CHAPTER XXIITO THE RESCUE“SIBOUthere is some one coming up the trail!” As he spoke to his native companion, Corporal Bracknell pointed down the river. The Indian paused in the very midst of what he was doing, and looked in the direction indicated, then he nodded, and in his own speech replied—“Yes, one man and a dog-team.”“I wonder if by any chance it can be the man we are looking for, the man who was with you when the trail was destroyed before Rolf Gargrave.”“Who can say?” answered the Indian. “He has been long on the trail. He marches wearily.”“It will be as well to take no chances. If he sees our fire he is almost certain to make for it, and if we go back in the trees a little way we shall be able to inspect him before he sees us. Then if he is our man——”“We shall get him? Yes! And we will take him down to the Great White Chief at Regina, who will hang him. It is good. See, he has seen the fire, he is turning inward to this bank.”“Then we will withdraw.”Corporal Bracknell stretched a hand for his rifle, and together they retreated to the undergrowthbehind their camp, where, crouching low, they watched the advent of the stranger. As the new-comer’s dogs moved shorewards they began to yelp, and their own dogs, leaping up, gave tongue menacingly. The driver of the team, however, moved in front, and as one of the huskies flung itself upon the harnessed dogs, brought the stock of his whip down so smartly on it, that, yelping agony, it retreated. The rest of the corporal’s dogs, undeterred, sprang forward, and for a moment the new-comer was the centre of a huddled tangle of snarling and yelping dogs. He laid about him valiantly with his clubbed whip, but the brutes were too much for him, and at last he cried aloud for help. At the cry Sibou rose suddenly to his feet.“That not white man,” he said. “He Indian!”Thus assured Bracknell and he ran to the help of the new-comer, and within two minutes the tangle of dogs was separated, and the three men found time to look at each other. As the stranger’s eyes fell on the corporal, he gave a sudden cry of joy and relief, and ran to him.“You know me! I come from North Star. I Jim, Miss Gargrave’s man!”The corporal looked at him and then recognized him.“Yes,” he said, “I know you. You are Indian George’s son. What——”He was interrupted by a stream of words, half incoherent, half intelligible, which, as it flowed on, made his face go very white. He listened carefully, trying to get a clear idea of the story which the lad was telling him, and as it ended he nodded.“I think I understand what you are trying to tell me, Jim. Some one has killed your father. Some one fired a gun at you, and you are afraid for your mistress and Miss La Farge and you want me to help. That is so? Very good! We are just about to have supper and you will join us. We will eat first, and afterwards talk. I have no doubt you are very impatient, but your dogs are fagged and so are mine. It is impossible to travel until they have rested. Feed your dogs and come along.”Himself the prey of consuming anxiety, he helped to prepare the evening meal, forced himself to eat, and not until he had lit his pipe did he refer to the story which the Indian lad had told him so incoherently.“Now, Jim,” he said, “let us get at the facts if we can. You say that your mistress and Miss La Farge are here in the North, and that they are on trail?”“Yes, sir!”“But I thought they were in England?”“They returned suddenly, fourteen days ago!”“But what were they doing on trail, so far from home, with the spring coming?”“I do not know clearly. But they were looking for you. They had news for you. More than that was not told my father.”“And you say that yester morning a strange Indian came to your camp with a message from a white man?”“Yes. The white man was sick. He desired to talk with Miss Gargrave; so whilst we—my fatherand I struck camp, Miss La Farge and my mistress went to the cabin which was on a creek——”“Ah!” interrupted the corporal. “Was it on the left bank?”“Yes! The left bank. The word was that we should pack and bring the dogs and the sled to the mouth of the creek there to wait for Miss Gargrave. We did so, and were standing, stamping our feet for warmth, when my father gave a cry like that of a man whom death strikes and fell into the snow. I was a little way from him, and ran towards him. As I reached him his spirit passed, and looking down I saw that he had been struck with an arrow.”“Indians!” ejaculated the corporal.“I cannot tell. I looked about and I saw three men in the shadow of the wood. Their faces were hidden from me, and I could not see them clearly. One carried a rifle which he fired at me. Our rifles, mine and that of my father, were lashed on the sled and I was helpless.”“What did you do?” asked the corporal.“I lashed the dogs and fled, clinging to the gee-pole. The trail was good and I made speed. It was in my mind that the man with the rifle would fire again, but he did not do so, though twice or thrice arrows fell near me, and I knew that I was followed. It was in my mind that when the pursuit was over I would go back, and I made for the woods on the further side of the river, and when darkness came I crept down the trail, and leaving my dogs crossed the river to the creek.”“Yes? Yes? What did you find?”“I found my father’s body gone, and at the head of the creek opposite a cabin a camp was pitched and a fire lighted, and whilst I watched a man left the camp and went towards the cabin. I could not see what he did, but it is in my mind that the men in the camp keep watch on the cabin.”“And your mistress? Did you see anything of her?”“Nothing, but my mind says she is in the cabin, for it was thither she went to see the sick white man. I thought once to attack the camp, but the men there are three, and I am but a stripling and unused to battle. Then I bethought me of Indians who live up the river. They are not good Indians, but my father was known to them and I thought that maybe they might give help. I was on my way there, when I caught the light of your fire, and came here, hoping to find a white man, and I find you. It is very good. You will go back? You will help?”“Yes—I shall go back. I shall help. We must save your mistress. I know the cabin on the creek and I know the sick man whom she went to see; and I do not think she will come to any harm in that quarter. But the men in the camp, who, as you think, watch the cabin, are different. There is something there that I do not understand. But we will find out ... we will rest now, and in four hours we start. I will feed the dogs again now, for there is a hard journey before us. The wind has changed and the trail will soften in the morning.”“Yes. It is from the south. The spring isknocking at the door, and in a week the ice will grow rotten, but before then we will find my mistress!”“Yes,” answered the corporal simply. “We will find her.”The Indian had disposed his blankets near the fire and within five minutes was sound asleep. A little time later Sibou also slept, but Corporal Bracknell made no attempt to close his eyes, since he knew that for him sleep was impossible. He lit his pipe, and sat staring into the fire, the prey of gnawing anxiety. The mystery of the men in the camp who watched Dick Bracknell’s cabin, utterly confounded him. Were they men whom his cousin had wronged during his none too scrupulous career in the North? That was just possible. Daily, men in those wild latitudes took the law into their own hands, enforcing verdicts that not infrequently were more just than those of the law itself. Were these men of that type? Then his mind dismissed the suggestion. In that case why had they killed George, and attacked his son, the lad who, overborne by his labours, was now sleeping there on the other side of the fire?They might be roving Indians. The use of arrows suggested that, but one had a rifle—— Suddenly he sat bolt upright, his eyes staring widely, as another possibility flashed through his mind.“Adrian Rayner!”He was appalled at the thought, but the more he dwelt upon it, the stronger his suspicion grew. Adrian Rayner was in the North and he had two Indians with him, “bad men,” as Chief Louis hadsaid. The corporal was morally certain that Rayner was the man who had made the attempt on Dick Bracknell at North Star; and if he knew that he were still alive, what more likely than that he should make a second attempt? There was nothing surprising about that, but the attack on Joy Gargrave’s party was something that passed his comprehension altogether. Try as he would he could find no sufficient explanation for that, the one possibility that presented itself to his mind being that Adrian Rayner was for some reason anxious to make Joy dependent upon himself, and so had deliberately set out to destroy her escort. Then the thought suggested itself to him that after all he might be building on a false assumption. The man responsible for the death of George, and for the attack on the cabin, might not be Rayner at all.Restlessly his mind groped among the possibilities which the mystery suggested, and not once during the four hours that he had decreed for rest did his eyes shut. At the end of that time he wakened Sibou, and, impatient to get away himself, helped in the preparation for making a start, allowing the boy Jim to sleep until the last available moment, and when at last they took the trail he was conscious of relief. It was at least something to feel that he was on his way to the help of Joy.They travelled six hours and then made a halt for a brief rest and a meal, afterwards resuming their way. As noon approached they found the hard crust of the snow softening, and the going becoming harder, but there was no slackening of effort, and late in the afternoon they arrived at apoint opposite the creek on the far side of the river. There in the shadow of the woods they waited till darkness fell, and then leaving the boy in charge of the dogs, the corporal and Sibou crossed the river, and made a detour which would bring them out at the head of the creek where the cabin was located.They reached the neighbourhood of their objective in about an hour’s time, and then moved forward with extreme caution, looking for the camp which the boy had described as being opposite the cabin. But no glow of blazing logs met their gaze, and the edge of the forest presented a front of unbroken shadow. Sibou sniffed the air thoughtfully.“There is no smell of fire,” he whispered.“No!” answered the corporal, his anxiety suddenly trebled by the thought that he had arrived too late.They still crept forward, and then unexpectedly Sibou stopped, and pointed to the ground. Roger Bracknell looked down and saw a blackened circle in the snow where a fire had been lit.“Here was the camp,” said the Indian, and then stopped and put his hand on the ashes. “The fire is cold,” he said, as he stood upright again. “It has been out for some time.”For a moment they stood looking at each other, and then instinctively both turned to look for the cabin. It stood like a shadow against the deeper shadow of the woods behind it, silent, and with no sign of occupation about it.“Perhaps the men we seek are in the cabin,” whispered the corporal.Again the Indian sniffed the air and then shook his head.“No! They are not there. There is no fire. But we will go and find out.”Carelessly, in his assurance, Sibou led the way across the creek, and to the front of the cabin. The door was closed, and he hammered on it with his rifle butt. There was no answer, and, feeling for the latch string, he thrust a shoulder against the door. It did not yield.“The door is barred,” he said aloud. “But there is no one within, or if there is they be dead.”“The window!” ejaculated the corporal, and began to run round the cabin.Reaching the window, and observing the empty framework he felt for his matches, and then hoisting himself up, with head and shoulders inside the cabin, he struck a light and looked hastily round. The cabin was empty. With something like a groan of despair he slipped back to the ground, and looked at Sibou.“There is no one here,” he said. “They are gone!”The Indian nodded and stared at the empty frame thoughtfully, then after a little time he spoke.“The men of the camp are gone; and those who were in the hut are gone—whither we know not; but those who were in the hut went out not by the door, for the door is barred within. How did they leave the cabin, then?” he jerked a hand upwards towards the window. “This way! And wherefore? Because the men in the camp were watchingthe door, and had left the window unguarded.”“By Jove, yes,” cried the corporal, seized by new hope. “That does seem more than likely.”“Then the men in the camp discover that those whom they watch have flown, and the cabin is empty. They want them badly, and they follow, therefore we find the camp empty like the cabin.”“Yes! Yes! But where have they gone? Which way in this God-forsaken wilderness?”“That we shall know when daylight comes. The snow will carry their trail, and we can follow. Till then it were better to rest, for the night withholds the knowledge.”Corporal Bracknell recognized the wisdom of the Indian’s words, and condemned to inaction until daylight, decided to make the best of it.“Then there is nothing for it but to camp. And we may as well use the cabin. Slip through the window, Sibou, and unbar the door, whilst I go across for Jim and the dogs.”Half an hour later a fire was roaring in the improvised stove, and by its light Roger Bracknell wandered round the cabin, searching for anything that would give him a clue to the mystery. He found nothing. The hut, save for a couple of rifles reposing in the corner, and some odds and ends of no importance, was quite empty. He looked at the rifles and addressed himself to Sibou.“Evidently the ammunition was exhausted.”“Yes! Therefore the rifles were left. But the food was taken. Behold!”The Indian pointed to a roughly made shelf,which corresponded to the ordinary larder of a Klondyke cabin. There was nothing there but a coffee-sack and an empty syrup-tin.“They run from the men in the camp, and leave the rifles because they are useless, but they take the food, and they have a start—one hour—two hours—who can tell? But we follow in the morning and we find both. That so?”“Please God, yes!” answered the corporal earnestly.Tired out with the labours of the day, Roger Bracknell slept long and well, and woke a little after dawn with the smell of frying bacon in his nostrils. The boy Jim was preparing breakfast, but Sibou was nowhere to be seen. Questioning Jim, he learned that the Indian had gone outside an hour before and had not yet returned. Hastily throwing on his furs, the corporal passed outside, and as he did so, Sibou appeared at the edge of the woods at the back of the cabin. There was an impassive look on his mask-like face, but his eyes gleamed with satisfaction.“Well?” asked the corporal eagerly.The Indian swept a hand towards the woods.“That way have they gone. The double trail is there. Also there is a dead man there!”“A dead man?” cried the white man in sudden fear.“An Indian! I know him not!”“Take me to him,” said the corporal imperatively. Without a word Sibou turned and led the way into the wood, and after a few minutes’ walkRoger Bracknell found himself near the mouth of the creek, looking down into the face of a dead man. He recognized him instantly.“He is known to you?” asked Sibou.“Yes, he is known to me. He was the servant of the white man who lived in the cabin.”“He was shot in the back with an arrow.” explained Sibou. “He must have been looking down at the trail when he died.”Roger Bracknell looked at the dead Indian for a little time without speaking, then fear for what was to come shook him.“Sibou,” he said, “we must make haste. There is not a moment to waste. Those men in the camp are very desperate men. Two men already have died at their hands, and they are now on the trail of the man who was in the hut and of the ladies whom we seek. We must follow hard!”“Yes, hard!” answered Sibou simply. “It is a trail of death!”Half an hour later they were on the way once more. A south wind was blowing, and they travelled with furs opened, for the day was comparatively warm, and there were many signs that spring was at hand. The trail they followed led through the forest for most of the time, but towards the end of the day followed a tributary river, and here it suddenly gathered itself together in a space of trampled snow, which spoke of many pairs of feet. The corporal looked at it in perplexity and watched Sibou, who circled round and round, seeking a solution of the enigma the trampled snow presented.“What do you make of it, Sibou?”“I am not sure,” answered the Indian slowly. “Something strange has happened. There has been a meeting here, for there are many footmarks, and there is a trail which goes up the river, and the trail of the ladies is not part of it.”“But where are they? They certainly came here!”“So!” answered Sibou. “And they went from here, since they are not to be found in this place. It is in my mind that they were carried—for there were dogs here as well as men.”“But who——”“Indians! The trail is not that of white men’s feet.”“Then we must follow,” cried the corporal.“Yes,” answered Sibou gravely. “We must follow. But I shall go first, whilst you remain here. If I find nothing, then I shall be back in one hour or two. It is in my mind that there is an encampment not far away, and it is better that we do not take the dogs till we know. If they are bad Indians——”“In God’s name, hurry!” cried Roger Bracknell, his courage shaken by the thought of the new danger into which Joy Gargrave appeared to have fallen.CHAPTER XXIIIPRISONERSWHENDick Bracknell had led the way from the cabin he knew that he was leading a forlorn hope. It was possible that many hours would pass before the men in the camp discovered their flight; whilst on the other hand the discovery might be made immediately and, in that case, as the ruthlessness of the attackers had shown, there was little hope of escape. But there were dangers before as well as behind, and the wilderness of the North was itself the greatest danger. They had little food, he himself was a very sick man, ill-fitted for the strenuous toil which the situation called for, and in the woods wild beasts and wild men might lurk, against whom, armed merely with pistols and hunting knives, they would be almost helpless. All this he knew, but braced himself for the task before him, determined at all costs to save the two girls and to win Joy’s respect if that was at all possible.When they won to the darkness of the forest without discovery, he breathed more freely, and pushed on along an ill-defined track, which he seemed to know well. As the night wore on, he grew unutterably tired, and once when he was overtaken by a fit of coughing, which left him terriblyexhausted, Joy suggested that they should rest for a little while.“Are you too tired to continue?” he asked.“Oh no,” she answered quickly.“Then we will keep on.”“But you are not fit to do so,” she protested. “Your cough——”“What do I matter?” he replied with a mirthless laugh. “I am done for in any case, and we must be a long way from here before morning. This is the only service I shall ever be able to render you, and you are not going to deny me the chance of atonement which it gives, are you?”“I was not thinking of that!” answered Joy gently. “I was thinking only of you.”“And I am thinking only of you!” he retorted quickly. “I have thought of myself too long. I am very glad to have this opportunity of service, however I may regret the circumstances.”“I am very grateful to you,” was Joy’s reply, and without further words they started anew upon their way.Once they stopped, and ate a little food which had been prepared before leaving the cabin, and then pushed on until dawn, when a fire was lit, and a halt for a couple of hours was made. At the end of that time they resumed their desperate journey, and an hour later struck the river for which Dick Bracknell had been making. A look of relief came on his haggard face as he saw it.“It will be easier now,” he said, “and unless the Indians have removed we shall reach the encampment all right now.”“Unless those men overtake us!”“Yes! In that case we are up a tree.”“And of course if the Indians are hospitable we—- Ah! Look there?”She indicated a point a little way up the river. A man had emerged from the trees. He stood there regarding them for a moment, then without a sign he withdrew.“An Indian,” said Joy quickly. “I am sure of it!”“Yes,” answered Dick Bracknell slowly, “an Indian. But he may be one of these men who are following us. The question is, what are we to do? Our way lies up river.”“Perhaps it will be better if we take to the woods again,” suggested Miss La Farge.“There is little to be gained by doing that,” replied Bracknell. “The man has seen us, and if he is hostile he will follow. The only course, I think, is to keep straight on.”They were still discussing when Joy broke in.“The question is solved for us,” she said quickly. “There are men in the wood behind us. See!”She had scarcely spoken when an Indian stepped from the wood, and another followed, and another until seven men stood on the trail.“How!” said the leader, approaching them.Bracknell replied to the salutation, and the man spoke to his companions who drew nearer, apparently quite friendly disposed to them. Then came a change. One of the men stepped forward, looked at the white man, and gave a sudden exclamation. Then he turned towards his companionsand addressed them volubly. Joy strove to catch what he was saying, but the dialect in which he spoke was strange to her, and she could make nothing of his words. It was clear to her, however, that the man was excited, and as he spoke the excitement communicated itself to his companions. Joy looked at Dick Bracknell for an explanation, and found that his face was very white.“What is it?” she asked quickly. “Something has gone wrong?”“Yes, terribly wrong. These men will be merciless. I have done you my last dis-service.”“What do you mean?” she questioned, as she looked at the gesticulating natives.“I did this tribe a grave wrong, two years ago. One of the men has recognized me, and I think there is little hope for us. We might put up a fight, but it would probably be little use, and would certainly jeopardize your life as well as mine. If they get me, they may let you go. It is worth trying. I will explain and perhaps——” He broke off and took a step forward.“What are you going to do?” inquired Joy sharply.“Just going to try what a little explanation will do,” he answered, “a little explanation coupled with persuasion.”“No!” she replied quickly. “You are going to make a bargain with those men. I know you are, and I shall not agree. We stand or fall together.”“Do you think you are wise?” he asked.“I do not know whether I am wise or not,” sheanswered firmly. “But I keep the faith of the trail, and I shall not leave you in the lurch. Neither will Babette, I am sure.”As he regarded her, a strange look came into his eyes, a look of mingled pride and pain.“Joy,” he said brokenly, “you are a great woman and I was never worthy of you!... You can take your chances with me if you like. When I come to think upon it they are perhaps as good as those that wandering in the wilderness, short of stores, offers. They may spare you; who knows? And it is coming spring. You can feel it in the air. A few days and the river will begin to break up, and then will come white men, prospectors and what not. You may have a chance.”“It is by that chance I shall abide,” Joy replied, “and not by any that leaves you to the mercy of savages.”The Indians finished their confabulation and the leader stepped forward again, and with lowering looks addressed himself to Dick Bracknell, who nodded and then handed over his pistol and hunting knife, and with his back to Joy addressed her in warning.“Keep your pistol out of sight, Joy. These brutes will not suspect you are carrying one, and we may yet find it very useful. They demand that we accompany them to their encampment up the river. I have agreed, since there is nothing else that I can do. I do not think they will hurt you or Miss La Farge—yet.”A few minutes later they started and presently arrived at an encampment consisting of perhaps ascore of tepees. Dogs greeted their coming noisily, children and women came out of the skin tents to look at them, and a few men joined their captors as they moved towards the centre of the camp. Just as they halted, a tall Indian came out of one of the tents, and by his side tottered a man who seemed incredibly old, but though his step was feeble, his eyes were keen, and as they fell on Dick Bracknell they lighted with sudden ferocity, and as she caught the glare he directed towards them, Joy felt the clutch of fear at her heart.“Who is that old man?” she asked. “He knows you. I saw the recognition leap in his eyes.”“He is the Shaman—the tribal witch-doctor, you know. I am afraid his recognition of me is not a propitious one. He is a ferocious old beast, and he owes me one.”“What have you done to the tribe,” asked Joy curiously, “that all of them should be against you?”Bracknell laughed shortly. “I am afraid I cannot unfold the record of that particular sin for your gaze. It was a wild, mad thing, but it seemed all right at the time. Now I think I shall have to pay for it—and you too. I seem to be your evil genius,” he added penitently.Joy did not reply. She was watching the proceedings of the Shaman, who after listening to their captors, tottered up to Bracknell and surveyed him with eyes that were gloating and cruel. Joy shuddered as she read the evil triumph in the old savage’s face, and looked at her husband. Apparently he was altogether composed, and there was a contemptuous look on his haggard face. Joy wasconscious of a certain thrill of pride as she looked at him. Dick Bracknell might have many weaknesses, but cowardice was not one of them. Then the Shaman spoke, mumbling through toothless gums, and though she did not understand a single word of what he was saying, Joy caught the rasping menace in his voice and shuddered again. The Shaman laughed as he broke off, a throaty, croaking laugh, which seemed unutterably evil; and a moment later they were hurried to one of the tepees and the skin door was thrown together and lashed outside. In the darkness, Joy spoke.“What was that old savage saying to you, Dick?”Bracknell laughed shortly. “Oh, he was promising himself pleasure and me pain, indeed my pain was to be his pleasure.”“Ah! You mean they are going to torture you?”“I shouldn’t wonder!”“Will they be long before——?”“Tonight, I fancy! It seems the tribe is in luck. A couple of moose were killed this morning, and a potlatch—sort of tribal bean-feast, you know—is arranged for tonight and most of them will gorge. The Shaman will no doubt arrange some form of entertainment in which I shall take a star part!”“Oh, it is dreadful!” cried Joy.In the darkness she heard Dick Bracknell draw his breath sharply, and a second later a hand touched hers. She did not shrink, but remainedquite still, and then heard him speak in a broken, stammering whisper—“My dear ... I’m infernally sorry ... to have brought you into this mess, I ... I——”“We shall have to get away before,” broke in Joy’s voice. “We can’t remain here and wait for a thing like that to happen.”“What will it matter?” he asked lightly. “It will be the end—for me. But if it will save you, I do not care.”Joy did not answer, she knew that he was sincere, but she did not know what to say, and presently he spoke again—“I do not know what we can do. If we try to get away they will follow, and they will travel faster than we shall. And besides, with the food gone the attempt would be hopeless. One cannot go into the wilderness without grub.”They sat discussing the situation quietly, and outside, the clamour of the camp grew. Once Joy, finding a small hole in the tent, peeped out. On the edge of the encampment a great fire had been lit, and around it a number of women and men were engaged in trampling the snow hard. She guessed that it was there that the potlatch was to be held, and wondered what would happen when the Indians had feasted. The uncouth figures moving to and fro, and cut out from the deepening darkness by the glow of the fire, seemed inconceivably wild and grotesque, and once, when the strange form of the Shaman shuffled into view, and stood gesticulating and pointing to the tepee, she shuddered.She knew that these men were as the men of the Stone Age, that pity was a quality to which they were strangers, and that they would do things which, merely to think of, made her shake with terror.“Oh,” she cried sharply, “is there nothing that we——”“Hush!” broke in Dick Bracknell’s voice peremptorily. “Listen!”All three listened. Some one was fumbling at the back of the tent, then presently there came a ripping noise, and a voice whispered, “Are you there?”Even at that moment Joy Gargrave’s heart leaped as she recognized it.“Yes, Corporal Bracknell. Your cousin, Babette and myself are here.”“Can you move? Are you free?”“Quite free.”“Wait a moment, then.” The sound of slitting hide was heard once more, then came the corporal’s voice again, “You must slip out through the hole I have cut. Quickly! There is not a moment to lose.”Joy felt herself propelled forward and thrust through the opening which the corporal had cut, and whilst another pair of hands guided her, caught Dick Bracknell’s whisper, “Now—Miss La Farge!”Babette slipped out, and two seconds later Dick Bracknell followed.“This way,” said the corporal quickly. “As silently as you can.”He led the way through the darkness to the river bank, and as they began to descend he whispered to Joy—“Your boy Jim, and my man Sibou, are waiting for us with the dogs, a little way off.”“Then Jim is safe?”“Yes, he found me, and told me what had happened to—— By George, listen!”An ear-splitting yell sounded from the direction of the encampment. It was followed by another, and that by a great clamour.“They have discovered our escape,” said Dick Bracknell grimly. “Hurry! where are you taking us, Roger? Have you a rifle?”“Yes! I have a rifle——”“Then give it me. Listen to that! The hunt is up. Give me the gun. I’ll hold the pass.”As he spoke he laughed a laugh that sounded harshly in the night, then broke off. “Great Scott! They’re in front of us already! Look there!”The dark figures had appeared on the snow in front, but the corporal quickly dispelled the fears their appearance had awakened.“My man, and the boy Jim! Hurry! Those beggars behind are following fast.”Dick Bracknell looked round. Against the red glare of the great camp fire half a score of dark figures showed plainly. They were running towards the fugitives. An exultant yell told the latter that they had been seen.“For God’s sake, give me the rifle, and get thegirls away, Roger, old man. I’m crocked, and can’t travel fast, but I can hold those devils back.”“But—but——”“Can’t you see this is my chance of doing the decent thing? For God’s sake don’t deny me, man!”Roger Bracknell looked into his cousin’s haggard face, and understood. Silently he put his rifle into his cousin’s hand, and unbuckling his bandolier, threw it on him.“Thanks, old man! Thanks, awfully!”“I’ll send my man to back you, and when I’ve started the girls I’ll return myself.”“No!” replied Dick Bracknell. “You go with them. You must! It’s necessary.” He lifted the rifle as he spoke and sighting at the foremost of the pursuers pulled the trigger.“One!” he said exultantly, as one of the running shadows toppled into the snow. “The beggars aren’t thinking of the light behind them.... Go!” he said again. “Go with the girls and send your man. Let me play the hero for once.... Man!” he blazed suddenly, “can’t you see it is all that is left to me.”“Yes,” replied his cousin, “I can see it, and I’ll go. But you must promise me that you won’t stay longer than——”The rifle cracked again, and then Dick Bracknell replied. “I’ll promise anything you like if you’ll only go and get Joy away.”Then, very reluctantly, Corporal Bracknell went.CHAPTER XXIVTHE PRODIGAL MAKES GOOD“DICK INSISTED,” explained Corporal Bracknell, as with Joy and her foster-sister and the boy Jim he fled down the river. “I could see he wanted the post of danger—and I could not refuse. Sibou is with him, and I think they will hold the pursuit.”For a moment Joy did not speak. She was thinking of the consideration Dick Bracknell had shown to her during the last two days, and understood quite well that now he was endeavouring to atone for the wrong he had once done her. Pity surged in her heart as she thought of him weak and ill, holding back a horde of savage men, pity and gratitude, but no warmer emotion, for Dick Bracknell had killed all possibility of that in that moment at Alcombe, when, on her marriage morning she had made that startling discovery of his perfidy.“Do you think that—that Dick will get away also?” she asked at last.“I hope so,” the corporal answered evasively. “I made him promise not to stay too long. But he is a sick man and in the mood for anything. I believed he rejoiced at the prospect of a fight against odds. It is not surprising and—— Listen! There they go again. They were both together that time.”From time to time as they raced hot-foot down the trail the reports of rifles reached them, and they knew that the fight was still proceeding, and that the two defenders were holding their own. Once when the interval between the shots was especially long, Corporal Bracknell’s face grew very thoughtful, and so absorbed and intent was he that Joy addressed a question to him twice before he heard her.“Corporal Bracknell, do you think that Dick can recover from his sickness?”“I am afraid not,” replied the corporal slowly, then gave an ejaculation as the distant report of a rifle broke the silence behind them. “Good! They’re still keeping it up.”“Why do you think that?” she asked.“Because I have seen other men like it. I have never known one to recover.”“Do ... do you think Dick knows?”“Yes,” he answered quietly. “I am sure of it!”“It is very pitiful,” she said. “He is not all bad——”“He is very far from being that,” interrupted the corporal.“He might have made good, even yet, if he were not so sick.”“Perhaps he is making good,” replied the corporal gently.“Yes,” she answered simply. “I think he is trying. In spite of the past I shall be in his debt. Ah! What is that?”There had been a sudden increase of clamour behind them. Distant yells were sounding, and thetwo rifles were firing in rapid succession. For perhaps a minute and a half this went on, then came silence, followed by a single shot, and that again by a silence which remained unbroken. Corporal Bracknell stopped irresolutely.“What do you think?” Joy whispered.“I think it is the end one way or the other,” was the reply. “The last yell sounded as if the Indians were charging. In that case, unless the rush was stopped——”“Dick and your man are dead?”“Something of that kind. I think I must go back, and try and learn what has happened. There is nothing else for it. I simply can’t desert them without knowing what has befallen. You keep right on until you reach the main river—I will not be longer than necessary.”“We shall wait at the fork,” she answered quickly.“But——”“We shall wait,” she repeated resolutely, and taking a rifle from one of the sleds, she handed it to him.“You may need it,” she said quietly. “And we have one left yet.”He did not speak, but nodding his thanks, turned in the tracks, and proceeded up river once more. He went swiftly but cautiously; and after travelling half an hour, caught sight of a lumpy shadow coming down the river. Hastily he took refuge against the bank, and waited with his rifle ready. The shadow drew nearer, and then he perceived that it was made up of two men, one riding on the back ofthe other. At the same time he caught the sound of a protesting voice—“It’s not worth while, old horse. Put me down and quit. They say——”A moment later Roger Bracknell was running towards them.“Dick! Dick!” he cried gladly.“Where ... where ... are the girls ... Joy?” asked his cousin in a voice that sounded harsh.“They are all right. They are well in front!”“Good!” There was a note of relief in Dick Bracknell’s voice, as he spoke, then he gave a little laugh. “Behold the victors! Roger, my son, it was topping. We stood a charge and ... and cleared the board. It was gorgeous.”He laughed weakly, and his cousin looked at him anxiously.“But you are hurt, Dick, old man?”“Plugged ... with an arrow ... in the ribs. Sibou’s all right, though. And I tried to make him ... leave me ... on the field of glory. B—but he’s a mutinous beggar.”Weak though he was, there was a reckless gaiety in his manner, which almost moved the corporal to tears.“Dick, don’t you think you had better not talk? It’s bound to try you, as you are. When we get to the sleds I will look to your wound, and——”“Not a bit of use, Roger, my boy! I know it, you know it! This finishes me. It was a matter of weeks, before; now it’s a matter of hours.... All the same ... I’d like to ... to see Joy, b-before——”“You shall, if it’s to be done,” said his cousin as the other’s voice broke. “I’ll take turns with Sibou. Between us we’ll do it, somehow. And I might as well take part of my share now. Sibou must be fagged.”They stopped and the transfer was effected, then as they resumed their way, the wounded man leaned over his cousin’s shoulder, and whispered—“Roger you’re a good sort!”The corporal made no response, and Dick Bracknell continued, “You know that Joy was up here looking for you?”“The boy, Jim, told me so. Though why she should——”“She ... she came to tell you that ... Geoff was dead ... that you are the heir of Harrow Fell——”“No! No!” broke out his cousin in sharp protest.“Yes! Yes! It is so. I’ve been out of it since—oh, for years! And in any case ... I shall be out of it ... altogether very soon. But it wasn’t for that only ... Joy came. She came up here to stop you from killing me ... knowing the relation between us, she was afraid that if that happened, people would say that you ... that you.... You understand?”“Yes, I think I understand.”“Such a possibility was rather rot, of course, but Joy didn’t know that, and she knew that you were after me. So—she’s pure gold, Joy is.”“Yes,” agreed the corporal simply.“You’ll marry her, of course, and go to ... to the Fell?”Roger Bracknell hesitated. The conversation was inexpressibly painful to him, and to this question he did not know what answer to make. His cousin did not seem to notice the hesitation, and he did not wait for an answer, but continued in a broken way, “There have been Bracknells at the Fell these five hundred years.... And Geoff’s gone, and I’m going, but you’ll ... keep up the line. When you’ve a boy, Roger, call him ... call him Dick. I’d like to think there’ll be one of my name who’ll be as clean and straight as I’ve been crooked. Lord! What a mess a man can make of life! And what a difference it would have made ... if only I’d gone straight at the fences. But would it?... Joy would never have married me ... she never loved me, but you have her heart! Oh, it is so ... I’m not blind, and, Roger, old man, I’m glad it will be you.”After that he was silent for a long time, to Roger’s unutterable relief, and he spoke only jestingly on the occasions when Sibou and the corporal took him over from the other, and at last, after a weary march, they reached the point where the stream joined the main river, and as they did so a figure broke from the bank and ran towards them. It was Joy.“You are all here?” she cried. “Safe?”“Safe! Yes,” laughed Dick weakly. “But a little damaged.”“What is it?” she asked, turning towards the corporal.“Dick is wounded,” he answered gravely. “I am afraid it is serious. And as I think we have little to fear from the Indians now, it will perhaps be best if we cross the main river and camp. We can put him upon one of the sleds——”“Yes! Yes!” she cried, and a moment later she had turned to the wounded man, and was talking to him in a low voice.Roger moved away. He did not know what she was saying and he had no wish to know, but half an hour later as his cousin lay by a fire which had been lit, he saw that his eyes were shining with a quiet happiness.“Better, Dick?” he inquired.“In soul, yes!” was the answer.“I’m glad of that,” replied the corporal simply.“It’s like a cleansing to have a good woman’s approval. You can’t know, Roger, old boy. You haven’t been deep in the mire—but there it is.”He allowed his cousin and Joy to examine his wound, and they found the arrow broken off in his side. The corporal looked at the girl and shook his head. There was little to be done, except draw out the arrow, and bandage the wound as well as they could, and when that was done the injured man was visibly weaker.Corporal Bracknell busied himself with the preparation of a meal, leaving Joy and his cousin together, and not till after the meal when Dick was dozing had he any opportunity of further speech with Joy. Then walking in the shadow of the trees he talked with her.“Dick has told me why you came,” he said,going straight to his point. “I am very grateful.”“I was afraid that there might be trouble between you,” she answered frankly.“We had already met twice, before you came,” he explained quietly. “On the first occasion Dick spared my life; and on the second, though the meeting began stormily enough, we parted complete friends.”“I am glad of that, more glad than I can tell.”“Not more than I am. But there are things I want to ask you, very badly. I know how you came to go to Dick’s cabin, but I do not know who those men were who kept both Dick and you there in a state of siege. Have you any idea?”As he asked the question Joy Gargrave’s face grew very thoughtful.“It was Dick’s man who fastened the door on us. That was part of a plan for kidnapping me, which Dick had arranged, and at first I thought that he——”“It was not Joe. We found him shot,” interrupted the corporal.“I do not think it was he now. At first Dick was inclined to that idea, and then he thought it might be my boy, Jim; but I pointed out that the latter would scarcely attack Babette, and she was attacked whilst walking outside the hut, you know.”He looked at her and saw that her eyes were full of trouble. She was keeping something back, and after a moment he pressed her for the truth.“You have suspicions, Miss Gargrave. Tell me exactly what you think.”“I scarcely like to,” was the reply. “What Ihave is no more than a suspicion, and it is almost too horrible for words.”“Tell me,” he urged again.“I will,” she broke out impulsively, “and God forgive me if I do him wrong! I think my cousin Adrian was responsible—Mr. Rayner, you know, whom you met at North Star.”“I thought so.”“You thought so?” she cried. “Then you know he was up here?”“I did not know, but I guessed. I was on his trail when I met your boy Jim.”“And he was on yours, I am sure,” said Joy quickly. “He followed you when you left Dick’s cabin. I think he meant to kill you. He knew that you suspected him of that attack on Dick at North Star——”“I suspected him of worse things than that.”“Yes, I know. Dick told me. Oh, how terrible it is!”She hid her face in her hands for a moment, and then as she lifted it, he asked, “Have you any idea why he should do a thing like that, or why he should make an attempt upon you?”“Yes,” she replied in a shaking voice. “Babette, who is very frank, says he wants my money. He would have married me, knowing all the time that I was married to Dick. He even threatened me when I would not accept him, and events have compelled me to the belief that Babette is right, and that he will allow nothing to stand in his way, not even my life.”Roger Bracknell nodded his head thoughtfully.“I think you are right,” he answered slowly. “We must be very careful. If there is real warrant for our suspicions, then Adrian Rayner will be a very desperate man——”“I am sure of that,” she interjected impulsively. “I felt it, when he left North Star on our arrival. Did I tell you that he was there when we came back? No! Well, he was, and I ordered him away, and as soon as I could I came to look for you——”“It was good of you to be so anxious for my welfare,” he broke in quickly.They had turned and were walking back to the fire, and in the light it shed he saw her face grow suddenly crimson. She looked towards the recumbent figure of Dick Bracknell, lying towards the fire, then back again to himself.“That was but natural,” she said quietly. “You were working for me, and when I knew that a danger unknown to you threatened you, I felt that I must make you aware of it. You understand?”“Yes,” he answered quietly. “And if we can only meet Adrian Rayner we shall be able to prove or disprove all that we suspect. You and Babette and myself know him and Sibou knows the man who was responsible for your father’s death. If Adrian Rayner and he should prove to be the same, then the matter will be beyond dispute.”“Yes,” she agreed slowly. “Yes. But it will be very terrible.”They approached the fire, just as Dick Bracknell moved and opened his eyes. He looked at Joy, and she, reading the unspoken request in his eyes, went and seated herself by his side.
CHAPTER XXIITO THE RESCUE“SIBOUthere is some one coming up the trail!” As he spoke to his native companion, Corporal Bracknell pointed down the river. The Indian paused in the very midst of what he was doing, and looked in the direction indicated, then he nodded, and in his own speech replied—“Yes, one man and a dog-team.”“I wonder if by any chance it can be the man we are looking for, the man who was with you when the trail was destroyed before Rolf Gargrave.”“Who can say?” answered the Indian. “He has been long on the trail. He marches wearily.”“It will be as well to take no chances. If he sees our fire he is almost certain to make for it, and if we go back in the trees a little way we shall be able to inspect him before he sees us. Then if he is our man——”“We shall get him? Yes! And we will take him down to the Great White Chief at Regina, who will hang him. It is good. See, he has seen the fire, he is turning inward to this bank.”“Then we will withdraw.”Corporal Bracknell stretched a hand for his rifle, and together they retreated to the undergrowthbehind their camp, where, crouching low, they watched the advent of the stranger. As the new-comer’s dogs moved shorewards they began to yelp, and their own dogs, leaping up, gave tongue menacingly. The driver of the team, however, moved in front, and as one of the huskies flung itself upon the harnessed dogs, brought the stock of his whip down so smartly on it, that, yelping agony, it retreated. The rest of the corporal’s dogs, undeterred, sprang forward, and for a moment the new-comer was the centre of a huddled tangle of snarling and yelping dogs. He laid about him valiantly with his clubbed whip, but the brutes were too much for him, and at last he cried aloud for help. At the cry Sibou rose suddenly to his feet.“That not white man,” he said. “He Indian!”Thus assured Bracknell and he ran to the help of the new-comer, and within two minutes the tangle of dogs was separated, and the three men found time to look at each other. As the stranger’s eyes fell on the corporal, he gave a sudden cry of joy and relief, and ran to him.“You know me! I come from North Star. I Jim, Miss Gargrave’s man!”The corporal looked at him and then recognized him.“Yes,” he said, “I know you. You are Indian George’s son. What——”He was interrupted by a stream of words, half incoherent, half intelligible, which, as it flowed on, made his face go very white. He listened carefully, trying to get a clear idea of the story which the lad was telling him, and as it ended he nodded.“I think I understand what you are trying to tell me, Jim. Some one has killed your father. Some one fired a gun at you, and you are afraid for your mistress and Miss La Farge and you want me to help. That is so? Very good! We are just about to have supper and you will join us. We will eat first, and afterwards talk. I have no doubt you are very impatient, but your dogs are fagged and so are mine. It is impossible to travel until they have rested. Feed your dogs and come along.”Himself the prey of consuming anxiety, he helped to prepare the evening meal, forced himself to eat, and not until he had lit his pipe did he refer to the story which the Indian lad had told him so incoherently.“Now, Jim,” he said, “let us get at the facts if we can. You say that your mistress and Miss La Farge are here in the North, and that they are on trail?”“Yes, sir!”“But I thought they were in England?”“They returned suddenly, fourteen days ago!”“But what were they doing on trail, so far from home, with the spring coming?”“I do not know clearly. But they were looking for you. They had news for you. More than that was not told my father.”“And you say that yester morning a strange Indian came to your camp with a message from a white man?”“Yes. The white man was sick. He desired to talk with Miss Gargrave; so whilst we—my fatherand I struck camp, Miss La Farge and my mistress went to the cabin which was on a creek——”“Ah!” interrupted the corporal. “Was it on the left bank?”“Yes! The left bank. The word was that we should pack and bring the dogs and the sled to the mouth of the creek there to wait for Miss Gargrave. We did so, and were standing, stamping our feet for warmth, when my father gave a cry like that of a man whom death strikes and fell into the snow. I was a little way from him, and ran towards him. As I reached him his spirit passed, and looking down I saw that he had been struck with an arrow.”“Indians!” ejaculated the corporal.“I cannot tell. I looked about and I saw three men in the shadow of the wood. Their faces were hidden from me, and I could not see them clearly. One carried a rifle which he fired at me. Our rifles, mine and that of my father, were lashed on the sled and I was helpless.”“What did you do?” asked the corporal.“I lashed the dogs and fled, clinging to the gee-pole. The trail was good and I made speed. It was in my mind that the man with the rifle would fire again, but he did not do so, though twice or thrice arrows fell near me, and I knew that I was followed. It was in my mind that when the pursuit was over I would go back, and I made for the woods on the further side of the river, and when darkness came I crept down the trail, and leaving my dogs crossed the river to the creek.”“Yes? Yes? What did you find?”“I found my father’s body gone, and at the head of the creek opposite a cabin a camp was pitched and a fire lighted, and whilst I watched a man left the camp and went towards the cabin. I could not see what he did, but it is in my mind that the men in the camp keep watch on the cabin.”“And your mistress? Did you see anything of her?”“Nothing, but my mind says she is in the cabin, for it was thither she went to see the sick white man. I thought once to attack the camp, but the men there are three, and I am but a stripling and unused to battle. Then I bethought me of Indians who live up the river. They are not good Indians, but my father was known to them and I thought that maybe they might give help. I was on my way there, when I caught the light of your fire, and came here, hoping to find a white man, and I find you. It is very good. You will go back? You will help?”“Yes—I shall go back. I shall help. We must save your mistress. I know the cabin on the creek and I know the sick man whom she went to see; and I do not think she will come to any harm in that quarter. But the men in the camp, who, as you think, watch the cabin, are different. There is something there that I do not understand. But we will find out ... we will rest now, and in four hours we start. I will feed the dogs again now, for there is a hard journey before us. The wind has changed and the trail will soften in the morning.”“Yes. It is from the south. The spring isknocking at the door, and in a week the ice will grow rotten, but before then we will find my mistress!”“Yes,” answered the corporal simply. “We will find her.”The Indian had disposed his blankets near the fire and within five minutes was sound asleep. A little time later Sibou also slept, but Corporal Bracknell made no attempt to close his eyes, since he knew that for him sleep was impossible. He lit his pipe, and sat staring into the fire, the prey of gnawing anxiety. The mystery of the men in the camp who watched Dick Bracknell’s cabin, utterly confounded him. Were they men whom his cousin had wronged during his none too scrupulous career in the North? That was just possible. Daily, men in those wild latitudes took the law into their own hands, enforcing verdicts that not infrequently were more just than those of the law itself. Were these men of that type? Then his mind dismissed the suggestion. In that case why had they killed George, and attacked his son, the lad who, overborne by his labours, was now sleeping there on the other side of the fire?They might be roving Indians. The use of arrows suggested that, but one had a rifle—— Suddenly he sat bolt upright, his eyes staring widely, as another possibility flashed through his mind.“Adrian Rayner!”He was appalled at the thought, but the more he dwelt upon it, the stronger his suspicion grew. Adrian Rayner was in the North and he had two Indians with him, “bad men,” as Chief Louis hadsaid. The corporal was morally certain that Rayner was the man who had made the attempt on Dick Bracknell at North Star; and if he knew that he were still alive, what more likely than that he should make a second attempt? There was nothing surprising about that, but the attack on Joy Gargrave’s party was something that passed his comprehension altogether. Try as he would he could find no sufficient explanation for that, the one possibility that presented itself to his mind being that Adrian Rayner was for some reason anxious to make Joy dependent upon himself, and so had deliberately set out to destroy her escort. Then the thought suggested itself to him that after all he might be building on a false assumption. The man responsible for the death of George, and for the attack on the cabin, might not be Rayner at all.Restlessly his mind groped among the possibilities which the mystery suggested, and not once during the four hours that he had decreed for rest did his eyes shut. At the end of that time he wakened Sibou, and, impatient to get away himself, helped in the preparation for making a start, allowing the boy Jim to sleep until the last available moment, and when at last they took the trail he was conscious of relief. It was at least something to feel that he was on his way to the help of Joy.They travelled six hours and then made a halt for a brief rest and a meal, afterwards resuming their way. As noon approached they found the hard crust of the snow softening, and the going becoming harder, but there was no slackening of effort, and late in the afternoon they arrived at apoint opposite the creek on the far side of the river. There in the shadow of the woods they waited till darkness fell, and then leaving the boy in charge of the dogs, the corporal and Sibou crossed the river, and made a detour which would bring them out at the head of the creek where the cabin was located.They reached the neighbourhood of their objective in about an hour’s time, and then moved forward with extreme caution, looking for the camp which the boy had described as being opposite the cabin. But no glow of blazing logs met their gaze, and the edge of the forest presented a front of unbroken shadow. Sibou sniffed the air thoughtfully.“There is no smell of fire,” he whispered.“No!” answered the corporal, his anxiety suddenly trebled by the thought that he had arrived too late.They still crept forward, and then unexpectedly Sibou stopped, and pointed to the ground. Roger Bracknell looked down and saw a blackened circle in the snow where a fire had been lit.“Here was the camp,” said the Indian, and then stopped and put his hand on the ashes. “The fire is cold,” he said, as he stood upright again. “It has been out for some time.”For a moment they stood looking at each other, and then instinctively both turned to look for the cabin. It stood like a shadow against the deeper shadow of the woods behind it, silent, and with no sign of occupation about it.“Perhaps the men we seek are in the cabin,” whispered the corporal.Again the Indian sniffed the air and then shook his head.“No! They are not there. There is no fire. But we will go and find out.”Carelessly, in his assurance, Sibou led the way across the creek, and to the front of the cabin. The door was closed, and he hammered on it with his rifle butt. There was no answer, and, feeling for the latch string, he thrust a shoulder against the door. It did not yield.“The door is barred,” he said aloud. “But there is no one within, or if there is they be dead.”“The window!” ejaculated the corporal, and began to run round the cabin.Reaching the window, and observing the empty framework he felt for his matches, and then hoisting himself up, with head and shoulders inside the cabin, he struck a light and looked hastily round. The cabin was empty. With something like a groan of despair he slipped back to the ground, and looked at Sibou.“There is no one here,” he said. “They are gone!”The Indian nodded and stared at the empty frame thoughtfully, then after a little time he spoke.“The men of the camp are gone; and those who were in the hut are gone—whither we know not; but those who were in the hut went out not by the door, for the door is barred within. How did they leave the cabin, then?” he jerked a hand upwards towards the window. “This way! And wherefore? Because the men in the camp were watchingthe door, and had left the window unguarded.”“By Jove, yes,” cried the corporal, seized by new hope. “That does seem more than likely.”“Then the men in the camp discover that those whom they watch have flown, and the cabin is empty. They want them badly, and they follow, therefore we find the camp empty like the cabin.”“Yes! Yes! But where have they gone? Which way in this God-forsaken wilderness?”“That we shall know when daylight comes. The snow will carry their trail, and we can follow. Till then it were better to rest, for the night withholds the knowledge.”Corporal Bracknell recognized the wisdom of the Indian’s words, and condemned to inaction until daylight, decided to make the best of it.“Then there is nothing for it but to camp. And we may as well use the cabin. Slip through the window, Sibou, and unbar the door, whilst I go across for Jim and the dogs.”Half an hour later a fire was roaring in the improvised stove, and by its light Roger Bracknell wandered round the cabin, searching for anything that would give him a clue to the mystery. He found nothing. The hut, save for a couple of rifles reposing in the corner, and some odds and ends of no importance, was quite empty. He looked at the rifles and addressed himself to Sibou.“Evidently the ammunition was exhausted.”“Yes! Therefore the rifles were left. But the food was taken. Behold!”The Indian pointed to a roughly made shelf,which corresponded to the ordinary larder of a Klondyke cabin. There was nothing there but a coffee-sack and an empty syrup-tin.“They run from the men in the camp, and leave the rifles because they are useless, but they take the food, and they have a start—one hour—two hours—who can tell? But we follow in the morning and we find both. That so?”“Please God, yes!” answered the corporal earnestly.Tired out with the labours of the day, Roger Bracknell slept long and well, and woke a little after dawn with the smell of frying bacon in his nostrils. The boy Jim was preparing breakfast, but Sibou was nowhere to be seen. Questioning Jim, he learned that the Indian had gone outside an hour before and had not yet returned. Hastily throwing on his furs, the corporal passed outside, and as he did so, Sibou appeared at the edge of the woods at the back of the cabin. There was an impassive look on his mask-like face, but his eyes gleamed with satisfaction.“Well?” asked the corporal eagerly.The Indian swept a hand towards the woods.“That way have they gone. The double trail is there. Also there is a dead man there!”“A dead man?” cried the white man in sudden fear.“An Indian! I know him not!”“Take me to him,” said the corporal imperatively. Without a word Sibou turned and led the way into the wood, and after a few minutes’ walkRoger Bracknell found himself near the mouth of the creek, looking down into the face of a dead man. He recognized him instantly.“He is known to you?” asked Sibou.“Yes, he is known to me. He was the servant of the white man who lived in the cabin.”“He was shot in the back with an arrow.” explained Sibou. “He must have been looking down at the trail when he died.”Roger Bracknell looked at the dead Indian for a little time without speaking, then fear for what was to come shook him.“Sibou,” he said, “we must make haste. There is not a moment to waste. Those men in the camp are very desperate men. Two men already have died at their hands, and they are now on the trail of the man who was in the hut and of the ladies whom we seek. We must follow hard!”“Yes, hard!” answered Sibou simply. “It is a trail of death!”Half an hour later they were on the way once more. A south wind was blowing, and they travelled with furs opened, for the day was comparatively warm, and there were many signs that spring was at hand. The trail they followed led through the forest for most of the time, but towards the end of the day followed a tributary river, and here it suddenly gathered itself together in a space of trampled snow, which spoke of many pairs of feet. The corporal looked at it in perplexity and watched Sibou, who circled round and round, seeking a solution of the enigma the trampled snow presented.“What do you make of it, Sibou?”“I am not sure,” answered the Indian slowly. “Something strange has happened. There has been a meeting here, for there are many footmarks, and there is a trail which goes up the river, and the trail of the ladies is not part of it.”“But where are they? They certainly came here!”“So!” answered Sibou. “And they went from here, since they are not to be found in this place. It is in my mind that they were carried—for there were dogs here as well as men.”“But who——”“Indians! The trail is not that of white men’s feet.”“Then we must follow,” cried the corporal.“Yes,” answered Sibou gravely. “We must follow. But I shall go first, whilst you remain here. If I find nothing, then I shall be back in one hour or two. It is in my mind that there is an encampment not far away, and it is better that we do not take the dogs till we know. If they are bad Indians——”“In God’s name, hurry!” cried Roger Bracknell, his courage shaken by the thought of the new danger into which Joy Gargrave appeared to have fallen.
TO THE RESCUE
“SIBOUthere is some one coming up the trail!” As he spoke to his native companion, Corporal Bracknell pointed down the river. The Indian paused in the very midst of what he was doing, and looked in the direction indicated, then he nodded, and in his own speech replied—
“Yes, one man and a dog-team.”
“I wonder if by any chance it can be the man we are looking for, the man who was with you when the trail was destroyed before Rolf Gargrave.”
“Who can say?” answered the Indian. “He has been long on the trail. He marches wearily.”
“It will be as well to take no chances. If he sees our fire he is almost certain to make for it, and if we go back in the trees a little way we shall be able to inspect him before he sees us. Then if he is our man——”
“We shall get him? Yes! And we will take him down to the Great White Chief at Regina, who will hang him. It is good. See, he has seen the fire, he is turning inward to this bank.”
“Then we will withdraw.”
Corporal Bracknell stretched a hand for his rifle, and together they retreated to the undergrowthbehind their camp, where, crouching low, they watched the advent of the stranger. As the new-comer’s dogs moved shorewards they began to yelp, and their own dogs, leaping up, gave tongue menacingly. The driver of the team, however, moved in front, and as one of the huskies flung itself upon the harnessed dogs, brought the stock of his whip down so smartly on it, that, yelping agony, it retreated. The rest of the corporal’s dogs, undeterred, sprang forward, and for a moment the new-comer was the centre of a huddled tangle of snarling and yelping dogs. He laid about him valiantly with his clubbed whip, but the brutes were too much for him, and at last he cried aloud for help. At the cry Sibou rose suddenly to his feet.
“That not white man,” he said. “He Indian!”
Thus assured Bracknell and he ran to the help of the new-comer, and within two minutes the tangle of dogs was separated, and the three men found time to look at each other. As the stranger’s eyes fell on the corporal, he gave a sudden cry of joy and relief, and ran to him.
“You know me! I come from North Star. I Jim, Miss Gargrave’s man!”
The corporal looked at him and then recognized him.
“Yes,” he said, “I know you. You are Indian George’s son. What——”
He was interrupted by a stream of words, half incoherent, half intelligible, which, as it flowed on, made his face go very white. He listened carefully, trying to get a clear idea of the story which the lad was telling him, and as it ended he nodded.
“I think I understand what you are trying to tell me, Jim. Some one has killed your father. Some one fired a gun at you, and you are afraid for your mistress and Miss La Farge and you want me to help. That is so? Very good! We are just about to have supper and you will join us. We will eat first, and afterwards talk. I have no doubt you are very impatient, but your dogs are fagged and so are mine. It is impossible to travel until they have rested. Feed your dogs and come along.”
Himself the prey of consuming anxiety, he helped to prepare the evening meal, forced himself to eat, and not until he had lit his pipe did he refer to the story which the Indian lad had told him so incoherently.
“Now, Jim,” he said, “let us get at the facts if we can. You say that your mistress and Miss La Farge are here in the North, and that they are on trail?”
“Yes, sir!”
“But I thought they were in England?”
“They returned suddenly, fourteen days ago!”
“But what were they doing on trail, so far from home, with the spring coming?”
“I do not know clearly. But they were looking for you. They had news for you. More than that was not told my father.”
“And you say that yester morning a strange Indian came to your camp with a message from a white man?”
“Yes. The white man was sick. He desired to talk with Miss Gargrave; so whilst we—my fatherand I struck camp, Miss La Farge and my mistress went to the cabin which was on a creek——”
“Ah!” interrupted the corporal. “Was it on the left bank?”
“Yes! The left bank. The word was that we should pack and bring the dogs and the sled to the mouth of the creek there to wait for Miss Gargrave. We did so, and were standing, stamping our feet for warmth, when my father gave a cry like that of a man whom death strikes and fell into the snow. I was a little way from him, and ran towards him. As I reached him his spirit passed, and looking down I saw that he had been struck with an arrow.”
“Indians!” ejaculated the corporal.
“I cannot tell. I looked about and I saw three men in the shadow of the wood. Their faces were hidden from me, and I could not see them clearly. One carried a rifle which he fired at me. Our rifles, mine and that of my father, were lashed on the sled and I was helpless.”
“What did you do?” asked the corporal.
“I lashed the dogs and fled, clinging to the gee-pole. The trail was good and I made speed. It was in my mind that the man with the rifle would fire again, but he did not do so, though twice or thrice arrows fell near me, and I knew that I was followed. It was in my mind that when the pursuit was over I would go back, and I made for the woods on the further side of the river, and when darkness came I crept down the trail, and leaving my dogs crossed the river to the creek.”
“Yes? Yes? What did you find?”
“I found my father’s body gone, and at the head of the creek opposite a cabin a camp was pitched and a fire lighted, and whilst I watched a man left the camp and went towards the cabin. I could not see what he did, but it is in my mind that the men in the camp keep watch on the cabin.”
“And your mistress? Did you see anything of her?”
“Nothing, but my mind says she is in the cabin, for it was thither she went to see the sick white man. I thought once to attack the camp, but the men there are three, and I am but a stripling and unused to battle. Then I bethought me of Indians who live up the river. They are not good Indians, but my father was known to them and I thought that maybe they might give help. I was on my way there, when I caught the light of your fire, and came here, hoping to find a white man, and I find you. It is very good. You will go back? You will help?”
“Yes—I shall go back. I shall help. We must save your mistress. I know the cabin on the creek and I know the sick man whom she went to see; and I do not think she will come to any harm in that quarter. But the men in the camp, who, as you think, watch the cabin, are different. There is something there that I do not understand. But we will find out ... we will rest now, and in four hours we start. I will feed the dogs again now, for there is a hard journey before us. The wind has changed and the trail will soften in the morning.”
“Yes. It is from the south. The spring isknocking at the door, and in a week the ice will grow rotten, but before then we will find my mistress!”
“Yes,” answered the corporal simply. “We will find her.”
The Indian had disposed his blankets near the fire and within five minutes was sound asleep. A little time later Sibou also slept, but Corporal Bracknell made no attempt to close his eyes, since he knew that for him sleep was impossible. He lit his pipe, and sat staring into the fire, the prey of gnawing anxiety. The mystery of the men in the camp who watched Dick Bracknell’s cabin, utterly confounded him. Were they men whom his cousin had wronged during his none too scrupulous career in the North? That was just possible. Daily, men in those wild latitudes took the law into their own hands, enforcing verdicts that not infrequently were more just than those of the law itself. Were these men of that type? Then his mind dismissed the suggestion. In that case why had they killed George, and attacked his son, the lad who, overborne by his labours, was now sleeping there on the other side of the fire?
They might be roving Indians. The use of arrows suggested that, but one had a rifle—— Suddenly he sat bolt upright, his eyes staring widely, as another possibility flashed through his mind.
“Adrian Rayner!”
He was appalled at the thought, but the more he dwelt upon it, the stronger his suspicion grew. Adrian Rayner was in the North and he had two Indians with him, “bad men,” as Chief Louis hadsaid. The corporal was morally certain that Rayner was the man who had made the attempt on Dick Bracknell at North Star; and if he knew that he were still alive, what more likely than that he should make a second attempt? There was nothing surprising about that, but the attack on Joy Gargrave’s party was something that passed his comprehension altogether. Try as he would he could find no sufficient explanation for that, the one possibility that presented itself to his mind being that Adrian Rayner was for some reason anxious to make Joy dependent upon himself, and so had deliberately set out to destroy her escort. Then the thought suggested itself to him that after all he might be building on a false assumption. The man responsible for the death of George, and for the attack on the cabin, might not be Rayner at all.
Restlessly his mind groped among the possibilities which the mystery suggested, and not once during the four hours that he had decreed for rest did his eyes shut. At the end of that time he wakened Sibou, and, impatient to get away himself, helped in the preparation for making a start, allowing the boy Jim to sleep until the last available moment, and when at last they took the trail he was conscious of relief. It was at least something to feel that he was on his way to the help of Joy.
They travelled six hours and then made a halt for a brief rest and a meal, afterwards resuming their way. As noon approached they found the hard crust of the snow softening, and the going becoming harder, but there was no slackening of effort, and late in the afternoon they arrived at apoint opposite the creek on the far side of the river. There in the shadow of the woods they waited till darkness fell, and then leaving the boy in charge of the dogs, the corporal and Sibou crossed the river, and made a detour which would bring them out at the head of the creek where the cabin was located.
They reached the neighbourhood of their objective in about an hour’s time, and then moved forward with extreme caution, looking for the camp which the boy had described as being opposite the cabin. But no glow of blazing logs met their gaze, and the edge of the forest presented a front of unbroken shadow. Sibou sniffed the air thoughtfully.
“There is no smell of fire,” he whispered.
“No!” answered the corporal, his anxiety suddenly trebled by the thought that he had arrived too late.
They still crept forward, and then unexpectedly Sibou stopped, and pointed to the ground. Roger Bracknell looked down and saw a blackened circle in the snow where a fire had been lit.
“Here was the camp,” said the Indian, and then stopped and put his hand on the ashes. “The fire is cold,” he said, as he stood upright again. “It has been out for some time.”
For a moment they stood looking at each other, and then instinctively both turned to look for the cabin. It stood like a shadow against the deeper shadow of the woods behind it, silent, and with no sign of occupation about it.
“Perhaps the men we seek are in the cabin,” whispered the corporal.
Again the Indian sniffed the air and then shook his head.
“No! They are not there. There is no fire. But we will go and find out.”
Carelessly, in his assurance, Sibou led the way across the creek, and to the front of the cabin. The door was closed, and he hammered on it with his rifle butt. There was no answer, and, feeling for the latch string, he thrust a shoulder against the door. It did not yield.
“The door is barred,” he said aloud. “But there is no one within, or if there is they be dead.”
“The window!” ejaculated the corporal, and began to run round the cabin.
Reaching the window, and observing the empty framework he felt for his matches, and then hoisting himself up, with head and shoulders inside the cabin, he struck a light and looked hastily round. The cabin was empty. With something like a groan of despair he slipped back to the ground, and looked at Sibou.
“There is no one here,” he said. “They are gone!”
The Indian nodded and stared at the empty frame thoughtfully, then after a little time he spoke.
“The men of the camp are gone; and those who were in the hut are gone—whither we know not; but those who were in the hut went out not by the door, for the door is barred within. How did they leave the cabin, then?” he jerked a hand upwards towards the window. “This way! And wherefore? Because the men in the camp were watchingthe door, and had left the window unguarded.”
“By Jove, yes,” cried the corporal, seized by new hope. “That does seem more than likely.”
“Then the men in the camp discover that those whom they watch have flown, and the cabin is empty. They want them badly, and they follow, therefore we find the camp empty like the cabin.”
“Yes! Yes! But where have they gone? Which way in this God-forsaken wilderness?”
“That we shall know when daylight comes. The snow will carry their trail, and we can follow. Till then it were better to rest, for the night withholds the knowledge.”
Corporal Bracknell recognized the wisdom of the Indian’s words, and condemned to inaction until daylight, decided to make the best of it.
“Then there is nothing for it but to camp. And we may as well use the cabin. Slip through the window, Sibou, and unbar the door, whilst I go across for Jim and the dogs.”
Half an hour later a fire was roaring in the improvised stove, and by its light Roger Bracknell wandered round the cabin, searching for anything that would give him a clue to the mystery. He found nothing. The hut, save for a couple of rifles reposing in the corner, and some odds and ends of no importance, was quite empty. He looked at the rifles and addressed himself to Sibou.
“Evidently the ammunition was exhausted.”
“Yes! Therefore the rifles were left. But the food was taken. Behold!”
The Indian pointed to a roughly made shelf,which corresponded to the ordinary larder of a Klondyke cabin. There was nothing there but a coffee-sack and an empty syrup-tin.
“They run from the men in the camp, and leave the rifles because they are useless, but they take the food, and they have a start—one hour—two hours—who can tell? But we follow in the morning and we find both. That so?”
“Please God, yes!” answered the corporal earnestly.
Tired out with the labours of the day, Roger Bracknell slept long and well, and woke a little after dawn with the smell of frying bacon in his nostrils. The boy Jim was preparing breakfast, but Sibou was nowhere to be seen. Questioning Jim, he learned that the Indian had gone outside an hour before and had not yet returned. Hastily throwing on his furs, the corporal passed outside, and as he did so, Sibou appeared at the edge of the woods at the back of the cabin. There was an impassive look on his mask-like face, but his eyes gleamed with satisfaction.
“Well?” asked the corporal eagerly.
The Indian swept a hand towards the woods.
“That way have they gone. The double trail is there. Also there is a dead man there!”
“A dead man?” cried the white man in sudden fear.
“An Indian! I know him not!”
“Take me to him,” said the corporal imperatively. Without a word Sibou turned and led the way into the wood, and after a few minutes’ walkRoger Bracknell found himself near the mouth of the creek, looking down into the face of a dead man. He recognized him instantly.
“He is known to you?” asked Sibou.
“Yes, he is known to me. He was the servant of the white man who lived in the cabin.”
“He was shot in the back with an arrow.” explained Sibou. “He must have been looking down at the trail when he died.”
Roger Bracknell looked at the dead Indian for a little time without speaking, then fear for what was to come shook him.
“Sibou,” he said, “we must make haste. There is not a moment to waste. Those men in the camp are very desperate men. Two men already have died at their hands, and they are now on the trail of the man who was in the hut and of the ladies whom we seek. We must follow hard!”
“Yes, hard!” answered Sibou simply. “It is a trail of death!”
Half an hour later they were on the way once more. A south wind was blowing, and they travelled with furs opened, for the day was comparatively warm, and there were many signs that spring was at hand. The trail they followed led through the forest for most of the time, but towards the end of the day followed a tributary river, and here it suddenly gathered itself together in a space of trampled snow, which spoke of many pairs of feet. The corporal looked at it in perplexity and watched Sibou, who circled round and round, seeking a solution of the enigma the trampled snow presented.
“What do you make of it, Sibou?”
“I am not sure,” answered the Indian slowly. “Something strange has happened. There has been a meeting here, for there are many footmarks, and there is a trail which goes up the river, and the trail of the ladies is not part of it.”
“But where are they? They certainly came here!”
“So!” answered Sibou. “And they went from here, since they are not to be found in this place. It is in my mind that they were carried—for there were dogs here as well as men.”
“But who——”
“Indians! The trail is not that of white men’s feet.”
“Then we must follow,” cried the corporal.
“Yes,” answered Sibou gravely. “We must follow. But I shall go first, whilst you remain here. If I find nothing, then I shall be back in one hour or two. It is in my mind that there is an encampment not far away, and it is better that we do not take the dogs till we know. If they are bad Indians——”
“In God’s name, hurry!” cried Roger Bracknell, his courage shaken by the thought of the new danger into which Joy Gargrave appeared to have fallen.
CHAPTER XXIIIPRISONERSWHENDick Bracknell had led the way from the cabin he knew that he was leading a forlorn hope. It was possible that many hours would pass before the men in the camp discovered their flight; whilst on the other hand the discovery might be made immediately and, in that case, as the ruthlessness of the attackers had shown, there was little hope of escape. But there were dangers before as well as behind, and the wilderness of the North was itself the greatest danger. They had little food, he himself was a very sick man, ill-fitted for the strenuous toil which the situation called for, and in the woods wild beasts and wild men might lurk, against whom, armed merely with pistols and hunting knives, they would be almost helpless. All this he knew, but braced himself for the task before him, determined at all costs to save the two girls and to win Joy’s respect if that was at all possible.When they won to the darkness of the forest without discovery, he breathed more freely, and pushed on along an ill-defined track, which he seemed to know well. As the night wore on, he grew unutterably tired, and once when he was overtaken by a fit of coughing, which left him terriblyexhausted, Joy suggested that they should rest for a little while.“Are you too tired to continue?” he asked.“Oh no,” she answered quickly.“Then we will keep on.”“But you are not fit to do so,” she protested. “Your cough——”“What do I matter?” he replied with a mirthless laugh. “I am done for in any case, and we must be a long way from here before morning. This is the only service I shall ever be able to render you, and you are not going to deny me the chance of atonement which it gives, are you?”“I was not thinking of that!” answered Joy gently. “I was thinking only of you.”“And I am thinking only of you!” he retorted quickly. “I have thought of myself too long. I am very glad to have this opportunity of service, however I may regret the circumstances.”“I am very grateful to you,” was Joy’s reply, and without further words they started anew upon their way.Once they stopped, and ate a little food which had been prepared before leaving the cabin, and then pushed on until dawn, when a fire was lit, and a halt for a couple of hours was made. At the end of that time they resumed their desperate journey, and an hour later struck the river for which Dick Bracknell had been making. A look of relief came on his haggard face as he saw it.“It will be easier now,” he said, “and unless the Indians have removed we shall reach the encampment all right now.”“Unless those men overtake us!”“Yes! In that case we are up a tree.”“And of course if the Indians are hospitable we—- Ah! Look there?”She indicated a point a little way up the river. A man had emerged from the trees. He stood there regarding them for a moment, then without a sign he withdrew.“An Indian,” said Joy quickly. “I am sure of it!”“Yes,” answered Dick Bracknell slowly, “an Indian. But he may be one of these men who are following us. The question is, what are we to do? Our way lies up river.”“Perhaps it will be better if we take to the woods again,” suggested Miss La Farge.“There is little to be gained by doing that,” replied Bracknell. “The man has seen us, and if he is hostile he will follow. The only course, I think, is to keep straight on.”They were still discussing when Joy broke in.“The question is solved for us,” she said quickly. “There are men in the wood behind us. See!”She had scarcely spoken when an Indian stepped from the wood, and another followed, and another until seven men stood on the trail.“How!” said the leader, approaching them.Bracknell replied to the salutation, and the man spoke to his companions who drew nearer, apparently quite friendly disposed to them. Then came a change. One of the men stepped forward, looked at the white man, and gave a sudden exclamation. Then he turned towards his companionsand addressed them volubly. Joy strove to catch what he was saying, but the dialect in which he spoke was strange to her, and she could make nothing of his words. It was clear to her, however, that the man was excited, and as he spoke the excitement communicated itself to his companions. Joy looked at Dick Bracknell for an explanation, and found that his face was very white.“What is it?” she asked quickly. “Something has gone wrong?”“Yes, terribly wrong. These men will be merciless. I have done you my last dis-service.”“What do you mean?” she questioned, as she looked at the gesticulating natives.“I did this tribe a grave wrong, two years ago. One of the men has recognized me, and I think there is little hope for us. We might put up a fight, but it would probably be little use, and would certainly jeopardize your life as well as mine. If they get me, they may let you go. It is worth trying. I will explain and perhaps——” He broke off and took a step forward.“What are you going to do?” inquired Joy sharply.“Just going to try what a little explanation will do,” he answered, “a little explanation coupled with persuasion.”“No!” she replied quickly. “You are going to make a bargain with those men. I know you are, and I shall not agree. We stand or fall together.”“Do you think you are wise?” he asked.“I do not know whether I am wise or not,” sheanswered firmly. “But I keep the faith of the trail, and I shall not leave you in the lurch. Neither will Babette, I am sure.”As he regarded her, a strange look came into his eyes, a look of mingled pride and pain.“Joy,” he said brokenly, “you are a great woman and I was never worthy of you!... You can take your chances with me if you like. When I come to think upon it they are perhaps as good as those that wandering in the wilderness, short of stores, offers. They may spare you; who knows? And it is coming spring. You can feel it in the air. A few days and the river will begin to break up, and then will come white men, prospectors and what not. You may have a chance.”“It is by that chance I shall abide,” Joy replied, “and not by any that leaves you to the mercy of savages.”The Indians finished their confabulation and the leader stepped forward again, and with lowering looks addressed himself to Dick Bracknell, who nodded and then handed over his pistol and hunting knife, and with his back to Joy addressed her in warning.“Keep your pistol out of sight, Joy. These brutes will not suspect you are carrying one, and we may yet find it very useful. They demand that we accompany them to their encampment up the river. I have agreed, since there is nothing else that I can do. I do not think they will hurt you or Miss La Farge—yet.”A few minutes later they started and presently arrived at an encampment consisting of perhaps ascore of tepees. Dogs greeted their coming noisily, children and women came out of the skin tents to look at them, and a few men joined their captors as they moved towards the centre of the camp. Just as they halted, a tall Indian came out of one of the tents, and by his side tottered a man who seemed incredibly old, but though his step was feeble, his eyes were keen, and as they fell on Dick Bracknell they lighted with sudden ferocity, and as she caught the glare he directed towards them, Joy felt the clutch of fear at her heart.“Who is that old man?” she asked. “He knows you. I saw the recognition leap in his eyes.”“He is the Shaman—the tribal witch-doctor, you know. I am afraid his recognition of me is not a propitious one. He is a ferocious old beast, and he owes me one.”“What have you done to the tribe,” asked Joy curiously, “that all of them should be against you?”Bracknell laughed shortly. “I am afraid I cannot unfold the record of that particular sin for your gaze. It was a wild, mad thing, but it seemed all right at the time. Now I think I shall have to pay for it—and you too. I seem to be your evil genius,” he added penitently.Joy did not reply. She was watching the proceedings of the Shaman, who after listening to their captors, tottered up to Bracknell and surveyed him with eyes that were gloating and cruel. Joy shuddered as she read the evil triumph in the old savage’s face, and looked at her husband. Apparently he was altogether composed, and there was a contemptuous look on his haggard face. Joy wasconscious of a certain thrill of pride as she looked at him. Dick Bracknell might have many weaknesses, but cowardice was not one of them. Then the Shaman spoke, mumbling through toothless gums, and though she did not understand a single word of what he was saying, Joy caught the rasping menace in his voice and shuddered again. The Shaman laughed as he broke off, a throaty, croaking laugh, which seemed unutterably evil; and a moment later they were hurried to one of the tepees and the skin door was thrown together and lashed outside. In the darkness, Joy spoke.“What was that old savage saying to you, Dick?”Bracknell laughed shortly. “Oh, he was promising himself pleasure and me pain, indeed my pain was to be his pleasure.”“Ah! You mean they are going to torture you?”“I shouldn’t wonder!”“Will they be long before——?”“Tonight, I fancy! It seems the tribe is in luck. A couple of moose were killed this morning, and a potlatch—sort of tribal bean-feast, you know—is arranged for tonight and most of them will gorge. The Shaman will no doubt arrange some form of entertainment in which I shall take a star part!”“Oh, it is dreadful!” cried Joy.In the darkness she heard Dick Bracknell draw his breath sharply, and a second later a hand touched hers. She did not shrink, but remainedquite still, and then heard him speak in a broken, stammering whisper—“My dear ... I’m infernally sorry ... to have brought you into this mess, I ... I——”“We shall have to get away before,” broke in Joy’s voice. “We can’t remain here and wait for a thing like that to happen.”“What will it matter?” he asked lightly. “It will be the end—for me. But if it will save you, I do not care.”Joy did not answer, she knew that he was sincere, but she did not know what to say, and presently he spoke again—“I do not know what we can do. If we try to get away they will follow, and they will travel faster than we shall. And besides, with the food gone the attempt would be hopeless. One cannot go into the wilderness without grub.”They sat discussing the situation quietly, and outside, the clamour of the camp grew. Once Joy, finding a small hole in the tent, peeped out. On the edge of the encampment a great fire had been lit, and around it a number of women and men were engaged in trampling the snow hard. She guessed that it was there that the potlatch was to be held, and wondered what would happen when the Indians had feasted. The uncouth figures moving to and fro, and cut out from the deepening darkness by the glow of the fire, seemed inconceivably wild and grotesque, and once, when the strange form of the Shaman shuffled into view, and stood gesticulating and pointing to the tepee, she shuddered.She knew that these men were as the men of the Stone Age, that pity was a quality to which they were strangers, and that they would do things which, merely to think of, made her shake with terror.“Oh,” she cried sharply, “is there nothing that we——”“Hush!” broke in Dick Bracknell’s voice peremptorily. “Listen!”All three listened. Some one was fumbling at the back of the tent, then presently there came a ripping noise, and a voice whispered, “Are you there?”Even at that moment Joy Gargrave’s heart leaped as she recognized it.“Yes, Corporal Bracknell. Your cousin, Babette and myself are here.”“Can you move? Are you free?”“Quite free.”“Wait a moment, then.” The sound of slitting hide was heard once more, then came the corporal’s voice again, “You must slip out through the hole I have cut. Quickly! There is not a moment to lose.”Joy felt herself propelled forward and thrust through the opening which the corporal had cut, and whilst another pair of hands guided her, caught Dick Bracknell’s whisper, “Now—Miss La Farge!”Babette slipped out, and two seconds later Dick Bracknell followed.“This way,” said the corporal quickly. “As silently as you can.”He led the way through the darkness to the river bank, and as they began to descend he whispered to Joy—“Your boy Jim, and my man Sibou, are waiting for us with the dogs, a little way off.”“Then Jim is safe?”“Yes, he found me, and told me what had happened to—— By George, listen!”An ear-splitting yell sounded from the direction of the encampment. It was followed by another, and that by a great clamour.“They have discovered our escape,” said Dick Bracknell grimly. “Hurry! where are you taking us, Roger? Have you a rifle?”“Yes! I have a rifle——”“Then give it me. Listen to that! The hunt is up. Give me the gun. I’ll hold the pass.”As he spoke he laughed a laugh that sounded harshly in the night, then broke off. “Great Scott! They’re in front of us already! Look there!”The dark figures had appeared on the snow in front, but the corporal quickly dispelled the fears their appearance had awakened.“My man, and the boy Jim! Hurry! Those beggars behind are following fast.”Dick Bracknell looked round. Against the red glare of the great camp fire half a score of dark figures showed plainly. They were running towards the fugitives. An exultant yell told the latter that they had been seen.“For God’s sake, give me the rifle, and get thegirls away, Roger, old man. I’m crocked, and can’t travel fast, but I can hold those devils back.”“But—but——”“Can’t you see this is my chance of doing the decent thing? For God’s sake don’t deny me, man!”Roger Bracknell looked into his cousin’s haggard face, and understood. Silently he put his rifle into his cousin’s hand, and unbuckling his bandolier, threw it on him.“Thanks, old man! Thanks, awfully!”“I’ll send my man to back you, and when I’ve started the girls I’ll return myself.”“No!” replied Dick Bracknell. “You go with them. You must! It’s necessary.” He lifted the rifle as he spoke and sighting at the foremost of the pursuers pulled the trigger.“One!” he said exultantly, as one of the running shadows toppled into the snow. “The beggars aren’t thinking of the light behind them.... Go!” he said again. “Go with the girls and send your man. Let me play the hero for once.... Man!” he blazed suddenly, “can’t you see it is all that is left to me.”“Yes,” replied his cousin, “I can see it, and I’ll go. But you must promise me that you won’t stay longer than——”The rifle cracked again, and then Dick Bracknell replied. “I’ll promise anything you like if you’ll only go and get Joy away.”Then, very reluctantly, Corporal Bracknell went.
PRISONERS
WHENDick Bracknell had led the way from the cabin he knew that he was leading a forlorn hope. It was possible that many hours would pass before the men in the camp discovered their flight; whilst on the other hand the discovery might be made immediately and, in that case, as the ruthlessness of the attackers had shown, there was little hope of escape. But there were dangers before as well as behind, and the wilderness of the North was itself the greatest danger. They had little food, he himself was a very sick man, ill-fitted for the strenuous toil which the situation called for, and in the woods wild beasts and wild men might lurk, against whom, armed merely with pistols and hunting knives, they would be almost helpless. All this he knew, but braced himself for the task before him, determined at all costs to save the two girls and to win Joy’s respect if that was at all possible.
When they won to the darkness of the forest without discovery, he breathed more freely, and pushed on along an ill-defined track, which he seemed to know well. As the night wore on, he grew unutterably tired, and once when he was overtaken by a fit of coughing, which left him terriblyexhausted, Joy suggested that they should rest for a little while.
“Are you too tired to continue?” he asked.
“Oh no,” she answered quickly.
“Then we will keep on.”
“But you are not fit to do so,” she protested. “Your cough——”
“What do I matter?” he replied with a mirthless laugh. “I am done for in any case, and we must be a long way from here before morning. This is the only service I shall ever be able to render you, and you are not going to deny me the chance of atonement which it gives, are you?”
“I was not thinking of that!” answered Joy gently. “I was thinking only of you.”
“And I am thinking only of you!” he retorted quickly. “I have thought of myself too long. I am very glad to have this opportunity of service, however I may regret the circumstances.”
“I am very grateful to you,” was Joy’s reply, and without further words they started anew upon their way.
Once they stopped, and ate a little food which had been prepared before leaving the cabin, and then pushed on until dawn, when a fire was lit, and a halt for a couple of hours was made. At the end of that time they resumed their desperate journey, and an hour later struck the river for which Dick Bracknell had been making. A look of relief came on his haggard face as he saw it.
“It will be easier now,” he said, “and unless the Indians have removed we shall reach the encampment all right now.”
“Unless those men overtake us!”
“Yes! In that case we are up a tree.”
“And of course if the Indians are hospitable we—- Ah! Look there?”
She indicated a point a little way up the river. A man had emerged from the trees. He stood there regarding them for a moment, then without a sign he withdrew.
“An Indian,” said Joy quickly. “I am sure of it!”
“Yes,” answered Dick Bracknell slowly, “an Indian. But he may be one of these men who are following us. The question is, what are we to do? Our way lies up river.”
“Perhaps it will be better if we take to the woods again,” suggested Miss La Farge.
“There is little to be gained by doing that,” replied Bracknell. “The man has seen us, and if he is hostile he will follow. The only course, I think, is to keep straight on.”
They were still discussing when Joy broke in.
“The question is solved for us,” she said quickly. “There are men in the wood behind us. See!”
She had scarcely spoken when an Indian stepped from the wood, and another followed, and another until seven men stood on the trail.
“How!” said the leader, approaching them.
Bracknell replied to the salutation, and the man spoke to his companions who drew nearer, apparently quite friendly disposed to them. Then came a change. One of the men stepped forward, looked at the white man, and gave a sudden exclamation. Then he turned towards his companionsand addressed them volubly. Joy strove to catch what he was saying, but the dialect in which he spoke was strange to her, and she could make nothing of his words. It was clear to her, however, that the man was excited, and as he spoke the excitement communicated itself to his companions. Joy looked at Dick Bracknell for an explanation, and found that his face was very white.
“What is it?” she asked quickly. “Something has gone wrong?”
“Yes, terribly wrong. These men will be merciless. I have done you my last dis-service.”
“What do you mean?” she questioned, as she looked at the gesticulating natives.
“I did this tribe a grave wrong, two years ago. One of the men has recognized me, and I think there is little hope for us. We might put up a fight, but it would probably be little use, and would certainly jeopardize your life as well as mine. If they get me, they may let you go. It is worth trying. I will explain and perhaps——” He broke off and took a step forward.
“What are you going to do?” inquired Joy sharply.
“Just going to try what a little explanation will do,” he answered, “a little explanation coupled with persuasion.”
“No!” she replied quickly. “You are going to make a bargain with those men. I know you are, and I shall not agree. We stand or fall together.”
“Do you think you are wise?” he asked.
“I do not know whether I am wise or not,” sheanswered firmly. “But I keep the faith of the trail, and I shall not leave you in the lurch. Neither will Babette, I am sure.”
As he regarded her, a strange look came into his eyes, a look of mingled pride and pain.
“Joy,” he said brokenly, “you are a great woman and I was never worthy of you!... You can take your chances with me if you like. When I come to think upon it they are perhaps as good as those that wandering in the wilderness, short of stores, offers. They may spare you; who knows? And it is coming spring. You can feel it in the air. A few days and the river will begin to break up, and then will come white men, prospectors and what not. You may have a chance.”
“It is by that chance I shall abide,” Joy replied, “and not by any that leaves you to the mercy of savages.”
The Indians finished their confabulation and the leader stepped forward again, and with lowering looks addressed himself to Dick Bracknell, who nodded and then handed over his pistol and hunting knife, and with his back to Joy addressed her in warning.
“Keep your pistol out of sight, Joy. These brutes will not suspect you are carrying one, and we may yet find it very useful. They demand that we accompany them to their encampment up the river. I have agreed, since there is nothing else that I can do. I do not think they will hurt you or Miss La Farge—yet.”
A few minutes later they started and presently arrived at an encampment consisting of perhaps ascore of tepees. Dogs greeted their coming noisily, children and women came out of the skin tents to look at them, and a few men joined their captors as they moved towards the centre of the camp. Just as they halted, a tall Indian came out of one of the tents, and by his side tottered a man who seemed incredibly old, but though his step was feeble, his eyes were keen, and as they fell on Dick Bracknell they lighted with sudden ferocity, and as she caught the glare he directed towards them, Joy felt the clutch of fear at her heart.
“Who is that old man?” she asked. “He knows you. I saw the recognition leap in his eyes.”
“He is the Shaman—the tribal witch-doctor, you know. I am afraid his recognition of me is not a propitious one. He is a ferocious old beast, and he owes me one.”
“What have you done to the tribe,” asked Joy curiously, “that all of them should be against you?”
Bracknell laughed shortly. “I am afraid I cannot unfold the record of that particular sin for your gaze. It was a wild, mad thing, but it seemed all right at the time. Now I think I shall have to pay for it—and you too. I seem to be your evil genius,” he added penitently.
Joy did not reply. She was watching the proceedings of the Shaman, who after listening to their captors, tottered up to Bracknell and surveyed him with eyes that were gloating and cruel. Joy shuddered as she read the evil triumph in the old savage’s face, and looked at her husband. Apparently he was altogether composed, and there was a contemptuous look on his haggard face. Joy wasconscious of a certain thrill of pride as she looked at him. Dick Bracknell might have many weaknesses, but cowardice was not one of them. Then the Shaman spoke, mumbling through toothless gums, and though she did not understand a single word of what he was saying, Joy caught the rasping menace in his voice and shuddered again. The Shaman laughed as he broke off, a throaty, croaking laugh, which seemed unutterably evil; and a moment later they were hurried to one of the tepees and the skin door was thrown together and lashed outside. In the darkness, Joy spoke.
“What was that old savage saying to you, Dick?”
Bracknell laughed shortly. “Oh, he was promising himself pleasure and me pain, indeed my pain was to be his pleasure.”
“Ah! You mean they are going to torture you?”
“I shouldn’t wonder!”
“Will they be long before——?”
“Tonight, I fancy! It seems the tribe is in luck. A couple of moose were killed this morning, and a potlatch—sort of tribal bean-feast, you know—is arranged for tonight and most of them will gorge. The Shaman will no doubt arrange some form of entertainment in which I shall take a star part!”
“Oh, it is dreadful!” cried Joy.
In the darkness she heard Dick Bracknell draw his breath sharply, and a second later a hand touched hers. She did not shrink, but remainedquite still, and then heard him speak in a broken, stammering whisper—
“My dear ... I’m infernally sorry ... to have brought you into this mess, I ... I——”
“We shall have to get away before,” broke in Joy’s voice. “We can’t remain here and wait for a thing like that to happen.”
“What will it matter?” he asked lightly. “It will be the end—for me. But if it will save you, I do not care.”
Joy did not answer, she knew that he was sincere, but she did not know what to say, and presently he spoke again—
“I do not know what we can do. If we try to get away they will follow, and they will travel faster than we shall. And besides, with the food gone the attempt would be hopeless. One cannot go into the wilderness without grub.”
They sat discussing the situation quietly, and outside, the clamour of the camp grew. Once Joy, finding a small hole in the tent, peeped out. On the edge of the encampment a great fire had been lit, and around it a number of women and men were engaged in trampling the snow hard. She guessed that it was there that the potlatch was to be held, and wondered what would happen when the Indians had feasted. The uncouth figures moving to and fro, and cut out from the deepening darkness by the glow of the fire, seemed inconceivably wild and grotesque, and once, when the strange form of the Shaman shuffled into view, and stood gesticulating and pointing to the tepee, she shuddered.
She knew that these men were as the men of the Stone Age, that pity was a quality to which they were strangers, and that they would do things which, merely to think of, made her shake with terror.
“Oh,” she cried sharply, “is there nothing that we——”
“Hush!” broke in Dick Bracknell’s voice peremptorily. “Listen!”
All three listened. Some one was fumbling at the back of the tent, then presently there came a ripping noise, and a voice whispered, “Are you there?”
Even at that moment Joy Gargrave’s heart leaped as she recognized it.
“Yes, Corporal Bracknell. Your cousin, Babette and myself are here.”
“Can you move? Are you free?”
“Quite free.”
“Wait a moment, then.” The sound of slitting hide was heard once more, then came the corporal’s voice again, “You must slip out through the hole I have cut. Quickly! There is not a moment to lose.”
Joy felt herself propelled forward and thrust through the opening which the corporal had cut, and whilst another pair of hands guided her, caught Dick Bracknell’s whisper, “Now—Miss La Farge!”
Babette slipped out, and two seconds later Dick Bracknell followed.
“This way,” said the corporal quickly. “As silently as you can.”
He led the way through the darkness to the river bank, and as they began to descend he whispered to Joy—
“Your boy Jim, and my man Sibou, are waiting for us with the dogs, a little way off.”
“Then Jim is safe?”
“Yes, he found me, and told me what had happened to—— By George, listen!”
An ear-splitting yell sounded from the direction of the encampment. It was followed by another, and that by a great clamour.
“They have discovered our escape,” said Dick Bracknell grimly. “Hurry! where are you taking us, Roger? Have you a rifle?”
“Yes! I have a rifle——”
“Then give it me. Listen to that! The hunt is up. Give me the gun. I’ll hold the pass.”
As he spoke he laughed a laugh that sounded harshly in the night, then broke off. “Great Scott! They’re in front of us already! Look there!”
The dark figures had appeared on the snow in front, but the corporal quickly dispelled the fears their appearance had awakened.
“My man, and the boy Jim! Hurry! Those beggars behind are following fast.”
Dick Bracknell looked round. Against the red glare of the great camp fire half a score of dark figures showed plainly. They were running towards the fugitives. An exultant yell told the latter that they had been seen.
“For God’s sake, give me the rifle, and get thegirls away, Roger, old man. I’m crocked, and can’t travel fast, but I can hold those devils back.”
“But—but——”
“Can’t you see this is my chance of doing the decent thing? For God’s sake don’t deny me, man!”
Roger Bracknell looked into his cousin’s haggard face, and understood. Silently he put his rifle into his cousin’s hand, and unbuckling his bandolier, threw it on him.
“Thanks, old man! Thanks, awfully!”
“I’ll send my man to back you, and when I’ve started the girls I’ll return myself.”
“No!” replied Dick Bracknell. “You go with them. You must! It’s necessary.” He lifted the rifle as he spoke and sighting at the foremost of the pursuers pulled the trigger.
“One!” he said exultantly, as one of the running shadows toppled into the snow. “The beggars aren’t thinking of the light behind them.... Go!” he said again. “Go with the girls and send your man. Let me play the hero for once.... Man!” he blazed suddenly, “can’t you see it is all that is left to me.”
“Yes,” replied his cousin, “I can see it, and I’ll go. But you must promise me that you won’t stay longer than——”
The rifle cracked again, and then Dick Bracknell replied. “I’ll promise anything you like if you’ll only go and get Joy away.”
Then, very reluctantly, Corporal Bracknell went.
CHAPTER XXIVTHE PRODIGAL MAKES GOOD“DICK INSISTED,” explained Corporal Bracknell, as with Joy and her foster-sister and the boy Jim he fled down the river. “I could see he wanted the post of danger—and I could not refuse. Sibou is with him, and I think they will hold the pursuit.”For a moment Joy did not speak. She was thinking of the consideration Dick Bracknell had shown to her during the last two days, and understood quite well that now he was endeavouring to atone for the wrong he had once done her. Pity surged in her heart as she thought of him weak and ill, holding back a horde of savage men, pity and gratitude, but no warmer emotion, for Dick Bracknell had killed all possibility of that in that moment at Alcombe, when, on her marriage morning she had made that startling discovery of his perfidy.“Do you think that—that Dick will get away also?” she asked at last.“I hope so,” the corporal answered evasively. “I made him promise not to stay too long. But he is a sick man and in the mood for anything. I believed he rejoiced at the prospect of a fight against odds. It is not surprising and—— Listen! There they go again. They were both together that time.”From time to time as they raced hot-foot down the trail the reports of rifles reached them, and they knew that the fight was still proceeding, and that the two defenders were holding their own. Once when the interval between the shots was especially long, Corporal Bracknell’s face grew very thoughtful, and so absorbed and intent was he that Joy addressed a question to him twice before he heard her.“Corporal Bracknell, do you think that Dick can recover from his sickness?”“I am afraid not,” replied the corporal slowly, then gave an ejaculation as the distant report of a rifle broke the silence behind them. “Good! They’re still keeping it up.”“Why do you think that?” she asked.“Because I have seen other men like it. I have never known one to recover.”“Do ... do you think Dick knows?”“Yes,” he answered quietly. “I am sure of it!”“It is very pitiful,” she said. “He is not all bad——”“He is very far from being that,” interrupted the corporal.“He might have made good, even yet, if he were not so sick.”“Perhaps he is making good,” replied the corporal gently.“Yes,” she answered simply. “I think he is trying. In spite of the past I shall be in his debt. Ah! What is that?”There had been a sudden increase of clamour behind them. Distant yells were sounding, and thetwo rifles were firing in rapid succession. For perhaps a minute and a half this went on, then came silence, followed by a single shot, and that again by a silence which remained unbroken. Corporal Bracknell stopped irresolutely.“What do you think?” Joy whispered.“I think it is the end one way or the other,” was the reply. “The last yell sounded as if the Indians were charging. In that case, unless the rush was stopped——”“Dick and your man are dead?”“Something of that kind. I think I must go back, and try and learn what has happened. There is nothing else for it. I simply can’t desert them without knowing what has befallen. You keep right on until you reach the main river—I will not be longer than necessary.”“We shall wait at the fork,” she answered quickly.“But——”“We shall wait,” she repeated resolutely, and taking a rifle from one of the sleds, she handed it to him.“You may need it,” she said quietly. “And we have one left yet.”He did not speak, but nodding his thanks, turned in the tracks, and proceeded up river once more. He went swiftly but cautiously; and after travelling half an hour, caught sight of a lumpy shadow coming down the river. Hastily he took refuge against the bank, and waited with his rifle ready. The shadow drew nearer, and then he perceived that it was made up of two men, one riding on the back ofthe other. At the same time he caught the sound of a protesting voice—“It’s not worth while, old horse. Put me down and quit. They say——”A moment later Roger Bracknell was running towards them.“Dick! Dick!” he cried gladly.“Where ... where ... are the girls ... Joy?” asked his cousin in a voice that sounded harsh.“They are all right. They are well in front!”“Good!” There was a note of relief in Dick Bracknell’s voice, as he spoke, then he gave a little laugh. “Behold the victors! Roger, my son, it was topping. We stood a charge and ... and cleared the board. It was gorgeous.”He laughed weakly, and his cousin looked at him anxiously.“But you are hurt, Dick, old man?”“Plugged ... with an arrow ... in the ribs. Sibou’s all right, though. And I tried to make him ... leave me ... on the field of glory. B—but he’s a mutinous beggar.”Weak though he was, there was a reckless gaiety in his manner, which almost moved the corporal to tears.“Dick, don’t you think you had better not talk? It’s bound to try you, as you are. When we get to the sleds I will look to your wound, and——”“Not a bit of use, Roger, my boy! I know it, you know it! This finishes me. It was a matter of weeks, before; now it’s a matter of hours.... All the same ... I’d like to ... to see Joy, b-before——”“You shall, if it’s to be done,” said his cousin as the other’s voice broke. “I’ll take turns with Sibou. Between us we’ll do it, somehow. And I might as well take part of my share now. Sibou must be fagged.”They stopped and the transfer was effected, then as they resumed their way, the wounded man leaned over his cousin’s shoulder, and whispered—“Roger you’re a good sort!”The corporal made no response, and Dick Bracknell continued, “You know that Joy was up here looking for you?”“The boy, Jim, told me so. Though why she should——”“She ... she came to tell you that ... Geoff was dead ... that you are the heir of Harrow Fell——”“No! No!” broke out his cousin in sharp protest.“Yes! Yes! It is so. I’ve been out of it since—oh, for years! And in any case ... I shall be out of it ... altogether very soon. But it wasn’t for that only ... Joy came. She came up here to stop you from killing me ... knowing the relation between us, she was afraid that if that happened, people would say that you ... that you.... You understand?”“Yes, I think I understand.”“Such a possibility was rather rot, of course, but Joy didn’t know that, and she knew that you were after me. So—she’s pure gold, Joy is.”“Yes,” agreed the corporal simply.“You’ll marry her, of course, and go to ... to the Fell?”Roger Bracknell hesitated. The conversation was inexpressibly painful to him, and to this question he did not know what answer to make. His cousin did not seem to notice the hesitation, and he did not wait for an answer, but continued in a broken way, “There have been Bracknells at the Fell these five hundred years.... And Geoff’s gone, and I’m going, but you’ll ... keep up the line. When you’ve a boy, Roger, call him ... call him Dick. I’d like to think there’ll be one of my name who’ll be as clean and straight as I’ve been crooked. Lord! What a mess a man can make of life! And what a difference it would have made ... if only I’d gone straight at the fences. But would it?... Joy would never have married me ... she never loved me, but you have her heart! Oh, it is so ... I’m not blind, and, Roger, old man, I’m glad it will be you.”After that he was silent for a long time, to Roger’s unutterable relief, and he spoke only jestingly on the occasions when Sibou and the corporal took him over from the other, and at last, after a weary march, they reached the point where the stream joined the main river, and as they did so a figure broke from the bank and ran towards them. It was Joy.“You are all here?” she cried. “Safe?”“Safe! Yes,” laughed Dick weakly. “But a little damaged.”“What is it?” she asked, turning towards the corporal.“Dick is wounded,” he answered gravely. “I am afraid it is serious. And as I think we have little to fear from the Indians now, it will perhaps be best if we cross the main river and camp. We can put him upon one of the sleds——”“Yes! Yes!” she cried, and a moment later she had turned to the wounded man, and was talking to him in a low voice.Roger moved away. He did not know what she was saying and he had no wish to know, but half an hour later as his cousin lay by a fire which had been lit, he saw that his eyes were shining with a quiet happiness.“Better, Dick?” he inquired.“In soul, yes!” was the answer.“I’m glad of that,” replied the corporal simply.“It’s like a cleansing to have a good woman’s approval. You can’t know, Roger, old boy. You haven’t been deep in the mire—but there it is.”He allowed his cousin and Joy to examine his wound, and they found the arrow broken off in his side. The corporal looked at the girl and shook his head. There was little to be done, except draw out the arrow, and bandage the wound as well as they could, and when that was done the injured man was visibly weaker.Corporal Bracknell busied himself with the preparation of a meal, leaving Joy and his cousin together, and not till after the meal when Dick was dozing had he any opportunity of further speech with Joy. Then walking in the shadow of the trees he talked with her.“Dick has told me why you came,” he said,going straight to his point. “I am very grateful.”“I was afraid that there might be trouble between you,” she answered frankly.“We had already met twice, before you came,” he explained quietly. “On the first occasion Dick spared my life; and on the second, though the meeting began stormily enough, we parted complete friends.”“I am glad of that, more glad than I can tell.”“Not more than I am. But there are things I want to ask you, very badly. I know how you came to go to Dick’s cabin, but I do not know who those men were who kept both Dick and you there in a state of siege. Have you any idea?”As he asked the question Joy Gargrave’s face grew very thoughtful.“It was Dick’s man who fastened the door on us. That was part of a plan for kidnapping me, which Dick had arranged, and at first I thought that he——”“It was not Joe. We found him shot,” interrupted the corporal.“I do not think it was he now. At first Dick was inclined to that idea, and then he thought it might be my boy, Jim; but I pointed out that the latter would scarcely attack Babette, and she was attacked whilst walking outside the hut, you know.”He looked at her and saw that her eyes were full of trouble. She was keeping something back, and after a moment he pressed her for the truth.“You have suspicions, Miss Gargrave. Tell me exactly what you think.”“I scarcely like to,” was the reply. “What Ihave is no more than a suspicion, and it is almost too horrible for words.”“Tell me,” he urged again.“I will,” she broke out impulsively, “and God forgive me if I do him wrong! I think my cousin Adrian was responsible—Mr. Rayner, you know, whom you met at North Star.”“I thought so.”“You thought so?” she cried. “Then you know he was up here?”“I did not know, but I guessed. I was on his trail when I met your boy Jim.”“And he was on yours, I am sure,” said Joy quickly. “He followed you when you left Dick’s cabin. I think he meant to kill you. He knew that you suspected him of that attack on Dick at North Star——”“I suspected him of worse things than that.”“Yes, I know. Dick told me. Oh, how terrible it is!”She hid her face in her hands for a moment, and then as she lifted it, he asked, “Have you any idea why he should do a thing like that, or why he should make an attempt upon you?”“Yes,” she replied in a shaking voice. “Babette, who is very frank, says he wants my money. He would have married me, knowing all the time that I was married to Dick. He even threatened me when I would not accept him, and events have compelled me to the belief that Babette is right, and that he will allow nothing to stand in his way, not even my life.”Roger Bracknell nodded his head thoughtfully.“I think you are right,” he answered slowly. “We must be very careful. If there is real warrant for our suspicions, then Adrian Rayner will be a very desperate man——”“I am sure of that,” she interjected impulsively. “I felt it, when he left North Star on our arrival. Did I tell you that he was there when we came back? No! Well, he was, and I ordered him away, and as soon as I could I came to look for you——”“It was good of you to be so anxious for my welfare,” he broke in quickly.They had turned and were walking back to the fire, and in the light it shed he saw her face grow suddenly crimson. She looked towards the recumbent figure of Dick Bracknell, lying towards the fire, then back again to himself.“That was but natural,” she said quietly. “You were working for me, and when I knew that a danger unknown to you threatened you, I felt that I must make you aware of it. You understand?”“Yes,” he answered quietly. “And if we can only meet Adrian Rayner we shall be able to prove or disprove all that we suspect. You and Babette and myself know him and Sibou knows the man who was responsible for your father’s death. If Adrian Rayner and he should prove to be the same, then the matter will be beyond dispute.”“Yes,” she agreed slowly. “Yes. But it will be very terrible.”They approached the fire, just as Dick Bracknell moved and opened his eyes. He looked at Joy, and she, reading the unspoken request in his eyes, went and seated herself by his side.
THE PRODIGAL MAKES GOOD
“DICK INSISTED,” explained Corporal Bracknell, as with Joy and her foster-sister and the boy Jim he fled down the river. “I could see he wanted the post of danger—and I could not refuse. Sibou is with him, and I think they will hold the pursuit.”
For a moment Joy did not speak. She was thinking of the consideration Dick Bracknell had shown to her during the last two days, and understood quite well that now he was endeavouring to atone for the wrong he had once done her. Pity surged in her heart as she thought of him weak and ill, holding back a horde of savage men, pity and gratitude, but no warmer emotion, for Dick Bracknell had killed all possibility of that in that moment at Alcombe, when, on her marriage morning she had made that startling discovery of his perfidy.
“Do you think that—that Dick will get away also?” she asked at last.
“I hope so,” the corporal answered evasively. “I made him promise not to stay too long. But he is a sick man and in the mood for anything. I believed he rejoiced at the prospect of a fight against odds. It is not surprising and—— Listen! There they go again. They were both together that time.”
From time to time as they raced hot-foot down the trail the reports of rifles reached them, and they knew that the fight was still proceeding, and that the two defenders were holding their own. Once when the interval between the shots was especially long, Corporal Bracknell’s face grew very thoughtful, and so absorbed and intent was he that Joy addressed a question to him twice before he heard her.
“Corporal Bracknell, do you think that Dick can recover from his sickness?”
“I am afraid not,” replied the corporal slowly, then gave an ejaculation as the distant report of a rifle broke the silence behind them. “Good! They’re still keeping it up.”
“Why do you think that?” she asked.
“Because I have seen other men like it. I have never known one to recover.”
“Do ... do you think Dick knows?”
“Yes,” he answered quietly. “I am sure of it!”
“It is very pitiful,” she said. “He is not all bad——”
“He is very far from being that,” interrupted the corporal.
“He might have made good, even yet, if he were not so sick.”
“Perhaps he is making good,” replied the corporal gently.
“Yes,” she answered simply. “I think he is trying. In spite of the past I shall be in his debt. Ah! What is that?”
There had been a sudden increase of clamour behind them. Distant yells were sounding, and thetwo rifles were firing in rapid succession. For perhaps a minute and a half this went on, then came silence, followed by a single shot, and that again by a silence which remained unbroken. Corporal Bracknell stopped irresolutely.
“What do you think?” Joy whispered.
“I think it is the end one way or the other,” was the reply. “The last yell sounded as if the Indians were charging. In that case, unless the rush was stopped——”
“Dick and your man are dead?”
“Something of that kind. I think I must go back, and try and learn what has happened. There is nothing else for it. I simply can’t desert them without knowing what has befallen. You keep right on until you reach the main river—I will not be longer than necessary.”
“We shall wait at the fork,” she answered quickly.
“But——”
“We shall wait,” she repeated resolutely, and taking a rifle from one of the sleds, she handed it to him.
“You may need it,” she said quietly. “And we have one left yet.”
He did not speak, but nodding his thanks, turned in the tracks, and proceeded up river once more. He went swiftly but cautiously; and after travelling half an hour, caught sight of a lumpy shadow coming down the river. Hastily he took refuge against the bank, and waited with his rifle ready. The shadow drew nearer, and then he perceived that it was made up of two men, one riding on the back ofthe other. At the same time he caught the sound of a protesting voice—
“It’s not worth while, old horse. Put me down and quit. They say——”
A moment later Roger Bracknell was running towards them.
“Dick! Dick!” he cried gladly.
“Where ... where ... are the girls ... Joy?” asked his cousin in a voice that sounded harsh.
“They are all right. They are well in front!”
“Good!” There was a note of relief in Dick Bracknell’s voice, as he spoke, then he gave a little laugh. “Behold the victors! Roger, my son, it was topping. We stood a charge and ... and cleared the board. It was gorgeous.”
He laughed weakly, and his cousin looked at him anxiously.
“But you are hurt, Dick, old man?”
“Plugged ... with an arrow ... in the ribs. Sibou’s all right, though. And I tried to make him ... leave me ... on the field of glory. B—but he’s a mutinous beggar.”
Weak though he was, there was a reckless gaiety in his manner, which almost moved the corporal to tears.
“Dick, don’t you think you had better not talk? It’s bound to try you, as you are. When we get to the sleds I will look to your wound, and——”
“Not a bit of use, Roger, my boy! I know it, you know it! This finishes me. It was a matter of weeks, before; now it’s a matter of hours.... All the same ... I’d like to ... to see Joy, b-before——”
“You shall, if it’s to be done,” said his cousin as the other’s voice broke. “I’ll take turns with Sibou. Between us we’ll do it, somehow. And I might as well take part of my share now. Sibou must be fagged.”
They stopped and the transfer was effected, then as they resumed their way, the wounded man leaned over his cousin’s shoulder, and whispered—
“Roger you’re a good sort!”
The corporal made no response, and Dick Bracknell continued, “You know that Joy was up here looking for you?”
“The boy, Jim, told me so. Though why she should——”
“She ... she came to tell you that ... Geoff was dead ... that you are the heir of Harrow Fell——”
“No! No!” broke out his cousin in sharp protest.
“Yes! Yes! It is so. I’ve been out of it since—oh, for years! And in any case ... I shall be out of it ... altogether very soon. But it wasn’t for that only ... Joy came. She came up here to stop you from killing me ... knowing the relation between us, she was afraid that if that happened, people would say that you ... that you.... You understand?”
“Yes, I think I understand.”
“Such a possibility was rather rot, of course, but Joy didn’t know that, and she knew that you were after me. So—she’s pure gold, Joy is.”
“Yes,” agreed the corporal simply.
“You’ll marry her, of course, and go to ... to the Fell?”
Roger Bracknell hesitated. The conversation was inexpressibly painful to him, and to this question he did not know what answer to make. His cousin did not seem to notice the hesitation, and he did not wait for an answer, but continued in a broken way, “There have been Bracknells at the Fell these five hundred years.... And Geoff’s gone, and I’m going, but you’ll ... keep up the line. When you’ve a boy, Roger, call him ... call him Dick. I’d like to think there’ll be one of my name who’ll be as clean and straight as I’ve been crooked. Lord! What a mess a man can make of life! And what a difference it would have made ... if only I’d gone straight at the fences. But would it?... Joy would never have married me ... she never loved me, but you have her heart! Oh, it is so ... I’m not blind, and, Roger, old man, I’m glad it will be you.”
After that he was silent for a long time, to Roger’s unutterable relief, and he spoke only jestingly on the occasions when Sibou and the corporal took him over from the other, and at last, after a weary march, they reached the point where the stream joined the main river, and as they did so a figure broke from the bank and ran towards them. It was Joy.
“You are all here?” she cried. “Safe?”
“Safe! Yes,” laughed Dick weakly. “But a little damaged.”
“What is it?” she asked, turning towards the corporal.
“Dick is wounded,” he answered gravely. “I am afraid it is serious. And as I think we have little to fear from the Indians now, it will perhaps be best if we cross the main river and camp. We can put him upon one of the sleds——”
“Yes! Yes!” she cried, and a moment later she had turned to the wounded man, and was talking to him in a low voice.
Roger moved away. He did not know what she was saying and he had no wish to know, but half an hour later as his cousin lay by a fire which had been lit, he saw that his eyes were shining with a quiet happiness.
“Better, Dick?” he inquired.
“In soul, yes!” was the answer.
“I’m glad of that,” replied the corporal simply.
“It’s like a cleansing to have a good woman’s approval. You can’t know, Roger, old boy. You haven’t been deep in the mire—but there it is.”
He allowed his cousin and Joy to examine his wound, and they found the arrow broken off in his side. The corporal looked at the girl and shook his head. There was little to be done, except draw out the arrow, and bandage the wound as well as they could, and when that was done the injured man was visibly weaker.
Corporal Bracknell busied himself with the preparation of a meal, leaving Joy and his cousin together, and not till after the meal when Dick was dozing had he any opportunity of further speech with Joy. Then walking in the shadow of the trees he talked with her.
“Dick has told me why you came,” he said,going straight to his point. “I am very grateful.”
“I was afraid that there might be trouble between you,” she answered frankly.
“We had already met twice, before you came,” he explained quietly. “On the first occasion Dick spared my life; and on the second, though the meeting began stormily enough, we parted complete friends.”
“I am glad of that, more glad than I can tell.”
“Not more than I am. But there are things I want to ask you, very badly. I know how you came to go to Dick’s cabin, but I do not know who those men were who kept both Dick and you there in a state of siege. Have you any idea?”
As he asked the question Joy Gargrave’s face grew very thoughtful.
“It was Dick’s man who fastened the door on us. That was part of a plan for kidnapping me, which Dick had arranged, and at first I thought that he——”
“It was not Joe. We found him shot,” interrupted the corporal.
“I do not think it was he now. At first Dick was inclined to that idea, and then he thought it might be my boy, Jim; but I pointed out that the latter would scarcely attack Babette, and she was attacked whilst walking outside the hut, you know.”
He looked at her and saw that her eyes were full of trouble. She was keeping something back, and after a moment he pressed her for the truth.
“You have suspicions, Miss Gargrave. Tell me exactly what you think.”
“I scarcely like to,” was the reply. “What Ihave is no more than a suspicion, and it is almost too horrible for words.”
“Tell me,” he urged again.
“I will,” she broke out impulsively, “and God forgive me if I do him wrong! I think my cousin Adrian was responsible—Mr. Rayner, you know, whom you met at North Star.”
“I thought so.”
“You thought so?” she cried. “Then you know he was up here?”
“I did not know, but I guessed. I was on his trail when I met your boy Jim.”
“And he was on yours, I am sure,” said Joy quickly. “He followed you when you left Dick’s cabin. I think he meant to kill you. He knew that you suspected him of that attack on Dick at North Star——”
“I suspected him of worse things than that.”
“Yes, I know. Dick told me. Oh, how terrible it is!”
She hid her face in her hands for a moment, and then as she lifted it, he asked, “Have you any idea why he should do a thing like that, or why he should make an attempt upon you?”
“Yes,” she replied in a shaking voice. “Babette, who is very frank, says he wants my money. He would have married me, knowing all the time that I was married to Dick. He even threatened me when I would not accept him, and events have compelled me to the belief that Babette is right, and that he will allow nothing to stand in his way, not even my life.”
Roger Bracknell nodded his head thoughtfully.
“I think you are right,” he answered slowly. “We must be very careful. If there is real warrant for our suspicions, then Adrian Rayner will be a very desperate man——”
“I am sure of that,” she interjected impulsively. “I felt it, when he left North Star on our arrival. Did I tell you that he was there when we came back? No! Well, he was, and I ordered him away, and as soon as I could I came to look for you——”
“It was good of you to be so anxious for my welfare,” he broke in quickly.
They had turned and were walking back to the fire, and in the light it shed he saw her face grow suddenly crimson. She looked towards the recumbent figure of Dick Bracknell, lying towards the fire, then back again to himself.
“That was but natural,” she said quietly. “You were working for me, and when I knew that a danger unknown to you threatened you, I felt that I must make you aware of it. You understand?”
“Yes,” he answered quietly. “And if we can only meet Adrian Rayner we shall be able to prove or disprove all that we suspect. You and Babette and myself know him and Sibou knows the man who was responsible for your father’s death. If Adrian Rayner and he should prove to be the same, then the matter will be beyond dispute.”
“Yes,” she agreed slowly. “Yes. But it will be very terrible.”
They approached the fire, just as Dick Bracknell moved and opened his eyes. He looked at Joy, and she, reading the unspoken request in his eyes, went and seated herself by his side.