he rapped upon the door, he reflected that his conjecture about the gold prospector overtaken by the winter was probably the correct one.The door was flung open, and a tall man whose face he could not discern stood revealed. Inside in front of a makeshift stove was another man,who was taken suddenly by a paroxysm of coughing. For half a minute the corporal stood there, and the man at the door did not move or speak; but at the end of that time, between two spasms of coughing, the other man cried querulously, “Oh, come in and shut that confounded door!”The man at the door moved aside, and as Bracknell entered, he closed the door behind him, and stood with his back to it, staring at the new-comer with eyes that had in them a savage gleam of hate. The man by the fire was still coughing, and at the end of some three minutes, as the cough left him, he sat there, gasping and wheezing and utterly exhausted. Roger Bracknell watched him, with compassionate eyes. As he recognized, the man was in sore straits, and that cough probably meant that the coming of the Spring was for him the coming of death. As his breath came back the sick man half turned.“Sit down, can’t——” The remark was broken off half way, and the man started from his seat. “Great Christopher! A Daniel come to judgment! How do you do, Cousin Roger?”As the voice quivering with excitement rang through the cabin, a startled look came on Roger Bracknell’s face, and he bent forward, and stared at the wasted features of the unkempt man before him. The other laughed harshly.“Oh, you needn’t stare so hard, Roger; it is I right enough.”It was Dick Bracknell, and as the corporal realized the fact, the compassion he had felt for a stranger was trebled when he found that the sickman was of his own blood. For a moment he did not reply, but with a shocked look on his face gazed at the ravaged features before him. The “coughing sickness” which Sibou had mentioned had plainly gripped Dick Bracknell and marked him for death. Some of his teeth were gone and the colour of his gums appeared like yellow ochre in the firelight. As he noted these signs of scurvy, the corporal was moved to speak his pity.“Dick, old man, I am mortal sorry——”“Then keep your infernal pity for yourself!” cried the other savagely. “You’ll need it all in a minute, for Joe has the drop on you, you—— murderer.”The corporal started, and swung round. The Indian, Joe, was standing with his back to the door, and the glow of the fire was reflected from the pistol in his hand. He noted the fact quite calmly, and turned to his cousin again.“Murderer?” he said slowly. “I do not understand. What do you mean?”“No?” snarled his cousin. “Well, look at me! Would you say that I was a good case for a Life Insurance Society?”The corporal looked at him, and out of pity was silent.“Oh, you needn’t be so particular,” continued the other sneeringly. “I’ve seen other fellows whose lungs have been chilled, and I know I am booked, unless I can get to a sanatorium in double quick time. And I know you have a soft heart, but you should have let it speak sooner—before you put this upon me.”“Before I put—— I do not know what you mean?”“No! But you know that you poisoned that dog food that we took from you, don’t you? And you can guess——”“Good God!” ejaculated the corporal, and the astonishment in his face and voice did more than any protests could have done to convince his cousin that the charge was groundless.“You didn’t know? No, I see you didn’t!” cried the sick man.“Of course I didn’t!” replied the policeman quickly. “The dogs you left me died of poison at my first camp, after they had been fed. I blamed your man, because you had told me that he was reluctant to let me go. Now it seems that I was wrong, as you are wrong. Tell me what happened?”“I will,” said his cousin, “sit down!” As the corporal seated himself on a log, Dick Bracknell turned to the Indian. “You can put down that pistol for the present, Joe. There’s a mystery to be cleared up before there’s any shooting to be done. Put it down, I tell you!”The Indian obeyed reluctantly, but still stood against the door, and Dick Bracknell explained. “Joe there has it saved up against you. He was sure that you had deliberately poisoned the dog food, so that we should get stranded, and you, with a new outfit, would be able to find us at your leisure. I couldn’t believe it of you at first. It was such a low-down game that I’d have sworn that nobody but a Siwash half-breed would have played it.But the logic of facts seemed convincing, and I’d come to believe it.”“Tell me what happened.”“That’s easy enough. When I parted from you, I had an idea of working across to the Behring, where I’d have been off the beat of your confounded patrols. We travelled a week and made a good pace, then one night Joe there fed the dogs with the salmon-roe we took off your sled. They were all dead within two hours; and there we were, stranded in the shadow of the Arctic circle and nearly a thousand miles from civilization.” The sick man broke off, shaken by a fit of coughing, and then as the spasm passed and his breath returned, he said meditatively, “If you’d walked into our camp then we’d have fed you with that roe, and watched you twist as those dogs were twisted, for Joe looked at the food and found strychnine, which he’d used when he was trapping for the H. B. C.... Lucky thing for you that you didn’t! Did you say your dogs died of the same thing?”“Yes,” answered the corporal slowly, “and now I’m wondering who was responsible.”“Somebody who was getting at you, and not at us,” answered Dick Bracknell quickly, “for he couldn’t have known that we should collar the food. Had you been using the same stuff all along?”“No.” The word dropped from the corporal reluctantly. “No. I had laid in a new stock at North Star.”“Then it was there the thing was done,” repliedthe sick man with conviction. “The question is, who did it? Joy wouldn’t even dream of such a thing!”“That at any rate is quite certain!” answered the corporal with conviction.“But somebody did it; somebody who owed you one, and meant to get rid of you. That’s shown by the fact that your dogs did all right on the food at the beginning. That which you used first wasn’t tampered with, or the dogs would have died at the first camp you made. But they didn’t, for you camped with us, and I remember that more than once, whilst we were waiting for my convalescence, you fed your dogs with the roe. That is positive proof that the top portion of the dog-food was all right, it was only lower down that it had been tampered with.”“But why——”“It’s as plain as a barn-door. You were meant to get well away on the trail, and one night you would unknowingly feed the dogs with poisoned roe. They would die, and unless you had wonderful luck you would die too, long before you got back to civilization. That is the amiable plan that somebody thought out for you; and as things turned out he nearly bagged me and Joe instead of you.”“But he almost got me too,” said the corporal thoughtfully, and gave his cousin a brief account of his adventures.“You were lucky,” commented the sick man. “A broken leg can be spliced, but who is going to splice a set of frozen lungs?” His face grewsuddenly convulsed with passion, and he broke into terrible oaths. “If I had the murderer here—but who was he anyway?”“There is only one man of whom I can think, and before I tell you his name there are two questions I should like to ask.”“Fire them off!”“The first is this, do you know anything of Rolf Gargrave’s death?”“I know that the bottom dropped out of the trail and that he was drowned—nothing more. What’s that got to do with it anyway?”The corporal looked at his cousin. The haggard face was clear of guilt, and in that moment he knew that his earliest suspicions when Chief Louis had told him the story of Rolf Gargrave’s death had been utterly wrong. Whatever crimes Dick Bracknell had to his account this was not one of them.“I’ll explain why I asked you in a moment,” he answered. “There is the second question—yet; and it is this, did you ever inform any one of your marriage with Joy?”“Yes, one man! When I heard that Rolf Gargrave was dead, I wrote to England and informed his legal adviser, Sir Joseph Rayner, that Joy and I were husband and wife. I never had any answer to the let—— But what’s the matter, man? You look as if you had seen a ghost! What is it?”There was a look of startled amazement on the corporal’s face. He was staring at his cousin as if what the latter had said was a revelation to him, as indeed it was. A dark suspicion had leapt inhis mind, a suspicion that seemed almost incredible, but which persisted and would not be thrust aside. If Sir Joseph Rayner knew, then in all probability his son also knew, and yet having that knowledge he had suggested that the relation between himself and Joy was such as justified his confessed aspiration of making her his wife. Had he been responsible for that second shot at North Star? Or——Dick Bracknell’s voice broke in again querulously.“What’s got you, Roger! Spit it out!”“I can’t at present,” replied the corporal slowly. “You’ve given me news that I must think over before I talk. But there is one thing that I can tell you, and that is that Rolf Gargrave did not die by a mere accident. The trail he was following was sound enough, but the ice was blown up by dynamite. It froze over again in the night, and as I gather there was a little snow, he went on to the thin ice without suspicion, and went through. That’s the story as I’ve recently heard it; and I’m on the trail of the man who plotted the infernal thing, now.”The sick man pursed his lips to whistle, but no sound came from them. Then he remarked, with a little laugh of bitterness, “So that’s why you asked if I knew anything of my father-in-law’s death, is it?”“It was just a suspicion that occurred to me,” explained the corporal apologetically. “When I heard the story I wondered who would benefit by Gargrave’s death, and as you had just married Joy,and had fled here from England, it was a natural suspicion——”“I must have got pretty low down for it to be natural to suspect me of an infernal crime of that sort,” was the other’s bitter comment. “But who do you suspect now?”“I don’t know! As I told you, I’m after the man. The trail’s a week old, but I’ll find him even if I follow him to the rim of the Polar sea.”“I hope to heaven you’ll get him, and that he’ll swing at Regina for that job. I wonder if the same man had anything to do with poisoning the dog food.”“I am wondering that also!” replied the corporal thoughtfully.“Any idea of the fellow?”“Just a suspicion, nothing more. Not enough to presume upon—yet!”“He must have a mind that is diabolic.”“So it would seem!” replied the corporal, and after a little time his cousin spoke again.“Many a time while I have sat here wheezing and coughing, I have cursed you from my heart, but now I could pray that you come up with that man, and make him pay for it all. If I were sure you’d get him I could go cheerfully to my appointed place in the pit.”“I shall get him,” answered the corporal with conviction. “The Indian who is with me was with him when he arranged for Gargrave’s death, and if my suspicions have any bottom in them, then I know him myself.”“You’ll push on in the morning, of course.”“Before daylight! And I shall come up with the man, never fear. He’s travelling fast, but he’s looking for some thing or some one, the latter, I think, and——”“Who do you suppose he’s looking for?”“Well, if he’s the man I suspect, I shouldn’t wonder if he were looking for you.”“For me! What in thunder for?”“To finish what he began that night when you were shot at North Star!”“Great Scott! Do you mean that he was the man who——”“It seems to me to be more than likely. He is the man round whom all these mysteries seem to centre.”“What is the blighter?” asked the other quickly.“That I must keep to myself for a little time. I may be mistaken, you know. But if I am not——”“You’ll let me know? You’ll give me the satisfaction of knowing that the fellow will pay for these lungs of mine?” cried the sick man eagerly.“Yes,” answered the corporal pityingly. “I will let you know.”Half an hour later as he left the cabin his face wore a set look that boded ill for the man on whose trail he followed.CHAPTER XVIIIADRIAN RAYNER’S STORY“JOE, I thought I heard the yelping of dogs. Did you hear anything?”The Indian shook his head and Dick Bracknell sank back on his improvised couch of spruce, with a sigh.“Of course,” he muttered, “I’m dreaming. No, by Jove! I’m not. There it is again. Don’t you hear it, Joe?” This time the Indian nodded and going to the door of the cabin looked down the creek. Three men and a dog sled were coming up the trail. He turned and informed Bracknell of the fact. A thoughtful frown came on the sick man’s face.“Who can they be? Not Roger, certainly, for it is but two days since he was here, and he had but one man with him. Perhaps——” Then as a thought struck him he broke off and cried excitedly, “I say, Joe, does one of the men look at all like a prisoner?”The Indian shook his head.“That’s a pity,” commented his master. “I had a wild hope that Roger might have overtaken the man. Anyway we shall know who they are in a few minutes, and patience is a virtue that I’ve plenty of opportunity for practising just now.”Laboriously he rose from his couch and seated himself near the fire. The effort brought on a fit of coughing, which was still shaking him, when a whipstock rapped upon the door. His servant opened it, and a white man entered, and stood for a moment watching Bracknell as he coughed and groaned. Then suddenly an alert look came in his face and for one instant into his eyes there came a flicker of recognition. He waited until the paroxysm had passed, then in a voice that had in it a note of sympathy he spoke—“You seem in a bad way, friend.”The voice of a cultured man, as Bracknell instantly noted, and as he wiped his eyes the sick man looked sharply at the new-comer.“Yes,” he replied, “and so would you be if you’d had your lungs frozen.”“Is it as bad as that?” asked the other in a voice that was still sympathetic.“It is, and worse! I’ve got scurvy too. I suppose you haven’t such a thing as a potato with you?”The stranger smiled. “As it happens I have. I never travel without in winter, because, as you seem to know, a raw potato is better than lime juice for scurvy, and a sight handier to carry. I shall be happy to oblige you.”He went to the door of the cabin and called an order to the men outside. A few moments later an Indian entered bringing with him seven or eight potatoes. Bracknell instantly seized one, and taking out a clasp knife began to cut thin slices of the tuber, and to eat regardless of everythingbut the one fact that here was salvation from one of the diseases which afflicted him. He chewed methodically, without speaking, and Adrian Rayner, for he was the arrival, watched him with curious eyes, reflecting on the irony of the situation which made the heir of an ancient estate glad to eat raw potato; for though he himself remained incognito, he had already recognized Dick Bracknell.“I’d go slow if I were you,” he said warningly, as having finished one tuber, the sick man stretched his hand for another. “You had better not overdo it. A little every day is better than a glut; and, of course, my stock is limited.”Dick Bracknell laughed weakly. “You’re right, of course. But if you knew what I suffer you’d understand the impulse to stuff oneself! I’ll go slow, as you advise, and perhaps I shall get quit of one disease at any rate, though the other will get rid of me as sure as a gun.”“You think so?” asked Rayner, with an eager interest which Bracknell failed to note.“Sure of it! I’ve seen other men this way—and there was always a funeral at the end of it; though not always a burial service. Parsons are scarce up here!”“Have you been long in the country?” asked Rayner carelessly.Bracknell looked at him sharply, as if suspicious of so simple a question, and then gave a short laugh. “I’ve been here a year or two. And you? You’re pretty new to the North, aren’t you?”Rayner laughed. “A regular tenderfoot. I’vebeen here before, but only for a short spell, and this time I’m straight from England.”“Is that so?” asked Bracknell, and appraised the stranger anew. “In the mining line, I suppose?”“Nothing half so profitable,” answered Rayner smilingly. “I am merely representing a legal firm, and have come out on a rather curious mission, one with little profit in it in fact, and with even a possibility of loss.”“That’s poor business for a lawyer,” said Bracknell encouragingly.“It is,” agreed Rayner, “and it’s not only that, but it is about the queerest business that I ever struck.” He turned and addressed a remark to one of his men who had entered the cabin, and then resumed, “It is quite a romance in high life, and very interesting. Would you like to hear the story?”“I was always fond of romance,” answered Bracknell with a laugh, “and as up here we’ve no penny dreadfuls, I shall be glad to have a slice of the real thing.”“Oh, it’s real enough,” answered Rayner, “and it’s interesting, because it has a rich and young and beautiful girl for the heroine.”“Romance always must have!” commented Bracknell. “Your story, I can see, is going on the penny plain and twopenny coloured line!”“Not quite. It has deviations and some original features. This girl’s father was immensely rich, and whilst he remained in this country looking after his mining properties, he sent his daughter to England to be educated. There she ran againstthe heir of an old Westmorland family, and married him secretly—”He broke off as his host rose unexpectedly to his feet. “What is the matter?” he asked innocently. “Are you not feeling well?”“Just a spasm,” growled Bracknell. “It will pass in a minute. Get on with your tale.”The other smiled a little to himself, and resumed his narrative. “As I was saying, she married this young gentleman secretly, and immediately after the marriage separated from him for some reason, and at the same time something else happened, which compelled her husband to leave England and to reside abroad.... Did you say something?”“No! It’s only this confounded wheeze of mine!”“About the same time news reached England that the girl’s father had died in an accident out here, and as by the terms of his will the daughter was to reside for three years in the home he had built in the woods here, she returned to the Dominion without having said anything about the marriage to her uncle and guardian, the well-known solicitor Sir Joseph Rayner, of whom you perhaps have heard?”“Yes, I’ve heard of him! Go on, man. Your story is very interesting.”“Fortunately Sir Joseph was not left in ignorance of the marriage, for the girl’s husband wrote and informed him of it. Sir Joseph was astonished; but he kept the news to himself, because the husband, though of good family, had done something that was—er—scarcely creditable. He didnot even inform the girl of the information which had reached him, hoping that time would solve what appeared to be a difficult situation.”“And hasn’t it?”“No, sir. Time may solve many things, but the policy oflaissez-faire, whilst sometimes a good one, is not without its dangers! This happens to be one of the cases where the dangers predominate, and time has but brought a new complication.”“What is that?” asked Bracknell sharply.“Well, the girl is thinking of marrying again.”“God in heaven!” Dick Bracknell had staggered to his feet. His eyes were burning and there was a ghastly pallor on his haggard face. He glared at the narrator as if he could slay him. “Man, do you know what you are saying?”“Yes,” answered Rayner, with well-affected surprise. “I am saying that in her inexperience this girl-wife is thinking of contracting a flesh marriage, one in which her heart is engaged, as it appears not to have been in the first. Of course she may not understand the law as it relates to bigamy, or she may believe that her husband is dead——”“Who is the man?” asked Bracknell, in a strangled voice.“The man? I do not understand. Do you mean the husband?”“No, the man whom she is thinking of marrying?”“Oh, I see. Well, that’s the curious part of the whole business, for this new lover is the cousin of her husband, one time a barrister, but now out herein the Mounted Police. What did you say? A strange story. Yes, it is that; but there is one piquant detail that you have not yet heard, sir!”“What is that?”“Well, it is this, the husband, as I informed you, is the heir to an old estate in Westmorland. He had a younger brother who since the elder’s disappearance had slipped into the position of heir—at least people had come to look upon him as such, it being fairly well known that the elder could not return to claim the succession. This younger son is dead——”“Dead!” The word came in a gasp from Dick Bracknell’s lips, and immediately after he was taken with a fit of coughing which lasted for some little time, and left him exhausted with his face hidden in his hands.“Your cough is very bad, sir,” said Rayner with affected sympathy. “Are you sure that you wish me to continue the narrative?”Bracknell lifted a tortured face, and in his deep-sunk eyes there was a moisture that was more than suspicious. “Yes,” he said hoarsely. “Go on!”“As you wish,” replied Rayner with affected solicitude, and then continued, “As I was saying, this younger son is dead——”“How did he die?” interrupted Bracknell.“Something went wrong with his gun when he was out grouse shooting. It burst, I believe, anyhow it killed him, and by his death, failing the succession of the older son, the cousin becomes the heir, and you have the rather unique situation ofthe cousin stepping into the shoes of the heir and the husband at one and the same time. Quite a little drama in its way, is it not?”Dick Bracknell’s reply to the question was an inarticulate one, and afterwards for a little time he stared into the fire with eyes that looked almost ferocious. Then he asked abruptly, “How do you know all this?”“As I explained, I am the representative of the firm of Sir Joseph Rayner and Son, and I have been sent out to find the girl wife——”“To find J—er—the girl?”“Yes! she left England very suddenly a few weeks ago without informing Sir Joseph. She, as we have ascertained, came to the Dominion, and my principal suspecting that she was going to marry the man I have mentioned, sent me to intervene. Two courses are open for me to follow, either to find the young lady, and explain to the former that in the absence of proof of her husband’s death such a marriage is of more than doubtful legality; or to find the policeman and point out that the young lady is already a wife.”“But he—but what if he already knows?”“Then in that case I shall be called upon to explain the law to him also! But so far I have accomplished none of these things. The policeman, as I learned at Regina, is missing; and when I arrived there the young lady had already left her home up here for an unknown destination.... I do not know, of course, but I have my suspicions as to who may be awaiting her at that destination.”“What do you mean?”“Well, sir, you appear to be a man of education, and you will remember that the great Antony thought the world well lost for love, and what Cleopatra thought, her actions proved. Human nature does not change, and love is the strongest passion it knows, and I suspect that her lover being missing, the young lady has gone to look for him, or if not that to meet him at some appointed rendezvous. The two are young, between them they will be fabulously rich and they will not be the first pair of lovers to set the world and the world’s conventions at defiance. At least they will be able to afford it!”“Never! by—— never!”The words came from the sick man’s lips explosively. He rose from his seat, and gripped Rayner’s shoulder in a way that made him grimace with pain.“Man,” he cried, “are you telling me the truth?”“Certainly, sir! Why——”“Do you know who I am?”Bracknell’s eyes, full of wild light, glared down into Rayner’s but the latter, as he lied, met them unflinchingly.“I do not, sir! We have not exchanged——”“My name is Bracknell—Dick Bracknell; and I can guess it is my wife and my cousin of whom you have been talking. By—— if I had him here. And to think that two days ago he was here, and that I let him go.”“He was here two days ago?”“Two days ago—and I let him go because hepitched a cock and bull story which I believed! And I might have known all the time that it was so much bunkum, just a yarn to get out of my hands. I ought to have killed him as he tried to kill me by poisoning my dogs. I remember now that once before when we met, he showed a tenderness for Joy that was more than natural in a mere cousin by marriage. He suggested to me that I should make reparations to my wife by allowing her to divorce me!”“That was a very crafty suggestion on his part!” broke in Rayner suavely. “It would have cleared his own way to your wife!”The sick man was stung to madness at the thought. His eyes burned and his face grew convulsed. “Reparation!” he cried hoarsely in jealous rage. “Reparation! The viper! If ever I put eyes on him again, I will——” he broke off as a fit of coughing took him, and when it was over he dropped to his seat utterly exhausted, gasping painfully for breath.The man whose lying story had brought on this attack, watched him unmoved, and calculated cynically whether Bracknell’s own estimate of the span of life remaining to him was correct; then he said, “I am very sorry for you, Mr. Bracknell, but I cannot allow private wrongs to interfere with my own mission. You say that your cousin was here two days ago; perhaps you can tell me which way he was travelling?”“He was going up the river—to meet Joy as like as not!”“Then I shall follow! Perhaps I shall meet thelady; if so, I shall be able to assure her that the marriage she is contemplating is quite out of the question.”“Say nothing to the man about my threats, if you find him,” said Bracknell, rousing himself. “Say I’ve news for him, that I want to see him; as by—— I do! Tell him what you like, but get him to come back here.”“I will do my best, sir!”“If I’d dogs, sick though I am, I’d follow him myself. But that’s out of the question. I shall rely on you to——”“You may, sir,” broke in Rayner obsequiously. “If I find him, I will certainly induce him to come back to you, if I can. But I hope you will not be violent——”“Violent! Bring him here,” Bracknell laughed almost deliriously, “and you will see.”.......In the morning when Adrian Rayner took the trail, he looked back at the haggard man standing by the cabin door. Bracknell had been delirious in the night, and now as he stood there swaying, the other looked at him without pity.“Booked!” he muttered to himself, “and knows it. If Roger Bracknell should happen to return here, Harrow Fell will require a new heir, and I shall be saved from a disagreeable necessity. But that chance is not to be depended on. I must find him if I can.”And as he followed the Northward trail there was the index of grim purpose in his face.
CHAPTER XVITHE CORPORAL HEARS NEWSDURINGthe weeks of his convalescence in Chief Louis’ smoking tepee, Roger Bracknell spent much of his time in reflecting on the news which the chief had given him. Reviewing the story calmly and dispassionately, he could find nothing to weaken the conclusion which the half-breed himself had reached. The dynamite and the winter thunder, with the description of the broken trail and the strange conduct of the unknown man in deliberately over-running Rolf Gargrave’s camp, were almost conclusive evidence. Some one had planned that Rolf Gargrave should die; and his death had been as surely a murder as if the man who had planned it had taken a rifle with which to do the deed. Who was the man?As often as he asked himself this question, the corporal found his thoughts reverting to his cousin. Had Dick Bracknell, having married Rolf Gargrave’s daughter, deliberately planned the murder of the millionaire? His heart revolted at the thought, but he could not escape from it. Dick had been hard pressed. He was already a fugitive from justice when he had arrived in the North and, so far as the corporal knew, that arrival had been a secret one. He would be quite unknown—even to Rolf Gargrave. No one would suspect him,and the plan he had chosen was itself so novel, that but for the Indians noticing his absence from the camp, and carrying the sticks of dynamite back to Chief Louis, it must have escaped detection.The more the corporal thought of it, the more black seemed the case against his cousin. Rolf Gargrave was a clever man, and powerful, and he had had his own plans for his daughter. Dick Bracknell must have known that when he heard how Joy had been trapped into marriage, he would be very wrathful, and calculating on the father’s intervention he must have decided to get rid of him, in the hope of sooner or later trading upon Joy’s inexperience of the world. One day, whilst he was reflecting on the problem, unable to touch certainty anywhere, a thought occurred to him, and when Chief Louis entered the tepee he promptly asked a question—“Louis, when was it that the stranger called at your camp for guides to help him to find Rolf Gargrave? I mean what time of the year was it?”The chief considered for a moment. Then he answered gravely. “It was two moons before ze ice break up.”“You are sure?” asked the corporal.“Certain!”“That would be March or a little later,” said the corporal thoughtfully. “And Dick fled from England about Christmas. If he came straight through he might do it comfortably.”“Dick! Who ees dat?” asked the chief quickly.“He is the one man I know who may have been interested in Rolf Gargrave’s death. You mayhave heard of him? He is known in the North as Koona Dick!”“I hav’ not him seen, unless he vas ze stranger mans who come to my camp dat day. But of him I hav’ heard. He is bad mans, he want shooting. He sell whiskey—mooch whiskey, to ze Porcupine Sticks, an’ dey fight till seven be dead in ze snow. Also he take their catch of fur for ze whiskey, an’ when ze winter it come, dey freeze, an’ ze babes die. Yes, of him, I have heard, an’ he is very bad mans. So he is ze mans dat come to my lodges dat day, an’ dat blow up ze trail for Rolf Gargrave so dat he die.”“I have not said so yet,” answered the corporal thoughtfully, “but I am afraid that there can be little question of it. Some day when I meet him I shall put the question to him plainly, and learn the truth.”“You know dis mans, Koona Dick?”“Yes! He is my cousin.”As he received the information the half-breed flashed a quick glance of sympathy.“Le diable!” he said. “Dat is strange. But so it does befall. One pup of ze litter he ees a good dog, and he grows to ze collar-work naturally; but anoder he is bad, he snarl like ze wolf, he is a thief, he will not do ze work. So is it with ze sled-dogs and with men! It is passing strange, but I hev’ often beheld it, and it is so!”The corporal nodded his assent. He had often wondered at the crooked strain which had sent his cousin on wild courses to dishonour, but could find no consolation in the thought that given certaincircumstances the way of dishonour was almost inevitable. He rose from the couch of skins, and moving stiffly towards the fire, thrust in a spruce twig, and with it lit his pipe. Then he turned to the chief.“I wonder how soon I shall be able to take the trail, Louis?”The half-breed shook his head. “Not yet. Ze leg dat hav’ been broken, it is not good for snow-shoe work. No! It ache like le diable! You must wait—wait till ze ice break up, then you go down ze river in a canoe. Dat will be ze easy way. Yes.”A mutinous look came on Roger Bracknell’s face. Having so long lived an active life, he was growing tired of the monotony of the encampment, and as he felt the strength returning to his leg was more and more inclined to make the attempt to reach civilization as represented by the police-post. There was news to send to Joy Gargrave, news that might profoundly affect her life, and it was desirable that she should receive it at the earliest possible moment.“I do not think that I shall wait until then, Louis. They will give me up for lost, at the post, and besides I have news for a certain person—”“Is the news good?” interrupted the chief. For a moment the corporal did not reply. Was the news he had to send Joy Gargrave good? In one way, yes! It would suffice to remove any lingering doubt as to the effect of the shot that she had fired when she had gone to meet Dick Bracknell in thewood. He would be able to assure her, on the evidence of Dick himself, that she was not responsible for the mischief that had been done. That assurance, as he knew, would mean the lifting of a weight of apprehension from Joy’s heart. In another way, however, the news was bad. Dick Bracknell was still alive, and that meant that she was still bound to him, and that on the first favourable opportunity he might assert himself. His mind was still balancing the good and evil of the case, when Louis, who had been watching his face, spoke again.“There is no need to speak. Ze news it is not good! Therefore there is not any cause for haste. Ill news does not grow worse for keeping, and the trail it is bad these days, for there is mooch snow.”“Nevertheless, I shall make the endeavour, Louis! I will borrow a man and a dog team and meat from you, and in one week I will take the trail. If I find it too much for me, I can return.”The chief nodded. “As you please. Ze dogs are yours, also ze meat an ze mans, though ze hunters are from ze camp just now. But if you mus’ go, you mus’. It is le diable in ze race that drives you forth, corp’ral.”“The devil in the race?” laughed Bracknell. “I do not understand, Louis. What do you mean?”“I mean ze unrest that dwells in ze men of your tribe. It drives them forth, for good or ill, to ze conquest of ze lands. It makes them seek ze stick which runs through ze earth——”“The pole, you mean, Louis.”“Ze pole, yes! And when got, what good? It makes them dat they cannot sit by ze fires in warm tepees, but must go hunt ze bald-faced bear, or dig ze frozen earth for gold dat somewhere white squaw may fling it from ze window.”“Yes!” laughed the corporal. “You put the truth—rather brutally. We are rather given that way. But it isn’t the devil, Louis, it is the genius and instinct of our race for conquest that drives us—that and the dream of the home-woman, I suppose.”Chief Louis nodded. “Oui! maybe; and you haf’ ze dream corp’ral.”Corporal Bracknell stopped his perambulation of the hut, and stared at his companion.“Now how the dickens do you know that, Louis?”“I have seen it in your eyes. You speak of Rolf Gargrave, an’ twice, only twice you hav’ speak of Gargrave’s daughter, but there were dreams in ze eyes then, and a soft note in ze voice, and I know dat she is what you call ze home-woman. Oui! I know dat is so.”The corporal’s face flushed, and he did not deny it. For one moment as he stood there, he had a vision of Joy Gargrave, young and beautiful and a fit mate for any man, and in that moment there were dreams in his eyes. Three seconds later realities asserted themselves, and the soft light died from his eyes. He gave a little bitter laugh, and without speaking resumed his perambulations.Chief Louis watched him for a moment then he said tentatively, “There be difficulties ahead, corp’ral.”“Yes,” nodded Bracknell, “grave difficulties! What would you do, Louis, if you wanted a maid to wife?”“I should offer a large price—blankets, guns, tobac!”Roger Bracknell laughed at the notion of offering a large price for Joy Gargrave, and then mooted the real difficulty.“But if it was not a matter of price, Louis, rather of another man! What then?”“Then I would him fight. Always maidens are caught with strength. They love a man. Dat is ze law of life and of mating. Ze strong wolf in ze pack he hav’ ze pick an’ ze strong bull-moose he hav’ ze herd; an’ ze strong man he take ze maid. I have looked on ze world and so is it! Yes! Love like all dings else is ze spoil of ze strong!”Bracknell did not reply for a moment. In that hour the law of the primeval wilds appealed to him strongly, but he knew that it was not the way for him.“Yes,” he said, “it is the law of the wilds, but not of my race. I carry a law that is the law of man, and he who kills whether for love or hate dies therefor. The thing is impossible!”Chief Louis grunted disapprobation. “Ze law of ze wild is better. For dat reason I dwell in ze lodges of my mother’s people, where ze strong rule.”He knocked the ashes from his pipe, and withoutadding more passed out of the tepee. Roger Bracknell still continued his perambulations, exercising his injured leg, and as he walked his mind was busy with what he felt was to become the problem of his life. He loved Joy Gargrave. He confessed it frankly to himself. He had loved her since that day when in the woods at North Star she had offered him her hand as a token that she counted him among her friends! But what good was it? The whole thing was so hopeless so long as Dick Bracknell lived. And if he died, would the outlook be any the less hopeless? He could not tell, but he was afraid not; for friendship was not love, and Joy Gargrave, as he was sure, was not a woman to give her affection easily.As he thought despair gripped him, and the tepee’s skin walls seemed too narrow a prison-house. He threw on his fur coat and mittens and went outside. Driven by his thoughts, he left the encampment, and, walking stiffly, moved down the river trail. He had walked perhaps a mile and a half, when out of the woods broke a couple of laden sledges, and two men of the tribe. They were from the hunters, and as they passed they saluted him gravely, according to the manner of their race.“How! How!”He responded in kind, and continued to walk on. He had proceeded but a little way however when a thought occurred to him. These men had been away on the main river. They might have news of the outer world. Instantly as the thought came to him, he turned in his tracks and began to return tothe encampment. When he reached there the two hunters were not to be seen, but when he entered his own tepee he found Chief Louis sitting by the fire, smoking. There was an impassive look on his face, but in his eyes was a light that could not be hidden, and the white man knew that the chief was excited. The corporal did not remark upon the fact, however, but deliberately filled his pipe, and seating himself, smoked on as if he had noticed nothing. After a little time Louis spoke.“Ze hunters they hav’ sent meat, mooch meat!”“Yes,” answered Bracknell. “I met two men of the tribe just now.”“There is meat for a potlach (feast), but dat is not ze way of my people. We are not as ze wolves which eat all, even ze bones, an’ then run hungry until a new kill is made.”“There is much wisdom in such prudence,” answered Bracknell, wondering when the half-breed would unfold his news.“It is ze way of ze white mans, and it is ze way of ze wise, therefore do we eat and leave meat that we may eat again.”The corporal nodded, but said nothing, and after a pause Chief Louis spoke again. “Of ze two men you met, one was Sibou.”“Ah! Sibou, who with Paslik went as guide with the stranger who wished to overtake Rolf Gargrave?”“Oui! Sibou, who went with ze stranger mans who blow ze bottom out of ze trail that Rolf Gargrave die!”Roger Bracknell waited. He felt that he wason the verge of some revelation, but he concealed his impatience and maintained an unperturbed demeanour, knowing that such would commend him to his host. The half-breed puffed stolidly at his pipe for a full minute, then he spoke again.“Sibou brings not meat alone, he brings news.”“News.”“Oui! Of ze stranger mans who dynamite ze trail!”“Is that so?”“Dat is ze news which Sibou bring to me. He say dat six days ago, ze stranger mans come to ze hunting camp to buy meat. He have with him fine dogs and two bad Indians. He offer for meat one good rifle and many cartridges, an’ Sibou sell him meat. Also he know him for ze stranger mans; but ze stranger he does not know Sibou, whose face was last winter mauled by a bald-faced grizzly to whom he did not give ze trail. The stranger mans he camp with the hunters for ze night, and ze two Indians they smoke with Sibou and ask questions, many questions.”“Yes,” said Bracknell, as the chief paused. “What about?”“hey ask about a white mans of ze name of Koona Dick!”“Great Scott!”“Also they ask if anything be known of anoder white mans a policemans who is lost, an’ Sibou, whose tongue is a silent one, ask ze name of ze policemans.”“Did he get it?” asked the corporal quickly.“Oui! Ze name was Corporal Bracknell, which is you.”“By Jove, yes! But who———”The half-breed checked him by raising his hand, and continued, “Sibou hav’ in mind dat ze trail was blown up for Rolf Gargrave, and he is cautious. He told of your sled which was found, and of ze dead wolves, but he say nodings dat we find you an’ dat you are with me; and presently the two bad Indians go back to the stranger mans who is in a tepee which Sibou has set for him. Sibou he follow, and he lie in ze snow outside ze tepee, and with his knife he cut a hole in the tepee dat he may see and hear. Ze stranger mans is by ze fire, and Sibou see ze face of him, whilst his men talk. When they tell of ze sled and ze dead wolves, ze white mans he smile as a man well pleased; an’ dat is everything, except dat next morning he go north with ze meat he hav’ bartered for. Such is ze tale of Sibou. What tink you, corporal?”“Think! It is no time for thinking, it is the time for action. There’s some infernal work afoot, and I start on that man’s trail tomorrow. Whatever his game may be now—and it’s a mystery that passes my comprehension—he’s the murderer of Rolf Gargrave, and I’ll get him if I follow him to the Pole! But the story puzzles me! Those Indians asked about Koona Dick. Why should they do that?”The chief shook his head. “Dat I cannot tell.”“It’s odd, very odd! Koona Dick is the one man who may reasonably be suspected of a motivefor getting rid of Rolf Gargrave. That I know, but——”He broke off as a thought occurred to him, and then remarked thoughtfully, “The question may have been a mere bluff of Dick’s. He may after all have recognized Sibou and set his men to ask the question in order to discover whether your man had any knowledge of his name! Yes, that may be it! But I will find him, and I will learn the truth. Louis, can I have a team and stores for the morning? And Sibou also? He knows the man and I do not. Of course the service will be paid for from Regina.”The chief nodded his head. “Ze dogs are yours, with the stores, also Sibou goes with you. But you will find ze trail hard, for dat leg he is not yet strong.”“It will grow stronger every day, and with Sibou to pack the trail I shall do well. I start at dawn in the morning.”“Then,” said Louis, rising, “I will go, and ze teams select for you. Ze dogs shall be of ze best.”He went out leaving Roger Bracknell in a whirl of conflicting thoughts.
THE CORPORAL HEARS NEWS
DURINGthe weeks of his convalescence in Chief Louis’ smoking tepee, Roger Bracknell spent much of his time in reflecting on the news which the chief had given him. Reviewing the story calmly and dispassionately, he could find nothing to weaken the conclusion which the half-breed himself had reached. The dynamite and the winter thunder, with the description of the broken trail and the strange conduct of the unknown man in deliberately over-running Rolf Gargrave’s camp, were almost conclusive evidence. Some one had planned that Rolf Gargrave should die; and his death had been as surely a murder as if the man who had planned it had taken a rifle with which to do the deed. Who was the man?
As often as he asked himself this question, the corporal found his thoughts reverting to his cousin. Had Dick Bracknell, having married Rolf Gargrave’s daughter, deliberately planned the murder of the millionaire? His heart revolted at the thought, but he could not escape from it. Dick had been hard pressed. He was already a fugitive from justice when he had arrived in the North and, so far as the corporal knew, that arrival had been a secret one. He would be quite unknown—even to Rolf Gargrave. No one would suspect him,and the plan he had chosen was itself so novel, that but for the Indians noticing his absence from the camp, and carrying the sticks of dynamite back to Chief Louis, it must have escaped detection.
The more the corporal thought of it, the more black seemed the case against his cousin. Rolf Gargrave was a clever man, and powerful, and he had had his own plans for his daughter. Dick Bracknell must have known that when he heard how Joy had been trapped into marriage, he would be very wrathful, and calculating on the father’s intervention he must have decided to get rid of him, in the hope of sooner or later trading upon Joy’s inexperience of the world. One day, whilst he was reflecting on the problem, unable to touch certainty anywhere, a thought occurred to him, and when Chief Louis entered the tepee he promptly asked a question—
“Louis, when was it that the stranger called at your camp for guides to help him to find Rolf Gargrave? I mean what time of the year was it?”
The chief considered for a moment. Then he answered gravely. “It was two moons before ze ice break up.”
“You are sure?” asked the corporal.
“Certain!”
“That would be March or a little later,” said the corporal thoughtfully. “And Dick fled from England about Christmas. If he came straight through he might do it comfortably.”
“Dick! Who ees dat?” asked the chief quickly.
“He is the one man I know who may have been interested in Rolf Gargrave’s death. You mayhave heard of him? He is known in the North as Koona Dick!”
“I hav’ not him seen, unless he vas ze stranger mans who come to my camp dat day. But of him I hav’ heard. He is bad mans, he want shooting. He sell whiskey—mooch whiskey, to ze Porcupine Sticks, an’ dey fight till seven be dead in ze snow. Also he take their catch of fur for ze whiskey, an’ when ze winter it come, dey freeze, an’ ze babes die. Yes, of him, I have heard, an’ he is very bad mans. So he is ze mans dat come to my lodges dat day, an’ dat blow up ze trail for Rolf Gargrave so dat he die.”
“I have not said so yet,” answered the corporal thoughtfully, “but I am afraid that there can be little question of it. Some day when I meet him I shall put the question to him plainly, and learn the truth.”
“You know dis mans, Koona Dick?”
“Yes! He is my cousin.”
As he received the information the half-breed flashed a quick glance of sympathy.
“Le diable!” he said. “Dat is strange. But so it does befall. One pup of ze litter he ees a good dog, and he grows to ze collar-work naturally; but anoder he is bad, he snarl like ze wolf, he is a thief, he will not do ze work. So is it with ze sled-dogs and with men! It is passing strange, but I hev’ often beheld it, and it is so!”
The corporal nodded his assent. He had often wondered at the crooked strain which had sent his cousin on wild courses to dishonour, but could find no consolation in the thought that given certaincircumstances the way of dishonour was almost inevitable. He rose from the couch of skins, and moving stiffly towards the fire, thrust in a spruce twig, and with it lit his pipe. Then he turned to the chief.
“I wonder how soon I shall be able to take the trail, Louis?”
The half-breed shook his head. “Not yet. Ze leg dat hav’ been broken, it is not good for snow-shoe work. No! It ache like le diable! You must wait—wait till ze ice break up, then you go down ze river in a canoe. Dat will be ze easy way. Yes.”
A mutinous look came on Roger Bracknell’s face. Having so long lived an active life, he was growing tired of the monotony of the encampment, and as he felt the strength returning to his leg was more and more inclined to make the attempt to reach civilization as represented by the police-post. There was news to send to Joy Gargrave, news that might profoundly affect her life, and it was desirable that she should receive it at the earliest possible moment.
“I do not think that I shall wait until then, Louis. They will give me up for lost, at the post, and besides I have news for a certain person—”
“Is the news good?” interrupted the chief. For a moment the corporal did not reply. Was the news he had to send Joy Gargrave good? In one way, yes! It would suffice to remove any lingering doubt as to the effect of the shot that she had fired when she had gone to meet Dick Bracknell in thewood. He would be able to assure her, on the evidence of Dick himself, that she was not responsible for the mischief that had been done. That assurance, as he knew, would mean the lifting of a weight of apprehension from Joy’s heart. In another way, however, the news was bad. Dick Bracknell was still alive, and that meant that she was still bound to him, and that on the first favourable opportunity he might assert himself. His mind was still balancing the good and evil of the case, when Louis, who had been watching his face, spoke again.
“There is no need to speak. Ze news it is not good! Therefore there is not any cause for haste. Ill news does not grow worse for keeping, and the trail it is bad these days, for there is mooch snow.”
“Nevertheless, I shall make the endeavour, Louis! I will borrow a man and a dog team and meat from you, and in one week I will take the trail. If I find it too much for me, I can return.”
The chief nodded. “As you please. Ze dogs are yours, also ze meat an ze mans, though ze hunters are from ze camp just now. But if you mus’ go, you mus’. It is le diable in ze race that drives you forth, corp’ral.”
“The devil in the race?” laughed Bracknell. “I do not understand, Louis. What do you mean?”
“I mean ze unrest that dwells in ze men of your tribe. It drives them forth, for good or ill, to ze conquest of ze lands. It makes them seek ze stick which runs through ze earth——”
“The pole, you mean, Louis.”
“Ze pole, yes! And when got, what good? It makes them dat they cannot sit by ze fires in warm tepees, but must go hunt ze bald-faced bear, or dig ze frozen earth for gold dat somewhere white squaw may fling it from ze window.”
“Yes!” laughed the corporal. “You put the truth—rather brutally. We are rather given that way. But it isn’t the devil, Louis, it is the genius and instinct of our race for conquest that drives us—that and the dream of the home-woman, I suppose.”
Chief Louis nodded. “Oui! maybe; and you haf’ ze dream corp’ral.”
Corporal Bracknell stopped his perambulation of the hut, and stared at his companion.
“Now how the dickens do you know that, Louis?”
“I have seen it in your eyes. You speak of Rolf Gargrave, an’ twice, only twice you hav’ speak of Gargrave’s daughter, but there were dreams in ze eyes then, and a soft note in ze voice, and I know dat she is what you call ze home-woman. Oui! I know dat is so.”
The corporal’s face flushed, and he did not deny it. For one moment as he stood there, he had a vision of Joy Gargrave, young and beautiful and a fit mate for any man, and in that moment there were dreams in his eyes. Three seconds later realities asserted themselves, and the soft light died from his eyes. He gave a little bitter laugh, and without speaking resumed his perambulations.Chief Louis watched him for a moment then he said tentatively, “There be difficulties ahead, corp’ral.”
“Yes,” nodded Bracknell, “grave difficulties! What would you do, Louis, if you wanted a maid to wife?”
“I should offer a large price—blankets, guns, tobac!”
Roger Bracknell laughed at the notion of offering a large price for Joy Gargrave, and then mooted the real difficulty.
“But if it was not a matter of price, Louis, rather of another man! What then?”
“Then I would him fight. Always maidens are caught with strength. They love a man. Dat is ze law of life and of mating. Ze strong wolf in ze pack he hav’ ze pick an’ ze strong bull-moose he hav’ ze herd; an’ ze strong man he take ze maid. I have looked on ze world and so is it! Yes! Love like all dings else is ze spoil of ze strong!”
Bracknell did not reply for a moment. In that hour the law of the primeval wilds appealed to him strongly, but he knew that it was not the way for him.
“Yes,” he said, “it is the law of the wilds, but not of my race. I carry a law that is the law of man, and he who kills whether for love or hate dies therefor. The thing is impossible!”
Chief Louis grunted disapprobation. “Ze law of ze wild is better. For dat reason I dwell in ze lodges of my mother’s people, where ze strong rule.”
He knocked the ashes from his pipe, and withoutadding more passed out of the tepee. Roger Bracknell still continued his perambulations, exercising his injured leg, and as he walked his mind was busy with what he felt was to become the problem of his life. He loved Joy Gargrave. He confessed it frankly to himself. He had loved her since that day when in the woods at North Star she had offered him her hand as a token that she counted him among her friends! But what good was it? The whole thing was so hopeless so long as Dick Bracknell lived. And if he died, would the outlook be any the less hopeless? He could not tell, but he was afraid not; for friendship was not love, and Joy Gargrave, as he was sure, was not a woman to give her affection easily.
As he thought despair gripped him, and the tepee’s skin walls seemed too narrow a prison-house. He threw on his fur coat and mittens and went outside. Driven by his thoughts, he left the encampment, and, walking stiffly, moved down the river trail. He had walked perhaps a mile and a half, when out of the woods broke a couple of laden sledges, and two men of the tribe. They were from the hunters, and as they passed they saluted him gravely, according to the manner of their race.
“How! How!”
He responded in kind, and continued to walk on. He had proceeded but a little way however when a thought occurred to him. These men had been away on the main river. They might have news of the outer world. Instantly as the thought came to him, he turned in his tracks and began to return tothe encampment. When he reached there the two hunters were not to be seen, but when he entered his own tepee he found Chief Louis sitting by the fire, smoking. There was an impassive look on his face, but in his eyes was a light that could not be hidden, and the white man knew that the chief was excited. The corporal did not remark upon the fact, however, but deliberately filled his pipe, and seating himself, smoked on as if he had noticed nothing. After a little time Louis spoke.
“Ze hunters they hav’ sent meat, mooch meat!”
“Yes,” answered Bracknell. “I met two men of the tribe just now.”
“There is meat for a potlach (feast), but dat is not ze way of my people. We are not as ze wolves which eat all, even ze bones, an’ then run hungry until a new kill is made.”
“There is much wisdom in such prudence,” answered Bracknell, wondering when the half-breed would unfold his news.
“It is ze way of ze white mans, and it is ze way of ze wise, therefore do we eat and leave meat that we may eat again.”
The corporal nodded, but said nothing, and after a pause Chief Louis spoke again. “Of ze two men you met, one was Sibou.”
“Ah! Sibou, who with Paslik went as guide with the stranger who wished to overtake Rolf Gargrave?”
“Oui! Sibou, who went with ze stranger mans who blow ze bottom out of ze trail that Rolf Gargrave die!”
Roger Bracknell waited. He felt that he wason the verge of some revelation, but he concealed his impatience and maintained an unperturbed demeanour, knowing that such would commend him to his host. The half-breed puffed stolidly at his pipe for a full minute, then he spoke again.
“Sibou brings not meat alone, he brings news.”
“News.”
“Oui! Of ze stranger mans who dynamite ze trail!”
“Is that so?”
“Dat is ze news which Sibou bring to me. He say dat six days ago, ze stranger mans come to ze hunting camp to buy meat. He have with him fine dogs and two bad Indians. He offer for meat one good rifle and many cartridges, an’ Sibou sell him meat. Also he know him for ze stranger mans; but ze stranger he does not know Sibou, whose face was last winter mauled by a bald-faced grizzly to whom he did not give ze trail. The stranger mans he camp with the hunters for ze night, and ze two Indians they smoke with Sibou and ask questions, many questions.”
“Yes,” said Bracknell, as the chief paused. “What about?”
“hey ask about a white mans of ze name of Koona Dick!”
“Great Scott!”
“Also they ask if anything be known of anoder white mans a policemans who is lost, an’ Sibou, whose tongue is a silent one, ask ze name of ze policemans.”
“Did he get it?” asked the corporal quickly.
“Oui! Ze name was Corporal Bracknell, which is you.”
“By Jove, yes! But who———”
The half-breed checked him by raising his hand, and continued, “Sibou hav’ in mind dat ze trail was blown up for Rolf Gargrave, and he is cautious. He told of your sled which was found, and of ze dead wolves, but he say nodings dat we find you an’ dat you are with me; and presently the two bad Indians go back to the stranger mans who is in a tepee which Sibou has set for him. Sibou he follow, and he lie in ze snow outside ze tepee, and with his knife he cut a hole in the tepee dat he may see and hear. Ze stranger mans is by ze fire, and Sibou see ze face of him, whilst his men talk. When they tell of ze sled and ze dead wolves, ze white mans he smile as a man well pleased; an’ dat is everything, except dat next morning he go north with ze meat he hav’ bartered for. Such is ze tale of Sibou. What tink you, corporal?”
“Think! It is no time for thinking, it is the time for action. There’s some infernal work afoot, and I start on that man’s trail tomorrow. Whatever his game may be now—and it’s a mystery that passes my comprehension—he’s the murderer of Rolf Gargrave, and I’ll get him if I follow him to the Pole! But the story puzzles me! Those Indians asked about Koona Dick. Why should they do that?”
The chief shook his head. “Dat I cannot tell.”
“It’s odd, very odd! Koona Dick is the one man who may reasonably be suspected of a motivefor getting rid of Rolf Gargrave. That I know, but——”
He broke off as a thought occurred to him, and then remarked thoughtfully, “The question may have been a mere bluff of Dick’s. He may after all have recognized Sibou and set his men to ask the question in order to discover whether your man had any knowledge of his name! Yes, that may be it! But I will find him, and I will learn the truth. Louis, can I have a team and stores for the morning? And Sibou also? He knows the man and I do not. Of course the service will be paid for from Regina.”
The chief nodded his head. “Ze dogs are yours, with the stores, also Sibou goes with you. But you will find ze trail hard, for dat leg he is not yet strong.”
“It will grow stronger every day, and with Sibou to pack the trail I shall do well. I start at dawn in the morning.”
“Then,” said Louis, rising, “I will go, and ze teams select for you. Ze dogs shall be of ze best.”
He went out leaving Roger Bracknell in a whirl of conflicting thoughts.
CHAPTER XVIIA LONELY CABINCORPORAL BRACKNELLand Sibou had left the hunting camp of the tribe two days and were following the trail of the white man and the two Indians who had visited it more than a week before. The trail, though it was old, was well defined, for there had been no fall of snow in the interval, and the frozen surface of the wilderness kept the trail fresh, and made it easy to follow. It was evident to both of them that their quarry travelled fast, for the distances between the camping places were greater than was usual, and it was clear that those whom they followed had some need for haste. What it could be the corporal could only guess, and guessing under the circumstances was not a very profitable occupation. And there were other signs which gave room for speculation. Now and again the party ahead of them had halted for a little time, and two of the men had left the dogs and the sled, as their tracks showed. These halting places, as the corporal was quick to observe, always occurred when some small stream fell into the main river, or when some accessible gully or creek opened from the banks.“What do you make of it, Sibou?” he asked when they had reached the fifth halting place of this sort.The Indian who had followed the tracks of two of the gullies to the point where they reversed glanced at those which now lay before them. Then he waved a mittened hand.“These men be looking for something.”“Or some one!” commented the corporal thoughtfully.The Indian gave a grave inclination of his head. “It is not good to follow every trail,” he said in his own tongue. “Sometime perhaps we shall find a trail that does not return on itself, then we know they find what they seek and we follow.”“Yes,” answered the corporal, “that is the best way, I think. We will push on and not waste time on these excursions.”They pressed forward and passed two more of these deviations from the main track without troubling to follow them. Just before daylight faded, when they were hugging the bank looking for a suitable camping place, the Indian called the corporal’s attention to a small creek the entrance to which was masked by low-boughed spruce trees.“Yes,” said the corporal, “that should do. Those banks and trees should break this wind.”They turned the dogs towards it, and negotiating a snow wreath which the wind was piling up, they entered the sheltering creek. Sibou was leading, packing the trail, and the corporal clinging to the gee-pole of the sled, saw him come to a most unexpected halt. Bracknell moved forward.“What is the matter, Sibou?”The Indian did not speak, but pointed silently at the snow, and looking down the corporal sawthe unmistakable trail of snowshoes. The tracks were quite fresh, and were so unexpected that Bracknell was himself astonished. He stared at them as Crusoe must have stared when he found the footprints on the shore of his island. Who had left that tell-tale trail? Perhaps a wandering Indian. Maybe some solitary prospector caught by winter, or possibly the man whom he was seeking, the murderer of Rolf Gargrave. His heart beat quickly at the thought and, still staring at the trail which came down the bank of the creek and then turned away from the river, he considered the matter carefully, and then gave instructions.“Follow it, Sibou, and find out where it goes and who made it. I will pitch camp and wait here for you.”The Indian nodded gravely and departed and Bracknell busied himself with pitching camp. He had already lit the fire and fed the dogs, and was busy with the beans and bacon when Sibou returned.“Well?” asked the corporal expectantly. “Did you find him?”“Yes,” was the reply. “There is one Indian and one white man. They are in a cabin at the head of the creek.”Bracknell was conscious of a sudden excitement.“Did you see the white man? Is it——”Sibou shook his head. “I saw him, but it is not the man we follow; and he is very sick with the coughing sickness!”The corporal’s excitement died as quickly as it had risen.“Did you speak with him, Sibou?”“No,” replied the Indian. “There was no need. I saw his face as he came to the cabin door. It is not the man.”Corporal Bracknell bent over the fire. He was disappointed, but he did not show it. He turned the bacon in the pan then he looked up.“We will have supper first, then I will walk up the creek as far as the cabin, and have a talk with this white man. He may know something of the man we follow.”Sibou made no reply, and when the meal was ready they ate it in silence, and smoked whilst they drank the coffee. Then Bracknell arose.“I go now, Sibou. I shall return before sleeping time.”The Indian offered no objection to this, and knocking the ashes from his pipe the policeman left the camp. Even in the darkness he had no difficulty in following the trail up the creek, and presently the smell of burning wood informed him that he was in the neighbourhood of the cabin. He looked round carefully and descried it in the shadow of the trees on the right bank, and began to ascend towards it. When he reached it there was no clamour of dogs such as might have been expected had there been a team there, and as he rapped upon the door, he reflected that his conjecture about the gold prospector overtaken by the winter was probably the correct one.The door was flung open, and a tall man whose face he could not discern stood revealed. Inside in front of a makeshift stove was another man,who was taken suddenly by a paroxysm of coughing. For half a minute the corporal stood there, and the man at the door did not move or speak; but at the end of that time, between two spasms of coughing, the other man cried querulously, “Oh, come in and shut that confounded door!”The man at the door moved aside, and as Bracknell entered, he closed the door behind him, and stood with his back to it, staring at the new-comer with eyes that had in them a savage gleam of hate. The man by the fire was still coughing, and at the end of some three minutes, as the cough left him, he sat there, gasping and wheezing and utterly exhausted. Roger Bracknell watched him, with compassionate eyes. As he recognized, the man was in sore straits, and that cough probably meant that the coming of the Spring was for him the coming of death. As his breath came back the sick man half turned.“Sit down, can’t——” The remark was broken off half way, and the man started from his seat. “Great Christopher! A Daniel come to judgment! How do you do, Cousin Roger?”As the voice quivering with excitement rang through the cabin, a startled look came on Roger Bracknell’s face, and he bent forward, and stared at the wasted features of the unkempt man before him. The other laughed harshly.“Oh, you needn’t stare so hard, Roger; it is I right enough.”It was Dick Bracknell, and as the corporal realized the fact, the compassion he had felt for a stranger was trebled when he found that the sickman was of his own blood. For a moment he did not reply, but with a shocked look on his face gazed at the ravaged features before him. The “coughing sickness” which Sibou had mentioned had plainly gripped Dick Bracknell and marked him for death. Some of his teeth were gone and the colour of his gums appeared like yellow ochre in the firelight. As he noted these signs of scurvy, the corporal was moved to speak his pity.“Dick, old man, I am mortal sorry——”“Then keep your infernal pity for yourself!” cried the other savagely. “You’ll need it all in a minute, for Joe has the drop on you, you—— murderer.”The corporal started, and swung round. The Indian, Joe, was standing with his back to the door, and the glow of the fire was reflected from the pistol in his hand. He noted the fact quite calmly, and turned to his cousin again.“Murderer?” he said slowly. “I do not understand. What do you mean?”“No?” snarled his cousin. “Well, look at me! Would you say that I was a good case for a Life Insurance Society?”The corporal looked at him, and out of pity was silent.“Oh, you needn’t be so particular,” continued the other sneeringly. “I’ve seen other fellows whose lungs have been chilled, and I know I am booked, unless I can get to a sanatorium in double quick time. And I know you have a soft heart, but you should have let it speak sooner—before you put this upon me.”“Before I put—— I do not know what you mean?”“No! But you know that you poisoned that dog food that we took from you, don’t you? And you can guess——”“Good God!” ejaculated the corporal, and the astonishment in his face and voice did more than any protests could have done to convince his cousin that the charge was groundless.“You didn’t know? No, I see you didn’t!” cried the sick man.“Of course I didn’t!” replied the policeman quickly. “The dogs you left me died of poison at my first camp, after they had been fed. I blamed your man, because you had told me that he was reluctant to let me go. Now it seems that I was wrong, as you are wrong. Tell me what happened?”“I will,” said his cousin, “sit down!” As the corporal seated himself on a log, Dick Bracknell turned to the Indian. “You can put down that pistol for the present, Joe. There’s a mystery to be cleared up before there’s any shooting to be done. Put it down, I tell you!”The Indian obeyed reluctantly, but still stood against the door, and Dick Bracknell explained. “Joe there has it saved up against you. He was sure that you had deliberately poisoned the dog food, so that we should get stranded, and you, with a new outfit, would be able to find us at your leisure. I couldn’t believe it of you at first. It was such a low-down game that I’d have sworn that nobody but a Siwash half-breed would have played it.But the logic of facts seemed convincing, and I’d come to believe it.”“Tell me what happened.”“That’s easy enough. When I parted from you, I had an idea of working across to the Behring, where I’d have been off the beat of your confounded patrols. We travelled a week and made a good pace, then one night Joe there fed the dogs with the salmon-roe we took off your sled. They were all dead within two hours; and there we were, stranded in the shadow of the Arctic circle and nearly a thousand miles from civilization.” The sick man broke off, shaken by a fit of coughing, and then as the spasm passed and his breath returned, he said meditatively, “If you’d walked into our camp then we’d have fed you with that roe, and watched you twist as those dogs were twisted, for Joe looked at the food and found strychnine, which he’d used when he was trapping for the H. B. C.... Lucky thing for you that you didn’t! Did you say your dogs died of the same thing?”“Yes,” answered the corporal slowly, “and now I’m wondering who was responsible.”“Somebody who was getting at you, and not at us,” answered Dick Bracknell quickly, “for he couldn’t have known that we should collar the food. Had you been using the same stuff all along?”“No.” The word dropped from the corporal reluctantly. “No. I had laid in a new stock at North Star.”“Then it was there the thing was done,” repliedthe sick man with conviction. “The question is, who did it? Joy wouldn’t even dream of such a thing!”“That at any rate is quite certain!” answered the corporal with conviction.“But somebody did it; somebody who owed you one, and meant to get rid of you. That’s shown by the fact that your dogs did all right on the food at the beginning. That which you used first wasn’t tampered with, or the dogs would have died at the first camp you made. But they didn’t, for you camped with us, and I remember that more than once, whilst we were waiting for my convalescence, you fed your dogs with the roe. That is positive proof that the top portion of the dog-food was all right, it was only lower down that it had been tampered with.”“But why——”“It’s as plain as a barn-door. You were meant to get well away on the trail, and one night you would unknowingly feed the dogs with poisoned roe. They would die, and unless you had wonderful luck you would die too, long before you got back to civilization. That is the amiable plan that somebody thought out for you; and as things turned out he nearly bagged me and Joe instead of you.”“But he almost got me too,” said the corporal thoughtfully, and gave his cousin a brief account of his adventures.“You were lucky,” commented the sick man. “A broken leg can be spliced, but who is going to splice a set of frozen lungs?” His face grewsuddenly convulsed with passion, and he broke into terrible oaths. “If I had the murderer here—but who was he anyway?”“There is only one man of whom I can think, and before I tell you his name there are two questions I should like to ask.”“Fire them off!”“The first is this, do you know anything of Rolf Gargrave’s death?”“I know that the bottom dropped out of the trail and that he was drowned—nothing more. What’s that got to do with it anyway?”The corporal looked at his cousin. The haggard face was clear of guilt, and in that moment he knew that his earliest suspicions when Chief Louis had told him the story of Rolf Gargrave’s death had been utterly wrong. Whatever crimes Dick Bracknell had to his account this was not one of them.“I’ll explain why I asked you in a moment,” he answered. “There is the second question—yet; and it is this, did you ever inform any one of your marriage with Joy?”“Yes, one man! When I heard that Rolf Gargrave was dead, I wrote to England and informed his legal adviser, Sir Joseph Rayner, that Joy and I were husband and wife. I never had any answer to the let—— But what’s the matter, man? You look as if you had seen a ghost! What is it?”There was a look of startled amazement on the corporal’s face. He was staring at his cousin as if what the latter had said was a revelation to him, as indeed it was. A dark suspicion had leapt inhis mind, a suspicion that seemed almost incredible, but which persisted and would not be thrust aside. If Sir Joseph Rayner knew, then in all probability his son also knew, and yet having that knowledge he had suggested that the relation between himself and Joy was such as justified his confessed aspiration of making her his wife. Had he been responsible for that second shot at North Star? Or——Dick Bracknell’s voice broke in again querulously.“What’s got you, Roger! Spit it out!”“I can’t at present,” replied the corporal slowly. “You’ve given me news that I must think over before I talk. But there is one thing that I can tell you, and that is that Rolf Gargrave did not die by a mere accident. The trail he was following was sound enough, but the ice was blown up by dynamite. It froze over again in the night, and as I gather there was a little snow, he went on to the thin ice without suspicion, and went through. That’s the story as I’ve recently heard it; and I’m on the trail of the man who plotted the infernal thing, now.”The sick man pursed his lips to whistle, but no sound came from them. Then he remarked, with a little laugh of bitterness, “So that’s why you asked if I knew anything of my father-in-law’s death, is it?”“It was just a suspicion that occurred to me,” explained the corporal apologetically. “When I heard the story I wondered who would benefit by Gargrave’s death, and as you had just married Joy,and had fled here from England, it was a natural suspicion——”“I must have got pretty low down for it to be natural to suspect me of an infernal crime of that sort,” was the other’s bitter comment. “But who do you suspect now?”“I don’t know! As I told you, I’m after the man. The trail’s a week old, but I’ll find him even if I follow him to the rim of the Polar sea.”“I hope to heaven you’ll get him, and that he’ll swing at Regina for that job. I wonder if the same man had anything to do with poisoning the dog food.”“I am wondering that also!” replied the corporal thoughtfully.“Any idea of the fellow?”“Just a suspicion, nothing more. Not enough to presume upon—yet!”“He must have a mind that is diabolic.”“So it would seem!” replied the corporal, and after a little time his cousin spoke again.“Many a time while I have sat here wheezing and coughing, I have cursed you from my heart, but now I could pray that you come up with that man, and make him pay for it all. If I were sure you’d get him I could go cheerfully to my appointed place in the pit.”“I shall get him,” answered the corporal with conviction. “The Indian who is with me was with him when he arranged for Gargrave’s death, and if my suspicions have any bottom in them, then I know him myself.”“You’ll push on in the morning, of course.”“Before daylight! And I shall come up with the man, never fear. He’s travelling fast, but he’s looking for some thing or some one, the latter, I think, and——”“Who do you suppose he’s looking for?”“Well, if he’s the man I suspect, I shouldn’t wonder if he were looking for you.”“For me! What in thunder for?”“To finish what he began that night when you were shot at North Star!”“Great Scott! Do you mean that he was the man who——”“It seems to me to be more than likely. He is the man round whom all these mysteries seem to centre.”“What is the blighter?” asked the other quickly.“That I must keep to myself for a little time. I may be mistaken, you know. But if I am not——”“You’ll let me know? You’ll give me the satisfaction of knowing that the fellow will pay for these lungs of mine?” cried the sick man eagerly.“Yes,” answered the corporal pityingly. “I will let you know.”Half an hour later as he left the cabin his face wore a set look that boded ill for the man on whose trail he followed.
A LONELY CABIN
CORPORAL BRACKNELLand Sibou had left the hunting camp of the tribe two days and were following the trail of the white man and the two Indians who had visited it more than a week before. The trail, though it was old, was well defined, for there had been no fall of snow in the interval, and the frozen surface of the wilderness kept the trail fresh, and made it easy to follow. It was evident to both of them that their quarry travelled fast, for the distances between the camping places were greater than was usual, and it was clear that those whom they followed had some need for haste. What it could be the corporal could only guess, and guessing under the circumstances was not a very profitable occupation. And there were other signs which gave room for speculation. Now and again the party ahead of them had halted for a little time, and two of the men had left the dogs and the sled, as their tracks showed. These halting places, as the corporal was quick to observe, always occurred when some small stream fell into the main river, or when some accessible gully or creek opened from the banks.
“What do you make of it, Sibou?” he asked when they had reached the fifth halting place of this sort.
The Indian who had followed the tracks of two of the gullies to the point where they reversed glanced at those which now lay before them. Then he waved a mittened hand.
“These men be looking for something.”
“Or some one!” commented the corporal thoughtfully.
The Indian gave a grave inclination of his head. “It is not good to follow every trail,” he said in his own tongue. “Sometime perhaps we shall find a trail that does not return on itself, then we know they find what they seek and we follow.”
“Yes,” answered the corporal, “that is the best way, I think. We will push on and not waste time on these excursions.”
They pressed forward and passed two more of these deviations from the main track without troubling to follow them. Just before daylight faded, when they were hugging the bank looking for a suitable camping place, the Indian called the corporal’s attention to a small creek the entrance to which was masked by low-boughed spruce trees.
“Yes,” said the corporal, “that should do. Those banks and trees should break this wind.”
They turned the dogs towards it, and negotiating a snow wreath which the wind was piling up, they entered the sheltering creek. Sibou was leading, packing the trail, and the corporal clinging to the gee-pole of the sled, saw him come to a most unexpected halt. Bracknell moved forward.
“What is the matter, Sibou?”
The Indian did not speak, but pointed silently at the snow, and looking down the corporal sawthe unmistakable trail of snowshoes. The tracks were quite fresh, and were so unexpected that Bracknell was himself astonished. He stared at them as Crusoe must have stared when he found the footprints on the shore of his island. Who had left that tell-tale trail? Perhaps a wandering Indian. Maybe some solitary prospector caught by winter, or possibly the man whom he was seeking, the murderer of Rolf Gargrave. His heart beat quickly at the thought and, still staring at the trail which came down the bank of the creek and then turned away from the river, he considered the matter carefully, and then gave instructions.
“Follow it, Sibou, and find out where it goes and who made it. I will pitch camp and wait here for you.”
The Indian nodded gravely and departed and Bracknell busied himself with pitching camp. He had already lit the fire and fed the dogs, and was busy with the beans and bacon when Sibou returned.
“Well?” asked the corporal expectantly. “Did you find him?”
“Yes,” was the reply. “There is one Indian and one white man. They are in a cabin at the head of the creek.”
Bracknell was conscious of a sudden excitement.
“Did you see the white man? Is it——”
Sibou shook his head. “I saw him, but it is not the man we follow; and he is very sick with the coughing sickness!”
The corporal’s excitement died as quickly as it had risen.
“Did you speak with him, Sibou?”
“No,” replied the Indian. “There was no need. I saw his face as he came to the cabin door. It is not the man.”
Corporal Bracknell bent over the fire. He was disappointed, but he did not show it. He turned the bacon in the pan then he looked up.
“We will have supper first, then I will walk up the creek as far as the cabin, and have a talk with this white man. He may know something of the man we follow.”
Sibou made no reply, and when the meal was ready they ate it in silence, and smoked whilst they drank the coffee. Then Bracknell arose.
“I go now, Sibou. I shall return before sleeping time.”
The Indian offered no objection to this, and knocking the ashes from his pipe the policeman left the camp. Even in the darkness he had no difficulty in following the trail up the creek, and presently the smell of burning wood informed him that he was in the neighbourhood of the cabin. He looked round carefully and descried it in the shadow of the trees on the right bank, and began to ascend towards it. When he reached it there was no clamour of dogs such as might have been expected had there been a team there, and as he rapped upon the door, he reflected that his conjecture about the gold prospector overtaken by the winter was probably the correct one.
The door was flung open, and a tall man whose face he could not discern stood revealed. Inside in front of a makeshift stove was another man,who was taken suddenly by a paroxysm of coughing. For half a minute the corporal stood there, and the man at the door did not move or speak; but at the end of that time, between two spasms of coughing, the other man cried querulously, “Oh, come in and shut that confounded door!”
The man at the door moved aside, and as Bracknell entered, he closed the door behind him, and stood with his back to it, staring at the new-comer with eyes that had in them a savage gleam of hate. The man by the fire was still coughing, and at the end of some three minutes, as the cough left him, he sat there, gasping and wheezing and utterly exhausted. Roger Bracknell watched him, with compassionate eyes. As he recognized, the man was in sore straits, and that cough probably meant that the coming of the Spring was for him the coming of death. As his breath came back the sick man half turned.
“Sit down, can’t——” The remark was broken off half way, and the man started from his seat. “Great Christopher! A Daniel come to judgment! How do you do, Cousin Roger?”
As the voice quivering with excitement rang through the cabin, a startled look came on Roger Bracknell’s face, and he bent forward, and stared at the wasted features of the unkempt man before him. The other laughed harshly.
“Oh, you needn’t stare so hard, Roger; it is I right enough.”
It was Dick Bracknell, and as the corporal realized the fact, the compassion he had felt for a stranger was trebled when he found that the sickman was of his own blood. For a moment he did not reply, but with a shocked look on his face gazed at the ravaged features before him. The “coughing sickness” which Sibou had mentioned had plainly gripped Dick Bracknell and marked him for death. Some of his teeth were gone and the colour of his gums appeared like yellow ochre in the firelight. As he noted these signs of scurvy, the corporal was moved to speak his pity.
“Dick, old man, I am mortal sorry——”
“Then keep your infernal pity for yourself!” cried the other savagely. “You’ll need it all in a minute, for Joe has the drop on you, you—— murderer.”
The corporal started, and swung round. The Indian, Joe, was standing with his back to the door, and the glow of the fire was reflected from the pistol in his hand. He noted the fact quite calmly, and turned to his cousin again.
“Murderer?” he said slowly. “I do not understand. What do you mean?”
“No?” snarled his cousin. “Well, look at me! Would you say that I was a good case for a Life Insurance Society?”
The corporal looked at him, and out of pity was silent.
“Oh, you needn’t be so particular,” continued the other sneeringly. “I’ve seen other fellows whose lungs have been chilled, and I know I am booked, unless I can get to a sanatorium in double quick time. And I know you have a soft heart, but you should have let it speak sooner—before you put this upon me.”
“Before I put—— I do not know what you mean?”
“No! But you know that you poisoned that dog food that we took from you, don’t you? And you can guess——”
“Good God!” ejaculated the corporal, and the astonishment in his face and voice did more than any protests could have done to convince his cousin that the charge was groundless.
“You didn’t know? No, I see you didn’t!” cried the sick man.
“Of course I didn’t!” replied the policeman quickly. “The dogs you left me died of poison at my first camp, after they had been fed. I blamed your man, because you had told me that he was reluctant to let me go. Now it seems that I was wrong, as you are wrong. Tell me what happened?”
“I will,” said his cousin, “sit down!” As the corporal seated himself on a log, Dick Bracknell turned to the Indian. “You can put down that pistol for the present, Joe. There’s a mystery to be cleared up before there’s any shooting to be done. Put it down, I tell you!”
The Indian obeyed reluctantly, but still stood against the door, and Dick Bracknell explained. “Joe there has it saved up against you. He was sure that you had deliberately poisoned the dog food, so that we should get stranded, and you, with a new outfit, would be able to find us at your leisure. I couldn’t believe it of you at first. It was such a low-down game that I’d have sworn that nobody but a Siwash half-breed would have played it.But the logic of facts seemed convincing, and I’d come to believe it.”
“Tell me what happened.”
“That’s easy enough. When I parted from you, I had an idea of working across to the Behring, where I’d have been off the beat of your confounded patrols. We travelled a week and made a good pace, then one night Joe there fed the dogs with the salmon-roe we took off your sled. They were all dead within two hours; and there we were, stranded in the shadow of the Arctic circle and nearly a thousand miles from civilization.” The sick man broke off, shaken by a fit of coughing, and then as the spasm passed and his breath returned, he said meditatively, “If you’d walked into our camp then we’d have fed you with that roe, and watched you twist as those dogs were twisted, for Joe looked at the food and found strychnine, which he’d used when he was trapping for the H. B. C.... Lucky thing for you that you didn’t! Did you say your dogs died of the same thing?”
“Yes,” answered the corporal slowly, “and now I’m wondering who was responsible.”
“Somebody who was getting at you, and not at us,” answered Dick Bracknell quickly, “for he couldn’t have known that we should collar the food. Had you been using the same stuff all along?”
“No.” The word dropped from the corporal reluctantly. “No. I had laid in a new stock at North Star.”
“Then it was there the thing was done,” repliedthe sick man with conviction. “The question is, who did it? Joy wouldn’t even dream of such a thing!”
“That at any rate is quite certain!” answered the corporal with conviction.
“But somebody did it; somebody who owed you one, and meant to get rid of you. That’s shown by the fact that your dogs did all right on the food at the beginning. That which you used first wasn’t tampered with, or the dogs would have died at the first camp you made. But they didn’t, for you camped with us, and I remember that more than once, whilst we were waiting for my convalescence, you fed your dogs with the roe. That is positive proof that the top portion of the dog-food was all right, it was only lower down that it had been tampered with.”
“But why——”
“It’s as plain as a barn-door. You were meant to get well away on the trail, and one night you would unknowingly feed the dogs with poisoned roe. They would die, and unless you had wonderful luck you would die too, long before you got back to civilization. That is the amiable plan that somebody thought out for you; and as things turned out he nearly bagged me and Joe instead of you.”
“But he almost got me too,” said the corporal thoughtfully, and gave his cousin a brief account of his adventures.
“You were lucky,” commented the sick man. “A broken leg can be spliced, but who is going to splice a set of frozen lungs?” His face grewsuddenly convulsed with passion, and he broke into terrible oaths. “If I had the murderer here—but who was he anyway?”
“There is only one man of whom I can think, and before I tell you his name there are two questions I should like to ask.”
“Fire them off!”
“The first is this, do you know anything of Rolf Gargrave’s death?”
“I know that the bottom dropped out of the trail and that he was drowned—nothing more. What’s that got to do with it anyway?”
The corporal looked at his cousin. The haggard face was clear of guilt, and in that moment he knew that his earliest suspicions when Chief Louis had told him the story of Rolf Gargrave’s death had been utterly wrong. Whatever crimes Dick Bracknell had to his account this was not one of them.
“I’ll explain why I asked you in a moment,” he answered. “There is the second question—yet; and it is this, did you ever inform any one of your marriage with Joy?”
“Yes, one man! When I heard that Rolf Gargrave was dead, I wrote to England and informed his legal adviser, Sir Joseph Rayner, that Joy and I were husband and wife. I never had any answer to the let—— But what’s the matter, man? You look as if you had seen a ghost! What is it?”
There was a look of startled amazement on the corporal’s face. He was staring at his cousin as if what the latter had said was a revelation to him, as indeed it was. A dark suspicion had leapt inhis mind, a suspicion that seemed almost incredible, but which persisted and would not be thrust aside. If Sir Joseph Rayner knew, then in all probability his son also knew, and yet having that knowledge he had suggested that the relation between himself and Joy was such as justified his confessed aspiration of making her his wife. Had he been responsible for that second shot at North Star? Or——
Dick Bracknell’s voice broke in again querulously.
“What’s got you, Roger! Spit it out!”
“I can’t at present,” replied the corporal slowly. “You’ve given me news that I must think over before I talk. But there is one thing that I can tell you, and that is that Rolf Gargrave did not die by a mere accident. The trail he was following was sound enough, but the ice was blown up by dynamite. It froze over again in the night, and as I gather there was a little snow, he went on to the thin ice without suspicion, and went through. That’s the story as I’ve recently heard it; and I’m on the trail of the man who plotted the infernal thing, now.”
The sick man pursed his lips to whistle, but no sound came from them. Then he remarked, with a little laugh of bitterness, “So that’s why you asked if I knew anything of my father-in-law’s death, is it?”
“It was just a suspicion that occurred to me,” explained the corporal apologetically. “When I heard the story I wondered who would benefit by Gargrave’s death, and as you had just married Joy,and had fled here from England, it was a natural suspicion——”
“I must have got pretty low down for it to be natural to suspect me of an infernal crime of that sort,” was the other’s bitter comment. “But who do you suspect now?”
“I don’t know! As I told you, I’m after the man. The trail’s a week old, but I’ll find him even if I follow him to the rim of the Polar sea.”
“I hope to heaven you’ll get him, and that he’ll swing at Regina for that job. I wonder if the same man had anything to do with poisoning the dog food.”
“I am wondering that also!” replied the corporal thoughtfully.
“Any idea of the fellow?”
“Just a suspicion, nothing more. Not enough to presume upon—yet!”
“He must have a mind that is diabolic.”
“So it would seem!” replied the corporal, and after a little time his cousin spoke again.
“Many a time while I have sat here wheezing and coughing, I have cursed you from my heart, but now I could pray that you come up with that man, and make him pay for it all. If I were sure you’d get him I could go cheerfully to my appointed place in the pit.”
“I shall get him,” answered the corporal with conviction. “The Indian who is with me was with him when he arranged for Gargrave’s death, and if my suspicions have any bottom in them, then I know him myself.”
“You’ll push on in the morning, of course.”
“Before daylight! And I shall come up with the man, never fear. He’s travelling fast, but he’s looking for some thing or some one, the latter, I think, and——”
“Who do you suppose he’s looking for?”
“Well, if he’s the man I suspect, I shouldn’t wonder if he were looking for you.”
“For me! What in thunder for?”
“To finish what he began that night when you were shot at North Star!”
“Great Scott! Do you mean that he was the man who——”
“It seems to me to be more than likely. He is the man round whom all these mysteries seem to centre.”
“What is the blighter?” asked the other quickly.
“That I must keep to myself for a little time. I may be mistaken, you know. But if I am not——”
“You’ll let me know? You’ll give me the satisfaction of knowing that the fellow will pay for these lungs of mine?” cried the sick man eagerly.
“Yes,” answered the corporal pityingly. “I will let you know.”
Half an hour later as he left the cabin his face wore a set look that boded ill for the man on whose trail he followed.
CHAPTER XVIIIADRIAN RAYNER’S STORY“JOE, I thought I heard the yelping of dogs. Did you hear anything?”The Indian shook his head and Dick Bracknell sank back on his improvised couch of spruce, with a sigh.“Of course,” he muttered, “I’m dreaming. No, by Jove! I’m not. There it is again. Don’t you hear it, Joe?” This time the Indian nodded and going to the door of the cabin looked down the creek. Three men and a dog sled were coming up the trail. He turned and informed Bracknell of the fact. A thoughtful frown came on the sick man’s face.“Who can they be? Not Roger, certainly, for it is but two days since he was here, and he had but one man with him. Perhaps——” Then as a thought struck him he broke off and cried excitedly, “I say, Joe, does one of the men look at all like a prisoner?”The Indian shook his head.“That’s a pity,” commented his master. “I had a wild hope that Roger might have overtaken the man. Anyway we shall know who they are in a few minutes, and patience is a virtue that I’ve plenty of opportunity for practising just now.”Laboriously he rose from his couch and seated himself near the fire. The effort brought on a fit of coughing, which was still shaking him, when a whipstock rapped upon the door. His servant opened it, and a white man entered, and stood for a moment watching Bracknell as he coughed and groaned. Then suddenly an alert look came in his face and for one instant into his eyes there came a flicker of recognition. He waited until the paroxysm had passed, then in a voice that had in it a note of sympathy he spoke—“You seem in a bad way, friend.”The voice of a cultured man, as Bracknell instantly noted, and as he wiped his eyes the sick man looked sharply at the new-comer.“Yes,” he replied, “and so would you be if you’d had your lungs frozen.”“Is it as bad as that?” asked the other in a voice that was still sympathetic.“It is, and worse! I’ve got scurvy too. I suppose you haven’t such a thing as a potato with you?”The stranger smiled. “As it happens I have. I never travel without in winter, because, as you seem to know, a raw potato is better than lime juice for scurvy, and a sight handier to carry. I shall be happy to oblige you.”He went to the door of the cabin and called an order to the men outside. A few moments later an Indian entered bringing with him seven or eight potatoes. Bracknell instantly seized one, and taking out a clasp knife began to cut thin slices of the tuber, and to eat regardless of everythingbut the one fact that here was salvation from one of the diseases which afflicted him. He chewed methodically, without speaking, and Adrian Rayner, for he was the arrival, watched him with curious eyes, reflecting on the irony of the situation which made the heir of an ancient estate glad to eat raw potato; for though he himself remained incognito, he had already recognized Dick Bracknell.“I’d go slow if I were you,” he said warningly, as having finished one tuber, the sick man stretched his hand for another. “You had better not overdo it. A little every day is better than a glut; and, of course, my stock is limited.”Dick Bracknell laughed weakly. “You’re right, of course. But if you knew what I suffer you’d understand the impulse to stuff oneself! I’ll go slow, as you advise, and perhaps I shall get quit of one disease at any rate, though the other will get rid of me as sure as a gun.”“You think so?” asked Rayner, with an eager interest which Bracknell failed to note.“Sure of it! I’ve seen other men this way—and there was always a funeral at the end of it; though not always a burial service. Parsons are scarce up here!”“Have you been long in the country?” asked Rayner carelessly.Bracknell looked at him sharply, as if suspicious of so simple a question, and then gave a short laugh. “I’ve been here a year or two. And you? You’re pretty new to the North, aren’t you?”Rayner laughed. “A regular tenderfoot. I’vebeen here before, but only for a short spell, and this time I’m straight from England.”“Is that so?” asked Bracknell, and appraised the stranger anew. “In the mining line, I suppose?”“Nothing half so profitable,” answered Rayner smilingly. “I am merely representing a legal firm, and have come out on a rather curious mission, one with little profit in it in fact, and with even a possibility of loss.”“That’s poor business for a lawyer,” said Bracknell encouragingly.“It is,” agreed Rayner, “and it’s not only that, but it is about the queerest business that I ever struck.” He turned and addressed a remark to one of his men who had entered the cabin, and then resumed, “It is quite a romance in high life, and very interesting. Would you like to hear the story?”“I was always fond of romance,” answered Bracknell with a laugh, “and as up here we’ve no penny dreadfuls, I shall be glad to have a slice of the real thing.”“Oh, it’s real enough,” answered Rayner, “and it’s interesting, because it has a rich and young and beautiful girl for the heroine.”“Romance always must have!” commented Bracknell. “Your story, I can see, is going on the penny plain and twopenny coloured line!”“Not quite. It has deviations and some original features. This girl’s father was immensely rich, and whilst he remained in this country looking after his mining properties, he sent his daughter to England to be educated. There she ran againstthe heir of an old Westmorland family, and married him secretly—”He broke off as his host rose unexpectedly to his feet. “What is the matter?” he asked innocently. “Are you not feeling well?”“Just a spasm,” growled Bracknell. “It will pass in a minute. Get on with your tale.”The other smiled a little to himself, and resumed his narrative. “As I was saying, she married this young gentleman secretly, and immediately after the marriage separated from him for some reason, and at the same time something else happened, which compelled her husband to leave England and to reside abroad.... Did you say something?”“No! It’s only this confounded wheeze of mine!”“About the same time news reached England that the girl’s father had died in an accident out here, and as by the terms of his will the daughter was to reside for three years in the home he had built in the woods here, she returned to the Dominion without having said anything about the marriage to her uncle and guardian, the well-known solicitor Sir Joseph Rayner, of whom you perhaps have heard?”“Yes, I’ve heard of him! Go on, man. Your story is very interesting.”“Fortunately Sir Joseph was not left in ignorance of the marriage, for the girl’s husband wrote and informed him of it. Sir Joseph was astonished; but he kept the news to himself, because the husband, though of good family, had done something that was—er—scarcely creditable. He didnot even inform the girl of the information which had reached him, hoping that time would solve what appeared to be a difficult situation.”“And hasn’t it?”“No, sir. Time may solve many things, but the policy oflaissez-faire, whilst sometimes a good one, is not without its dangers! This happens to be one of the cases where the dangers predominate, and time has but brought a new complication.”“What is that?” asked Bracknell sharply.“Well, the girl is thinking of marrying again.”“God in heaven!” Dick Bracknell had staggered to his feet. His eyes were burning and there was a ghastly pallor on his haggard face. He glared at the narrator as if he could slay him. “Man, do you know what you are saying?”“Yes,” answered Rayner, with well-affected surprise. “I am saying that in her inexperience this girl-wife is thinking of contracting a flesh marriage, one in which her heart is engaged, as it appears not to have been in the first. Of course she may not understand the law as it relates to bigamy, or she may believe that her husband is dead——”“Who is the man?” asked Bracknell, in a strangled voice.“The man? I do not understand. Do you mean the husband?”“No, the man whom she is thinking of marrying?”“Oh, I see. Well, that’s the curious part of the whole business, for this new lover is the cousin of her husband, one time a barrister, but now out herein the Mounted Police. What did you say? A strange story. Yes, it is that; but there is one piquant detail that you have not yet heard, sir!”“What is that?”“Well, it is this, the husband, as I informed you, is the heir to an old estate in Westmorland. He had a younger brother who since the elder’s disappearance had slipped into the position of heir—at least people had come to look upon him as such, it being fairly well known that the elder could not return to claim the succession. This younger son is dead——”“Dead!” The word came in a gasp from Dick Bracknell’s lips, and immediately after he was taken with a fit of coughing which lasted for some little time, and left him exhausted with his face hidden in his hands.“Your cough is very bad, sir,” said Rayner with affected sympathy. “Are you sure that you wish me to continue the narrative?”Bracknell lifted a tortured face, and in his deep-sunk eyes there was a moisture that was more than suspicious. “Yes,” he said hoarsely. “Go on!”“As you wish,” replied Rayner with affected solicitude, and then continued, “As I was saying, this younger son is dead——”“How did he die?” interrupted Bracknell.“Something went wrong with his gun when he was out grouse shooting. It burst, I believe, anyhow it killed him, and by his death, failing the succession of the older son, the cousin becomes the heir, and you have the rather unique situation ofthe cousin stepping into the shoes of the heir and the husband at one and the same time. Quite a little drama in its way, is it not?”Dick Bracknell’s reply to the question was an inarticulate one, and afterwards for a little time he stared into the fire with eyes that looked almost ferocious. Then he asked abruptly, “How do you know all this?”“As I explained, I am the representative of the firm of Sir Joseph Rayner and Son, and I have been sent out to find the girl wife——”“To find J—er—the girl?”“Yes! she left England very suddenly a few weeks ago without informing Sir Joseph. She, as we have ascertained, came to the Dominion, and my principal suspecting that she was going to marry the man I have mentioned, sent me to intervene. Two courses are open for me to follow, either to find the young lady, and explain to the former that in the absence of proof of her husband’s death such a marriage is of more than doubtful legality; or to find the policeman and point out that the young lady is already a wife.”“But he—but what if he already knows?”“Then in that case I shall be called upon to explain the law to him also! But so far I have accomplished none of these things. The policeman, as I learned at Regina, is missing; and when I arrived there the young lady had already left her home up here for an unknown destination.... I do not know, of course, but I have my suspicions as to who may be awaiting her at that destination.”“What do you mean?”“Well, sir, you appear to be a man of education, and you will remember that the great Antony thought the world well lost for love, and what Cleopatra thought, her actions proved. Human nature does not change, and love is the strongest passion it knows, and I suspect that her lover being missing, the young lady has gone to look for him, or if not that to meet him at some appointed rendezvous. The two are young, between them they will be fabulously rich and they will not be the first pair of lovers to set the world and the world’s conventions at defiance. At least they will be able to afford it!”“Never! by—— never!”The words came from the sick man’s lips explosively. He rose from his seat, and gripped Rayner’s shoulder in a way that made him grimace with pain.“Man,” he cried, “are you telling me the truth?”“Certainly, sir! Why——”“Do you know who I am?”Bracknell’s eyes, full of wild light, glared down into Rayner’s but the latter, as he lied, met them unflinchingly.“I do not, sir! We have not exchanged——”“My name is Bracknell—Dick Bracknell; and I can guess it is my wife and my cousin of whom you have been talking. By—— if I had him here. And to think that two days ago he was here, and that I let him go.”“He was here two days ago?”“Two days ago—and I let him go because hepitched a cock and bull story which I believed! And I might have known all the time that it was so much bunkum, just a yarn to get out of my hands. I ought to have killed him as he tried to kill me by poisoning my dogs. I remember now that once before when we met, he showed a tenderness for Joy that was more than natural in a mere cousin by marriage. He suggested to me that I should make reparations to my wife by allowing her to divorce me!”“That was a very crafty suggestion on his part!” broke in Rayner suavely. “It would have cleared his own way to your wife!”The sick man was stung to madness at the thought. His eyes burned and his face grew convulsed. “Reparation!” he cried hoarsely in jealous rage. “Reparation! The viper! If ever I put eyes on him again, I will——” he broke off as a fit of coughing took him, and when it was over he dropped to his seat utterly exhausted, gasping painfully for breath.The man whose lying story had brought on this attack, watched him unmoved, and calculated cynically whether Bracknell’s own estimate of the span of life remaining to him was correct; then he said, “I am very sorry for you, Mr. Bracknell, but I cannot allow private wrongs to interfere with my own mission. You say that your cousin was here two days ago; perhaps you can tell me which way he was travelling?”“He was going up the river—to meet Joy as like as not!”“Then I shall follow! Perhaps I shall meet thelady; if so, I shall be able to assure her that the marriage she is contemplating is quite out of the question.”“Say nothing to the man about my threats, if you find him,” said Bracknell, rousing himself. “Say I’ve news for him, that I want to see him; as by—— I do! Tell him what you like, but get him to come back here.”“I will do my best, sir!”“If I’d dogs, sick though I am, I’d follow him myself. But that’s out of the question. I shall rely on you to——”“You may, sir,” broke in Rayner obsequiously. “If I find him, I will certainly induce him to come back to you, if I can. But I hope you will not be violent——”“Violent! Bring him here,” Bracknell laughed almost deliriously, “and you will see.”.......In the morning when Adrian Rayner took the trail, he looked back at the haggard man standing by the cabin door. Bracknell had been delirious in the night, and now as he stood there swaying, the other looked at him without pity.“Booked!” he muttered to himself, “and knows it. If Roger Bracknell should happen to return here, Harrow Fell will require a new heir, and I shall be saved from a disagreeable necessity. But that chance is not to be depended on. I must find him if I can.”And as he followed the Northward trail there was the index of grim purpose in his face.
ADRIAN RAYNER’S STORY
“JOE, I thought I heard the yelping of dogs. Did you hear anything?”
The Indian shook his head and Dick Bracknell sank back on his improvised couch of spruce, with a sigh.
“Of course,” he muttered, “I’m dreaming. No, by Jove! I’m not. There it is again. Don’t you hear it, Joe?” This time the Indian nodded and going to the door of the cabin looked down the creek. Three men and a dog sled were coming up the trail. He turned and informed Bracknell of the fact. A thoughtful frown came on the sick man’s face.
“Who can they be? Not Roger, certainly, for it is but two days since he was here, and he had but one man with him. Perhaps——” Then as a thought struck him he broke off and cried excitedly, “I say, Joe, does one of the men look at all like a prisoner?”
The Indian shook his head.
“That’s a pity,” commented his master. “I had a wild hope that Roger might have overtaken the man. Anyway we shall know who they are in a few minutes, and patience is a virtue that I’ve plenty of opportunity for practising just now.”
Laboriously he rose from his couch and seated himself near the fire. The effort brought on a fit of coughing, which was still shaking him, when a whipstock rapped upon the door. His servant opened it, and a white man entered, and stood for a moment watching Bracknell as he coughed and groaned. Then suddenly an alert look came in his face and for one instant into his eyes there came a flicker of recognition. He waited until the paroxysm had passed, then in a voice that had in it a note of sympathy he spoke—
“You seem in a bad way, friend.”
The voice of a cultured man, as Bracknell instantly noted, and as he wiped his eyes the sick man looked sharply at the new-comer.
“Yes,” he replied, “and so would you be if you’d had your lungs frozen.”
“Is it as bad as that?” asked the other in a voice that was still sympathetic.
“It is, and worse! I’ve got scurvy too. I suppose you haven’t such a thing as a potato with you?”
The stranger smiled. “As it happens I have. I never travel without in winter, because, as you seem to know, a raw potato is better than lime juice for scurvy, and a sight handier to carry. I shall be happy to oblige you.”
He went to the door of the cabin and called an order to the men outside. A few moments later an Indian entered bringing with him seven or eight potatoes. Bracknell instantly seized one, and taking out a clasp knife began to cut thin slices of the tuber, and to eat regardless of everythingbut the one fact that here was salvation from one of the diseases which afflicted him. He chewed methodically, without speaking, and Adrian Rayner, for he was the arrival, watched him with curious eyes, reflecting on the irony of the situation which made the heir of an ancient estate glad to eat raw potato; for though he himself remained incognito, he had already recognized Dick Bracknell.
“I’d go slow if I were you,” he said warningly, as having finished one tuber, the sick man stretched his hand for another. “You had better not overdo it. A little every day is better than a glut; and, of course, my stock is limited.”
Dick Bracknell laughed weakly. “You’re right, of course. But if you knew what I suffer you’d understand the impulse to stuff oneself! I’ll go slow, as you advise, and perhaps I shall get quit of one disease at any rate, though the other will get rid of me as sure as a gun.”
“You think so?” asked Rayner, with an eager interest which Bracknell failed to note.
“Sure of it! I’ve seen other men this way—and there was always a funeral at the end of it; though not always a burial service. Parsons are scarce up here!”
“Have you been long in the country?” asked Rayner carelessly.
Bracknell looked at him sharply, as if suspicious of so simple a question, and then gave a short laugh. “I’ve been here a year or two. And you? You’re pretty new to the North, aren’t you?”
Rayner laughed. “A regular tenderfoot. I’vebeen here before, but only for a short spell, and this time I’m straight from England.”
“Is that so?” asked Bracknell, and appraised the stranger anew. “In the mining line, I suppose?”
“Nothing half so profitable,” answered Rayner smilingly. “I am merely representing a legal firm, and have come out on a rather curious mission, one with little profit in it in fact, and with even a possibility of loss.”
“That’s poor business for a lawyer,” said Bracknell encouragingly.
“It is,” agreed Rayner, “and it’s not only that, but it is about the queerest business that I ever struck.” He turned and addressed a remark to one of his men who had entered the cabin, and then resumed, “It is quite a romance in high life, and very interesting. Would you like to hear the story?”
“I was always fond of romance,” answered Bracknell with a laugh, “and as up here we’ve no penny dreadfuls, I shall be glad to have a slice of the real thing.”
“Oh, it’s real enough,” answered Rayner, “and it’s interesting, because it has a rich and young and beautiful girl for the heroine.”
“Romance always must have!” commented Bracknell. “Your story, I can see, is going on the penny plain and twopenny coloured line!”
“Not quite. It has deviations and some original features. This girl’s father was immensely rich, and whilst he remained in this country looking after his mining properties, he sent his daughter to England to be educated. There she ran againstthe heir of an old Westmorland family, and married him secretly—”
He broke off as his host rose unexpectedly to his feet. “What is the matter?” he asked innocently. “Are you not feeling well?”
“Just a spasm,” growled Bracknell. “It will pass in a minute. Get on with your tale.”
The other smiled a little to himself, and resumed his narrative. “As I was saying, she married this young gentleman secretly, and immediately after the marriage separated from him for some reason, and at the same time something else happened, which compelled her husband to leave England and to reside abroad.... Did you say something?”
“No! It’s only this confounded wheeze of mine!”
“About the same time news reached England that the girl’s father had died in an accident out here, and as by the terms of his will the daughter was to reside for three years in the home he had built in the woods here, she returned to the Dominion without having said anything about the marriage to her uncle and guardian, the well-known solicitor Sir Joseph Rayner, of whom you perhaps have heard?”
“Yes, I’ve heard of him! Go on, man. Your story is very interesting.”
“Fortunately Sir Joseph was not left in ignorance of the marriage, for the girl’s husband wrote and informed him of it. Sir Joseph was astonished; but he kept the news to himself, because the husband, though of good family, had done something that was—er—scarcely creditable. He didnot even inform the girl of the information which had reached him, hoping that time would solve what appeared to be a difficult situation.”
“And hasn’t it?”
“No, sir. Time may solve many things, but the policy oflaissez-faire, whilst sometimes a good one, is not without its dangers! This happens to be one of the cases where the dangers predominate, and time has but brought a new complication.”
“What is that?” asked Bracknell sharply.
“Well, the girl is thinking of marrying again.”
“God in heaven!” Dick Bracknell had staggered to his feet. His eyes were burning and there was a ghastly pallor on his haggard face. He glared at the narrator as if he could slay him. “Man, do you know what you are saying?”
“Yes,” answered Rayner, with well-affected surprise. “I am saying that in her inexperience this girl-wife is thinking of contracting a flesh marriage, one in which her heart is engaged, as it appears not to have been in the first. Of course she may not understand the law as it relates to bigamy, or she may believe that her husband is dead——”
“Who is the man?” asked Bracknell, in a strangled voice.
“The man? I do not understand. Do you mean the husband?”
“No, the man whom she is thinking of marrying?”
“Oh, I see. Well, that’s the curious part of the whole business, for this new lover is the cousin of her husband, one time a barrister, but now out herein the Mounted Police. What did you say? A strange story. Yes, it is that; but there is one piquant detail that you have not yet heard, sir!”
“What is that?”
“Well, it is this, the husband, as I informed you, is the heir to an old estate in Westmorland. He had a younger brother who since the elder’s disappearance had slipped into the position of heir—at least people had come to look upon him as such, it being fairly well known that the elder could not return to claim the succession. This younger son is dead——”
“Dead!” The word came in a gasp from Dick Bracknell’s lips, and immediately after he was taken with a fit of coughing which lasted for some little time, and left him exhausted with his face hidden in his hands.
“Your cough is very bad, sir,” said Rayner with affected sympathy. “Are you sure that you wish me to continue the narrative?”
Bracknell lifted a tortured face, and in his deep-sunk eyes there was a moisture that was more than suspicious. “Yes,” he said hoarsely. “Go on!”
“As you wish,” replied Rayner with affected solicitude, and then continued, “As I was saying, this younger son is dead——”
“How did he die?” interrupted Bracknell.
“Something went wrong with his gun when he was out grouse shooting. It burst, I believe, anyhow it killed him, and by his death, failing the succession of the older son, the cousin becomes the heir, and you have the rather unique situation ofthe cousin stepping into the shoes of the heir and the husband at one and the same time. Quite a little drama in its way, is it not?”
Dick Bracknell’s reply to the question was an inarticulate one, and afterwards for a little time he stared into the fire with eyes that looked almost ferocious. Then he asked abruptly, “How do you know all this?”
“As I explained, I am the representative of the firm of Sir Joseph Rayner and Son, and I have been sent out to find the girl wife——”
“To find J—er—the girl?”
“Yes! she left England very suddenly a few weeks ago without informing Sir Joseph. She, as we have ascertained, came to the Dominion, and my principal suspecting that she was going to marry the man I have mentioned, sent me to intervene. Two courses are open for me to follow, either to find the young lady, and explain to the former that in the absence of proof of her husband’s death such a marriage is of more than doubtful legality; or to find the policeman and point out that the young lady is already a wife.”
“But he—but what if he already knows?”
“Then in that case I shall be called upon to explain the law to him also! But so far I have accomplished none of these things. The policeman, as I learned at Regina, is missing; and when I arrived there the young lady had already left her home up here for an unknown destination.... I do not know, of course, but I have my suspicions as to who may be awaiting her at that destination.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, sir, you appear to be a man of education, and you will remember that the great Antony thought the world well lost for love, and what Cleopatra thought, her actions proved. Human nature does not change, and love is the strongest passion it knows, and I suspect that her lover being missing, the young lady has gone to look for him, or if not that to meet him at some appointed rendezvous. The two are young, between them they will be fabulously rich and they will not be the first pair of lovers to set the world and the world’s conventions at defiance. At least they will be able to afford it!”
“Never! by—— never!”
The words came from the sick man’s lips explosively. He rose from his seat, and gripped Rayner’s shoulder in a way that made him grimace with pain.
“Man,” he cried, “are you telling me the truth?”
“Certainly, sir! Why——”
“Do you know who I am?”
Bracknell’s eyes, full of wild light, glared down into Rayner’s but the latter, as he lied, met them unflinchingly.
“I do not, sir! We have not exchanged——”
“My name is Bracknell—Dick Bracknell; and I can guess it is my wife and my cousin of whom you have been talking. By—— if I had him here. And to think that two days ago he was here, and that I let him go.”
“He was here two days ago?”
“Two days ago—and I let him go because hepitched a cock and bull story which I believed! And I might have known all the time that it was so much bunkum, just a yarn to get out of my hands. I ought to have killed him as he tried to kill me by poisoning my dogs. I remember now that once before when we met, he showed a tenderness for Joy that was more than natural in a mere cousin by marriage. He suggested to me that I should make reparations to my wife by allowing her to divorce me!”
“That was a very crafty suggestion on his part!” broke in Rayner suavely. “It would have cleared his own way to your wife!”
The sick man was stung to madness at the thought. His eyes burned and his face grew convulsed. “Reparation!” he cried hoarsely in jealous rage. “Reparation! The viper! If ever I put eyes on him again, I will——” he broke off as a fit of coughing took him, and when it was over he dropped to his seat utterly exhausted, gasping painfully for breath.
The man whose lying story had brought on this attack, watched him unmoved, and calculated cynically whether Bracknell’s own estimate of the span of life remaining to him was correct; then he said, “I am very sorry for you, Mr. Bracknell, but I cannot allow private wrongs to interfere with my own mission. You say that your cousin was here two days ago; perhaps you can tell me which way he was travelling?”
“He was going up the river—to meet Joy as like as not!”
“Then I shall follow! Perhaps I shall meet thelady; if so, I shall be able to assure her that the marriage she is contemplating is quite out of the question.”
“Say nothing to the man about my threats, if you find him,” said Bracknell, rousing himself. “Say I’ve news for him, that I want to see him; as by—— I do! Tell him what you like, but get him to come back here.”
“I will do my best, sir!”
“If I’d dogs, sick though I am, I’d follow him myself. But that’s out of the question. I shall rely on you to——”
“You may, sir,” broke in Rayner obsequiously. “If I find him, I will certainly induce him to come back to you, if I can. But I hope you will not be violent——”
“Violent! Bring him here,” Bracknell laughed almost deliriously, “and you will see.”
.......
In the morning when Adrian Rayner took the trail, he looked back at the haggard man standing by the cabin door. Bracknell had been delirious in the night, and now as he stood there swaying, the other looked at him without pity.
“Booked!” he muttered to himself, “and knows it. If Roger Bracknell should happen to return here, Harrow Fell will require a new heir, and I shall be saved from a disagreeable necessity. But that chance is not to be depended on. I must find him if I can.”
And as he followed the Northward trail there was the index of grim purpose in his face.