From the window, the glorious day outside, and the vision he had made for himself of Marette Radisson, Kent turned at the sound of a hand at his door and saw it slowly open. He was expecting it. He had read young Mercer like a book. Mercer's nervousness and the increased tightening of the thing in his chest had given him warning. The thing was going to happen soon, and Father Layonne had come. He tried to smile, that he might greet his wilderness friend cheerfully and unafraid. But the smile froze when the door opened and he saw the missioner standing there.
More than once he had accompanied Father Layonne over the threshold of life into the presence of death, but he had never before seen in his face what he saw there now. He stared. The missioner remained in the doorway, hesitating, as if at the last moment a great fear held him back. For an interval the eyes of the two men rested upon each other in a silence that was like the grip of a living thing. Then Father Layonne came quietly into the room and closed the door behind him.
Kent drew a deep breath and tried to grin. "You woke me out of a dream," he said, "a day-dream. I've had a very pleasant experience this morning,mon père."
"So some one was trying to tell me, Jimmy," replied the little missioner with an effort to smile back.
"Mercer?"
"Yes. He told me about it confidentially. The poor boy must have fallen in love with the young lady."
"So have I,mon père. I don't mind confessing it to you. I'm rather glad. And if Cardigan hadn't scheduled me to die—"
"Jimmy," interrupted the missioner quickly, but a bit huskily, "has it ever occurred to you that Doctor Cardigan may be mistaken?"
He had taken one of Kent's hands. His grip tightened. It began to hurt. And Kent, looking into his eyes, found his brain all at once like a black room suddenly illuminated by a flash of fire. Drop by drop the blood went out of his face until it was whiter than Father Layonne's.
"You—you don't—mean—"
"Yes, yes, boy, I mean just that," said the missioner, in a voice so strange that it did not seem to be his own. "You are not going to die, Jimmy. You are going to live!"
"Live!" Kent dropped back against his pillows. "Live!" His lips gasped the one word.
He closed his eyes for an instant, and it seemed to him that the world was aflame. And he repeated the word again, but only his lips formed it, and there came no sound. His senses, strained to the breaking-point to meet the ordeal of death, gave way slowly to the mighty reaction. He felt in those moments like a reeling man. He opened his eyes, and there was a meaningless green haze through the window where the world should have been. But he heard Father Layonne's voice. It seemed a great distance off, but it was very clear. Doctor Cardigan had made an error, it was saying. And Doctor Cardigan, because of that error, was like a man whose heart had been taken out of him. But it was an excusable error.
If there had been an X-ray—But there had been none. And Doctor Cardigan had made the diagnosis that nine out of ten good surgeons would probably have made. What he had taken to be the aneurismal blood-rush was an exaggerated heart murmur, and the increased thickening in his chest was a simple complication brought about by too much night air. It was too bad the error had happened. But he must not blame Cardigan!
He must not blame Cardigan! Those last words pounded like an endless series of little waves in Kent's brain. He must not blame Cardigan! He laughed, laughed before his dazed senses readjusted themselves, before the world through the window pieced itself into shape again. At least he thought he was laughing. He must—not—blame—Cardigan! What an amazingly stupid thing for Father Layonne to say! Blame Cardigan for giving him back his life? Blame him for the glorious knowledge that he was not going to die? Blame him for—
Things were coming clearer. Like a bolt slipping into its groove his brain found itself. He saw Father Layonne again, with his white, tense face and eyes in which were still seated the fear and the horror he had seen in the doorway. It was not until then that he gripped fully at the truth.
"I—I see," he said. "You and Cardigan think it would have been better if I had died!"
The missioner was still holding his hand. "I don't know, Jimmy, I don't know. What has happened is terrible."
"But not so terrible as death," cried Kent, suddenly growing rigid against his pillows. "Great God,mon père, I want to live! Oh—"
He snatched his hand free and stretched forth both arms to the open window. "Look at it out there! My world again! MY WORLD! I want to go back to it. It's ten times more precious to me now than it was. Why should I blame Cardigan?Mon père--mon père--listen to me. I can say it now, because I've got a right to say it.I lied. I didn't kill John Barkley!"
A strange cry fell from Father Layonne's lips. It was a choking cry, a cry, not of rejoicing, but of a grief-stung thing. "Jimmy!"
"I swear it! Great heaven,mon père, don't you believe me?"
The missioner had risen. In his eyes and face was another look. It was as if in all his life he had never seen James Kent before. It was a look born suddenly of shock, the shock of amazement, of incredulity, of a new kind of horror. Then swiftly again his countenance changed, and he put a hand on Kent's head.
"God forgive you, Jimmy," he said. "And God help you, too!"
Where a moment before Kent had felt the hot throb of an inundating joy, his heart was chilled now by the thing he sensed in Father Layonne's voice and saw in his face and eyes. It was not entirely disbelief. It was a more hopeless thing than that.
"You do not believe me!" he said.
"It is my religion to believe, Jimmy," replied Father Layonne in a gentle voice into which the old calmness had returned. "I must believe, for your sake. But it is not a matter of human sentiment now, lad. It is the Law! Whatever my heart feels toward you can do you no good. You are—" He hesitated to speak the words.
Then it was that Kent saw fully and clearly the whole monstrous situation. It had taken time for it to fasten itself upon him. In a general way it had been clear to him a few moments before; now, detail by detail, it closed in upon him, and his muscles tightened, and Father Layonne saw his jaw set hard and his hands clench. Death was gone. But the mockery of it, the grim exultation of the thing over the colossal trick it had played, seemed to din an infernal laughter in his ears. But—he was going to live! That was the one fact that rose above all others. No matter what happened to him a month or six months from now, he was not going to die today. He would live to receive Mercer's report. He would live to stand on his feet again and to fight for the life which he had thrown away. He was, above everything else, a fighting man. It was born in him to fight, not so much against his fellow men as against the overwhelming odds of adventure as they came to him. And now he was up against the deadliest game of all. He saw it. He felt it. The thing gripped him. In the eyes of that Law of which he had so recently been a part he was a murderer. And in the province of Alberta the penalty for killing a man was hanging. Because horror and fear did not seize upon him, he wondered if he still realized the situation. He believed that he did. It was merely a matter of human nature. Death, he had supposed, was a fixed and foregone thing. He had believed that only a few hours of life were left for him. And now it was given back to him, for months at least. It was a glorious reprieve, and—
Suddenly his heart stood still in the thrill of the thought that came to him. Marette Radisson had known that he was not going to die! She had hinted the fact, and he, like a blundering idiot, had failed to catch the significance of it. She had given him no sympathy, had laughed at him, had almost made fun of him, simply because she knew that he was going to live!
He turned suddenly on Father Layonne.
"They shall believe me!" he cried. "I shall make them believe me!Mon père, I lied! I lied to save Sandy McTrigger, and I shall tell them why. If Doctor Cardigan has not made another mistake, I want them all here again. Will you arrange it?"
"Inspector Kedsty is waiting outside," said Father Layonne quietly, "but I should not act in haste, Jimmy. I should wait. I should think—think."
"You mean take time to think up a story that will hold water,mon père? I have that. I have the story. And yet—" He smiled a bit dismally. "I did make one pretty thorough confession, didn't I, Father?"
"It was very convincing, Jimmy. It went so particularly into the details, and those details, coupled with the facts that you were seen at John Barkley's earlier in the evening, and that it was you who found him dead a number of hours later—"
"All make a strong case against me," agreed Kent. "As a matter of fact, I was up at Barkley's to look over an old map he had made of the Porcupine country twenty years ago. He couldn't find it. Later he sent word he had run across it. I returned and found him dead."
The little missioner nodded, but did not speak.
"It is embarrassing," Kent went on. "It almost seems as though I ought to go through with it, like a sport. When a man loses, it isn't good taste to set up a howl. It makes him sort of yellow-backed, you know. To play the game according to rules, I suppose I ought to keep quiet and allow myself to be hung without making any disturbance. Die game, and all that, you know. Then there is the other way of looking at it. This poor neck of mine depends on me. It has given me a lot of good service. It has been mighty loyal. It has even swallowed eggs on the day it thought it was going to die. And I'd be a poor specimen of humanity to go back on it now. I want to do that neck a good turn. I want to save it. And I'm going to—if I can!"
In spite of the unpleasant tension of the moment, it cheered Father Layonne to see this old humor returning into the heart of his friend. With him love was an enduring thing. He might grieve for James Kent, he might pray for the salvation of his soul, he might believe him guilty, yet he still bore for him the affection which was too deeply rooted in his heart to be uptorn by physical things or the happenings of chance. So the old cheer of his smile came back, and he said:
"To fight for his life is a privilege which God gives to every man, Jimmy. I was terrified when I came to you. I believed it would have been better if you had died. I can see my error. It will be a terrible fight. If you win, I shall be glad. If you lose, I know that you will lose bravely. Perhaps you are right. It may be best to see Inspector Kedsty before you have had time to think. That point will have its psychological effect. Shall I tell him you are prepared to see him?"
Kent nodded. "Yes. Now."
Father Layonne went to the door. Even there he seemed to hesitate an instant, as if again to call upon Kent to reconsider. Then he opened it and went out.
Kent waited impatiently. His hand, fumbling at his bedclothes, seized upon the cloth with which he had wiped his lips, and it suddenly occurred to him that it had been a long time since it had shown a fresh stain of blood. Now that he knew it was not a deadly thing, the tightening in his chest was less uncomfortable. He felt like getting up and meeting his visitors on his feet. Every nerve in his body wanted action, and the minutes of silence which followed the closing of the door after the missioner were drawn out and tedious to him. A quarter of an hour passed before he heard returning footsteps, and by the sound of them he knew Kedsty was not coming alone. Probablyle perewould return with him. And possibly Cardigan.
What happened in the next few seconds was somewhat of a shock to him. Father Layonne entered first, and then came Inspector Kedsty. Kent's eyes shot to the face of the commander of N Division. There was scarcely recognition in it. A mere inclination of the head, not enough to call a greeting, was the reply to Kent's nod and salute. Never had he seen Kedsty's face more like the face of an emotionless sphinx. But what disturbed him most was the presence of people he had not expected. Close behind Kedsty was McDougal, the magistrate, and behind McDougal entered Constables Felly and Brant, stiffly erect and clearly under orders. Cardigan, pale and uneasy, came in last, with the stenographer. Scarcely had they entered the room when Constable Pelly pronounced the formal warning of the Criminal Code of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police, and Kent was legally under arrest.
He had not looked for this. He knew, of course, that the process of the Law would take its course, but he had not anticipated this bloodthirsty suddenness. He had expected, first of all, to talk with Kedsty as man to man. And yet—it was the Law. He realized this as his eyes traveled from Kedsty's rock-like face to the expressionless immobility of his old friends, Constables Pelly and Brant. If there was sympathy, it was hidden except in the faces of Cardigan and Father Layonne. And Kent, exultantly hopeful a little while before, felt his heart grow heavy within him as he waited for the moment when he would begin the fight to repossess himself of the life and freed which he had lost.
For some time after the door to Kent's room had closed upon the ominous visitation of the Law, young Mercer remained standing in the hall, debating with himself whether his own moment had not arrived. In the end he decided that it had, and with Kent's fifty dollars in his pocket he made for the shack of the old Indian trailer, Mooie. It was an hour later when he returned, just in time to see Kent's door open again. Doctor Cardigan and Father Layonne reappeared first, followed in turn by the blonde stenographer, the magistrate, and Constables Pelly and Brant. Then the door closed.
Within the room, sweating from the ordeal through which he had passed, Kent sat bolstered against his pillows, facing Inspector Kedsty with blazing eyes.
"I've asked for these few moments alone with you, Kedsty, because I wanted to talk to you as a man, and not as my superior officer. I am, I take it, no longer a member of the force. That being the case, I owe you no more respect than I owe to any other man. And I am pleased to have the very great privilege of calling you a cursed scoundrel!"
Kedsty's face was hot, but as his hands clenched slowly, it turned redder. Before he could speak, Kent went on.
"You have not shown me the courtesy or the sympathy you have had for the worst criminals that ever faced you. You amazed every man that was in this room, because at one time—if not now—they were my friends. It wasn't what you said. It was how you said it. Whenever there was an inclination on their part to believe, you killed it—not honestly and squarely, by giving me a chance. Whenever you saw a chance for me to win a point, you fell back upon the law. And you don't believe that I killed John Barkley. I know it. You called me a liar the day I made that fool confession. You still believe that I lied. And I have waited until we were alone to ask you certain things, for I still have something of courtesy left in me, if you haven't. What is your game? What has brought about the change in you? Is it—"
His right hand clenched hard as a rock as he leaned toward Kedsty.
"Is it because of the girl hiding up at your bungalow, Kedsty?"
Even in that moment, when he had the desire to strike the man before him, it was impossible for him not to admire the stone-like invulnerability of Kedsty. He had never heard of another man calling Kedsty a scoundrel or dishonest. And yet, except that his faced burned more dully red, the Inspector was as impassively calm as ever. Even Kent's intimation that he was playing a game, and his direct accusation that he was keeping Marette Radisson in hiding at his bungalow, seemed to have no disturbing effect on him. For a space he looked at Kent, as if measuring the poise of the other's mind. When he spoke, it was in a voice so quiet and calm that Kent stared at him in amazement.
"I don't blame you, Kent," he said. "I don't blame you for calling me a scoundrel, or anything else you want to. I think I should do the same if I were in your place. You think it is incredible, because of our previous association, that I should not make every effort to save you. I would, if I thought you were innocent. But I don't. I believe you are guilty. I cannot see where there is a loophole in the evidence against you, as given in your own confession. Why, man, even if I could help to prove you innocent of killing John Barkley—"
He paused and twisted one of his gray mustaches, half facing the window for a moment. "Even if I did that," he went on, "you would still have twenty years of prison ahead of you for the worst kind of perjury on the face of the earth, perjury committed at a time when you thought you were dying! You are guilty, Kent. If not of one thing, then of the other. I am not playing a game. And as for the girl—there is no girl at my bungalow."
He turned to the door; and Kent made no effort to stop him. Words came to his lips and died there, and for a space after Kedsty had gone he stared out into the green forest world beyond his window, seeing nothing. Inspector Kedsty, quietly and calmly, had spoken words that sent his hopes crashing in ruin about him. For even if he escaped the hangman, he was still a criminal—a criminal of the worst sort, perhaps, next to the man who kills another. If he proved that he had not killed John Barkley, he would convict himself, at the same time, of having made solemn oath to a lie on what he supposed was his death-bed. And for that, a possible twenty years in the Edmonton penitentiary! At best he could not expect less than ten. Ten years—twenty years—in prison! That, or hang.
The sweat broke out on his face. He did not curse Kedsty now. His anger was gone. Kedsty had seen all the time what he, like a fool, had not thought of. No matter how the Inspector might feel in that deeply buried heart of his, he could not do otherwise than he was doing. He, James Kent, who hated a lie above all the things on the earth, was kin-as-kisew—the blackest liar of all, a man who lied when he was dying.
And for that lie there was a great punishment. The Law saw with its own eyes. It was a single-track affair, narrow-visioned, caring nothing for what was to the right or the left. It would tolerate no excuse which he might find for himself. He had lied to save a human life, but that life the Law itself had wanted. So he had both robbed and outraged the Law, even though a miracle saved him the greatest penalty of all.
The weight of the thing crushed him. It was as if for the first time a window had opened for him, and he saw what Kedsty had seen. And then, as the minutes passed, the fighting spirit in him rose again. He was not of the sort to go under easily. Personal danger had always stirred him to his greatest depths, and he had never confronted a danger greater than this he was facing now. It was not a matter of leaping quickly and on the spur of the moment. For ten years his training had been that of a hunter of men, and the psychology of the man hunt had been his strong point. Always, in seeking his quarry, he had tried first to bring himself into a mental sympathy and understanding with that quarry. To analyze what an outlaw would do under certain conditions and with certain environments and racial inheritances behind him was to Kent the premier move in the thrilling game. He had evolved rules of great importance for himself, but always he had worked them out from the vantage point of the huntsman. Now he began to turn them around. He, James Kent, was no longer the hunter, but the hunted, and all the tricks which he had mastered must now be worked the other way. His woodcraft, his cunning, the fine points he had learned of the game of one-against-one would avail him but little when it came to the witness chair and a trial.
The open window was his first inspiration. Adventure had been the blood of his life. And out there, behind the green forests rolling away like the billows of an ocean, lay the greatest adventure of all. Once in those beloved forests covering almost the half of a continent, he would be willing to die if the world beat him. He could see himself playing the game of the hunted as no other man had ever played it before. Let him once have his guns and his freedom, with all that world waiting for him—
Eagerness gleamed in his eyes, and then, slowly, it died out. The open window, after all, was but a mockery. He rolled sideways from his bed and partly balanced himself on his feet. The effort made him dizzy. He doubted if he could have walked a hundred yards after climbing through the window. Instantly another thought leaped into his brain. His head was clearing. He swayed across the room and back again, the first time he had been on his feet since the half-breed's bullet had laid him out. He would fool Cardigan. He would fool Kedsty. As he recovered his strength, he would keep it to himself. He would play sick man to the limit, and then some night he would take advantage of the open window!
The thought thrilled him as no other thing in the world had ever thrilled him before. For the first time he sensed the vast difference between the hunter and the hunted, between the man who played the game of life and death alone and the one who played it with the Law and all its might behind him. To hunt was thrilling. To be hunted was more thrilling. Every nerve in his body tingled. A different kind of fire burned in his brain. He was the creature who was at bay. The other fellow was the hunter now.
He went back to the window and leaned far out. He looked at the forest and saw it with new eyes. The gleam of the slowly moving river held a meaning for him that it had never held before. Doctor Cardigan, seeing him then, would have sworn the fever had returned. His eyes held a slumbering fire. His face was flushed. In these moments Kent did not see death. He was not visioning the iron bars of a prison. His blood pulsed only to the stir of that greatest of all adventures which lay ahead of him. He, the best man-hunter in two thousand miles of wilderness, would beat the hunters themselves. The hound had turned fox, and that fox knew the tricks of both the hunter and the hunted. He would win! A world beckoned to him, and he would reach the heart of that world. Already there began to flash through his mind memory of the places where he could find safety and freedom for all time. No man in all the Northland knew its out-of-the-way corners better than he—its unmapped and unexplored places, the far and mysterious patches ofterra incognita, where the sun still rose and set without permission of the Law, and God laughed as in the days when prehistoric monsters fed from the tops of trees no taller than themselves. Once through that window, with the strength to travel, and the Law might seek him for a hundred years without profit to itself.
It was not bravado in his blood that stirred these thoughts. It was not panic or an unsound excitement. He was measuring things even as he visioned them. He would go down-river way, toward the Arctic. And he would find Marette Radisson! Yes, even though she lived at Barracks at Fort Simpson, he would find her! And after that? The question blurred all other questions in his mind. There were many answers to it.
Knowing that it would be fatal to his scheme if he were found on his feet, he returned to his bed. The flush of his exertion and excitement was still in his face when Doctor Cardigan came half an hour later.
Within the next few minutes he put Cardigan more at his ease than he had been during the preceding day and night. It was, after all, an error which made him happier the more he thought about it, he told the surgeon. He admitted that at first the discovery that he was going to live had horrified him. But now the whole thing bore a different aspect for him. As soon as he was sufficiently strong, he would begin gathering the evidences for his alibi, and he was confident of proving himself innocent of John Barkley's murder.
He anticipated ten years in the Edmonton penitentiary. But what were ten years there as compared with forty or fifty under the sod? He wrung Cardigan's hand. He thanked him for the splendid care he had given him. It was he, Cardigan, who had saved him from the grave, he said—and Cardigan grew younger under his eyes.
"I thought you'd look at it differently, Kent," he said, drawing in a deep breath. "My God, when I found I had made that mistake—"
"You figured you were handing me over to the hangman," smiled Kent. "It's true I shouldn't have made that confession, old man, if I hadn't rated you right next to God Almighty when it came to telling whether a man was going to live or die. But we all make slips. I've made 'em. And you've got no apology to make. I may ask you to send me good cigars now and then while I'm in retirement at Edmonton, and I shall probably insist that you come to smoke with me occasionally and tell me the news of the rivers. But I'm afraid, old chap, that I'm going to worry you a bit more here. I feel queer today, queer inside me. Now it would be a topping joke if some other complication should set in and fool us all again, wouldn't it?"
He could see the impression he was making on Cardigan. Again his faith in the psychology of the mind found its absolute verification. Cardigan, lifted unexpectedly out of the slough of despond by the very man whom he expected to condemn him, became from that moment, in the face of the mental reaction, almost hypersympathetic. When finally he left the room, Kent was inwardly rejoicing. For Cardigan had told him it would be some time before he was strong enough to stand on his feet.
He did not see Mercer all the rest of that day. It was Cardigan who personally brought his dinner and his supper and attended him last at night. He asked not to be interrupted again, as he felt that he wanted to sleep. There was a guard outside his door now.
Cardigan scowled when he volunteered this information. It was sheer nonsense in Kedsty taking such a silly precaution. But he would give the guard rubber-soled shoes and insist that he make no sound that would disturb him. Kent thanked him, and grinned exultantly when he was gone.
He waited until his watch told him it was ten o'clock before he began the exercise which he had prescribed for himself. Noiselessly he rolled out of bed. There was no sensation of dizziness when he stood on his feet this time. His head was as clear as a bell. He began experimenting by inhaling deeper and still deeper breaths and by straightening his chest.
There was no pain, as he had expected there would be. He felt like crying out in his joy. One after the other he stretched up his arms. He bent over until the tips of his fingers touched the floor. He crooked his knees, leaned from side to side, changed from one attitude to another, amazed at the strength and elasticity of his body. Twenty times, before he returned to his bed, he walked back and forth across his room.
He was sleepless. Lying with his back to the pillows he looked out into the starlight, watching for the first glow of the moon and listening again to the owls that had nested in the lightning-shriven tree. An hour later he resumed his exercise.
He was on his feet when through his window he heard the sound of approaching voices and then of running feet. A moment later some one was pounding at a door, and a loud voice shouted for Doctor Cardigan. Kent drew cautiously nearer the window. The moon had risen, and he saw figures approaching, slowly, as if weighted under a burden. Before they turned out of his vision, he made out two men bearing some heavy object between them. Then came the opening of a door, other voices, and after that an interval of quiet.
He returned to his bed, wondering who the new patient could be.
He was breathing easier after his exertion. The fact that he was feeling keenly alive, and that the thickening in his chest was disappearing, flushed him with elation. An unbounded optimism possessed him. It was late when he fell asleep, and he slept late. It was Mercer's entrance into his room that roused him. He came in softly, closed the door softly, yet Kent heard him. The moment he pulled himself up, he knew that Mercer had a report to make, and he also saw that something upsetting had happened to him. Mercer was a bit excited.
"I beg pardon for waking you, sir," he said, leaning close over Kent, as though fearing the guard might be listening at the door. "But I thought it best for you to hear about the Indian, sir."
"The Indian?"
"Yes, sir—Mooie, sir. I am quite upset over it, Mr. Kent. He told me early last evening that he had found the scow on which the girl was going down-river. He said it was hidden in Kim's Bayou."
"Kim's Bayou! That was a good hiding-place, Mercer!"
"A very good place of concealment indeed, sir. As soon as it was dark, Mooie returned to watch. What happened to him I haven't fully discovered, sir. But it must have been near midnight when he staggered up to Crossen's place, bleeding and half out of his senses. They brought him here, and I watched over him most of the night. He says the girl went aboard the scow and that the scow started down-river. That much I learned, sir. But all the rest he mumbles in a tongue I can not understand. Crossen says it's Cree, and that old Mooie believes devils jumped on him with clubs down at Kim's Bayou. Of course they must have been men. I don't believe in Mooie's devils, sir."
"Nor I," said Kent, the blood stirring strangely in his veins. "Mercer, it simply means there was some one cleverer than old Mooie watching that trail."
With a curiously tense face Mercer was looking cautiously toward the door. Then he leaned still lower over Kent.
"During his mumblings, when I was alone with him, I heard him speak a name, sir. Half a dozen times, sir—and it was—Kedsty!"
Kent's fingers gripped the young Englishman's hand.
"You heardthat, Mercer?"
"I am sure I could not have been mistaken, sir. It was repeated a number of times."
Kent fell back against his pillows. His mind was working swiftly. He knew that behind an effort to appear calm Mercer was uneasy over what had happened.
"We mustn't let this get out, Mercer," he said. "If Mooie should be badly hurt—should die, for instance—and it was discovered that you and I—"
He knew he had gone far enough to give effect to his words. He did not even look at Mercer.
"Watch him closely, old man, and report to me everything that happens. Find out more about Kedsty, if you can. I shall advise you how to act. It is rather ticklish, you know—for you! And"—he smiled at Mercer—"I'm unusually hungry this morning. Add another egg, will you, Mercer? Three instead of two, and a couple of extra slices of toast. And don't let any one know that my appetite is improving. It may be best for both of us—especially if Mooie should happen to die. Understand, old man?"
"I—I think I do, sir," replied Mercer, paling at the grimly smiling thing he saw in Kent's eyes. "I shall do as you say, sir."
When he had gone, Kent knew that he had accurately measured his man. True to a certain type, Mercer would do a great deal for fifty dollars—under cover. In the open he was a coward. And Kent knew the value of such a man under certain conditions. The present was one of those conditions. From this hour Mercer would be a priceless asset to his scheme for personal salvation.
That morning Kent ate a breakfast that would have amazed Doctor Cardigan and would have roused a greater caution in Inspector Kedsty had he known of it. While eating he strengthened the bonds already welded between himself and Mercer. He feigned great uneasiness over the condition of Mooie, who he knew was not fatally hurt because Mercer had told him there was no fracture. But if he should happen to die, he told Mercer, it would mean something pretty bad for them, if their part in the affair leaked out.
As for himself, it would make little difference, as he was "in bad" anyway. But he did not want to see a good friend get into trouble on his account. Mercer was impressed. He saw himself an instrument in a possible murder affair, and the thought terrified him. Even at best, Kent told him, they had given and taken bribes, a fact that would go hard with them unless Mooie kept his mouth shut. And if the Indian knew anything out of the way about Kedsty, it was mighty important that he, Mercer, get hold of it, for it might prove a trump card with them in the event of a showdown with the Inspector of Police. As a matter of form, Mercer took his temperature. It was perfectly normal, but it was easy for Kent to persuade a notation on the chart a degree above.
"Better keep them thinking I'm still pretty sick," he assured Mercer. "They won't suspect there is anything between us then."
Mercer was so much in sympathy with the idea that he suggested adding another half-degree.
It was a splendid day for Kent. He could feel himself growing stronger with each hour that passed. Yet not once during the day did he get out of his bed, fearing that he might be discovered. Cardigan visited him twice and had no suspicion of Mercer's temperature chart. He dressed his wound, which was healing fast. It was the fever which depressed him. There must be, he said, some internal disarrangement which would soon clear itself up. Otherwise there seemed to be no very great reason why Kent should not get on his feet. He smiled apologetically.
"Seems queer to say that, when a little while ago I was telling you it was time to die," he said.
That night, after ten o'clock, Kent went through his setting-up exercises four times. He marveled even more than the preceding night at the swiftness with which his strength was returning. Half a dozen times the little devils of eagerness working in his blood prompted him to take to the window at once.
For three days and nights thereafter he kept his secret and added to his strength. Doctor Cardigan came in to see him at intervals, and Father Layonne visited him regularly every afternoon. Mercer was his most frequent visitor. On the third day two things happened to create a little excitement. Doctor Cardigan left on a four-day journey to a settlement fifty miles south, leaving Mercer in charge—and Mooie came suddenly out of his fever into his normal senses again. The first event filled Kent with joy. With Cardigan out of the way there would be no immediate danger of the discovery that he was no longer a sick man. But it was the recovery of Mooie from the thumping he had received about the head that delighted Mercer. He was exultant. With the quick reaction of his kind he gloated over the fact before Kent. He let it be known that he was no longer afraid, and from the moment Mooie was out of danger his attitude was such that more than once Kent would have taken keen pleasure in kicking him from the room. Also, from the hour he was safely in charge of Doctor Cardigan's place, Mercer began to swell with importance. Kent saw the new danger and began to humor him. He flattered him. He assured him that it was a burning shame Cardigan had not taken him into partnership. He deserved it. And, in justice to himself, Mercer should demand that partnership when Cardigan returned. He, Kent, would talk to Father Layonne about it, and the missioner would spread the gospel of what ought to be among others who were influential at the Landing. For two days he played with Mercer as an angler plays with a treacherous fish. He tried to get Mercer to discover more about Mooie's reference to Kedsty. But the old Indian had shut up like a clam.
"He was frightened when I told him he had said things about the Inspector," Mercer reported. "He disavowed everything. He shook his head—no, no, no. He had not seen Kedsty. He knew nothing about him. I can do nothing with him, Kent."
He had dropped his "sirs," also his servant-like servility. He helped to smoke Kent's cigars with the intimacy of proprietorship, and with offensive freedom called him "Kent." He spoke of the Inspector as "Kedsty," and of Father Layonne as "the little preacher." He swelled perceptibly, and Kent knew that each hour of that swelling added to his own danger.
He believed that Mercer was talking. Several times a day he heard him in conversation with the guard, and not infrequently Mercer went down to the Landing, twirling a little reed cane that he had not dared to use before. He began to drop opinions and information to Kent in a superior sort of way. On the fourth day word came that Doctor Cardigan would not return for another forty-eight hours, and with unblushing conceit Mercer intimated that when he did return he would find big changes. Then it was that in the stupidity of his egotism he said:
"Kedsty has taken a great fancy to me, Kent. He's a square old top, when you take him right. Had me over this afternoon, and we smoked a cigar together. When I told him that I looked in at your window last night and saw you going through a lot of exercises, he jumped up as if some one had stuck a pin in him. 'Why, I thought he was sick—bad!' he said. And I let him know there were better ways of making a sick man well than Cardigan's. 'Give them plenty to eat,' I said. 'Let 'em live normal,' I argued. 'Look at Kent, for instance,' I told him. 'He's been eating like a bear for a week, and he can turn somersaults this minute!' That topped him over, Kent. I knew it would be a bit of a surprise for him, that I should do what Cardigan couldn't do. He walked back and forth, black as a hat—thinking of Cardigan, I suppose. Then he called in that Pelly chap and gave him something which he wrote on a piece of paper. After that he shook hands with me, slapped me on the shoulder most intimately, and gave me another cigar. He's a keen old blade, Kent. He doesn't need more than one pair of eyes to see what I've done since Cardigan went away!"
If ever Kent's hands had itched to get at the throat of a human being, the yearning convulsed his fingers now. At the moment when he was about to act Mercer had betrayed him to Kedsty! He turned his face away so that Mercer could not see what was in his eyes. Under his body he concealed his clenched hands. Within himself he fought against the insane desire that was raging in his blood, the desire to leap on Mercer and kill him. If Cardigan had reported his condition to Kedsty, it would have been different. He would have accepted the report as a matter of honorable necessity on Cardigan's part. But Mercer—a toad blown up by his own wind, a consummate fiend who would sell his best friend, a fool, an ass—
For a space he held himself rigid as a stone, his face turned away from Mercer. His better sense won. He knew that his last chance depended upon his coolness now. And Mercer unwittingly helped him to win by slyly pocketing a couple of his cigars and leaving the room. For a minute or two Kent heard him talking to the guard outside the door.
He sat up then. It was five o'clock. How long ago was it that Mercer had seen Kedsty? What was the order that the Inspector had written on a sheet of paper for Constable Pelly? Was it simply that he should be more closely watched, or was it a command to move him to one of the cells close to the detachment office? If it was the latter, all his hopes and plans were destroyed. His mind flew to those cells.
The Landing had no jail, not even a guard-house, though the members of the force sometimes spoke of the cells just behind Inspector Kedsty's office by that name. The cells were of cement, and Kent himself had helped to plan them! The irony of the thing did not strike him just then. He was recalling the fact that no prisoner had ever escaped from those cement cells. If no action were taken before six o'clock, he was sure that it would be postponed until the following morning. It was possible that Kedsty's order was for Pelly to prepare a cell for him. Deep in his soul he prayed fervently that it was only a matter of preparation. If they would give him one more night—just one!
His watch tinkled the half-hour. Then a quarter of six. Then six. His blood ran feverishly, in spite of the fact that he possessed the reputation of being the coolest man in N Division. He lighted his last cigar and smoked it slowly to cover the suspense which he feared revealed itself in his face, should any one come into his room. His supper was due at seven. At eight it would begin to get dusk. The moon was rising later each night, and it would not appear over the forests until after eleven. He would go through his window at ten o'clock. His mind worked swiftly and surely as to the method of his first night's flight. There were always a number of boats down at Crossen's place. He would start in one of these, and by the time Mercer discovered he was gone, he would be forty miles on his way to freedom. Then he would set his boat adrift, or hide it, and start cross-country until his trail was lost. Somewhere and in some way he would find both guns and food. It was fortunate that he had not given Mercer the other fifty dollars under his pillow.
At seven Mercer came with his supper. A little gleam of disappointment shot into his pale eyes when he found the last cigar gone from the box. Kent saw the expression and tried to grin good-humoredly.
"I'm going to have Father Layonne bring me up another box in the morning, Mercer," he said. "That is, if I can get hold of him."
"You probably can," snapped Mercer. "He doesn't live far from barracks, and that's where you are going. I've got orders to have you ready to move in the morning."
Kent's blood seemed for an instant to flash into living flame. He drank a part of his cup of coffee and said then, with a shrug of his shoulders: "I'm glad of it, Mercer. I'm anxious to have the thing over. The sooner they get me down there, the quicker they will take action. And I'm not afraid, not a bit of it. I'm bound to win. There isn't a chance in a hundred that they can convict me." Then he added: "And I'm going to have a box of cigars sent up to you, Mercer. I'm grateful to you for the splendid treatment you have given me."
No sooner had Mercer gone with the supper things than Kent's knotted fist shook itself fiercely in the direction of the door.
"My God, how I'd like to have you out in the woods—alone—for just one hour!" he whispered.
Eight o'clock came, and nine. Two or three times he heard voices in the hall, probably Mercer talking with the guard. Once he thought he heard a rumble of thunder, and his heart throbbed joyously. Never had he welcomed a storm as he would have welcomed it tonight. But the skies remained clear. Not only that, but the stars as they began to appear seemed to him more brilliant than he had ever seen them before. And it was very still. The rattle of a scow-chain came up to him from the river as though it were only a hundred yards away. He knew that it was one of Mooie's dogs he heard howling over near the sawmill. The owls, flitting past his window, seemed to click their beaks more loudly than last night. A dozen times he fancied he could hear the rippling voice of the river that very soon was to carry him on toward freedom.
The river! Every dream and aspiration found its voice for him in that river now. Down it Marette Radisson had gone. And somewhere along it, or on the river beyond, or the third river still beyond that, he would find her. In the long, tense wait between the hours of nine and ten he brought the girl back into his room again. He recalled every gesture she had made, every word she had spoken. He felt the thrill of her hand on his forehead, her kiss, and in his brain her softly spoken words repeated themselves over and over again, "I think that if you lived very long I should love you." And as she had spoken those wordsshe knew that he was not going to die!
Why, then, had she gone away? Knowing that he was going to live, why had she not remained to help him if she could? Either she had spoken the words in jest, or—
A new thought flashed into his mind. It almost drew a cry from his lips. It brought him up tense, erect, his heart pounding. Had she gone away? Was it not possible that she, too, was playing a game in giving the impression that she was leaving down-river on the hidden scow? Was it conceivable that she was playing that game against Kedsty? A picture, clean-cut as the stars in the sky, began to outline itself in his mental vision. It was clear, now, what Mooie's mumblings about Kedsty had signified. Kedsty had accompanied Marette to the scow. Mooie had seen him and had given the fact away in his fever. Afterward he had clamped his mouth shut through fear of the "big man" of the Law. But why, still later, had he almost been done to death? Mooie was a harmless creature. He had no enemies.
There was no one at the Landing who would have assaulted the old trailer, whose hair was white with age. No one, unless it was Kedsty himself—Kedsty at bay, Kedsty in a rage. Even that was inconceivable. Whatever the motive of the assault might be, and no matter who had committed it, Mooie had most certainly seen the Inspector of Police accompany Marette Radisson to the scow. And the question which Kent found it impossible to answer was, had Marette Radisson really gone down the river on that scow?
It was almost with a feeling of disappointment that he told himself it was possible she had not. He wanted her on the river. He wanted her going north and still farther north. The thought that she was mixed up in some affair that had to do with Kedsty was displeasing to him. If she was still in the Landing or near the Landing, it could no longer be on account of Sandy McTrigger, the man his confession had saved. In his heart he prayed that she was many days down the Athabasca, for it was there—and only there—that he would ever see her again. And his greatest desire, next to his desire for his freedom, was to find her. He was frank with himself in making that confession. He was more than that. He knew that not a day or night would pass that he would not think or dream of Marette Radisson. The wonder of her had grown more vivid for him with each hour that passed, and he was sorry now that he had not dared to touch her hair. She would not have been offended with him, for she had kissed him—after he had killed the impulse to lay his hand on that soft glory that had crowned her head.
And then the little bell in his watch tinkled the hour of ten! He sat up with a jerk. For a space he held his breath while he listened. In the hall outside his room there was no sound. An inch at a time he drew himself off his bed until he stood on his feet. His clothes hung on hooks in the wall, and he groped his way to them so quietly that one listening at the crack of his door would not have heard him. He dressed swiftly. Then he made his way to the window, looked out, and listened.
In the brilliant starlight he saw nothing but the two white stubs of the lightning-shattered trees in which the owls lived. And it was very still. The air was fresh and sweet in his face. In it he caught the scent of the distant balsams and cedars. The world, wonderful in its night silence, waited for him. It was impossible for him to conceive of failure or death out there, and it seemed unreal and trivial that the Law should expect to hold him, with that world reaching out its arms to him and calling him.
Assured that the moment for action was at hand, he moved quickly. In another ten seconds he was through the window, and his feet were on the ground. For a space he stood out clear in the starlight. Then he hurried to the end of the building and hid himself in the shadow. The swiftness of his movement had brought him no physical discomfort, and his blood danced with the thrill of the earth under his feet and the thought that his wound must be even more completely healed than he had supposed. A wild exultation swept over him. He was free! He could see the river now, shimmering and talking to him in the starlight, urging him to hurry, telling him that only a little while ago another had gone north on the breast of it, and that if he hastened it would help him to overtake her. He felt the throb of new life in his body. His eyes shone strangely in the semi-gloom.
It seemed to him that only yesterday Marette had gone. She could not be far away, even now. And in these moments, with the breath of freedom stirring him with the glory of new life, she was different for him from what she had ever been. She was a part of him. He could not think of escape without thinking of her. She became, in these precious moments, the living soul of his wilderness. He felt her presence. The thought possessed him that somewhere down the river she was thinking of him, waiting, expecting him. And in that same flash he made up his mind that he would not discard the boat, as he had planned; he would conceal himself by day, and float downstream by night, until at last he came to Marette Radisson. And then he would tell her why he had come. And after that—
He looked toward Crossen's place. He would make straight for it, openly, like a man bent on a mission there was no reason to conceal. If luck went right, and Crossen was abed, he would be on the river within fifteen minutes. His blood ran faster as he took his first step out into the open starlight. Fifty yards ahead of him was the building which Cardigan used for his fuel. Safely beyond that, no one could see him from the windows of the hospital. He walked swiftly. Twenty paces, thirty, forty—and he stopped as suddenly as the half-breed's bullet had stopped him weeks before. Round the end of Cardigan's fuel house came a figure. It was Mercer. He was twirling his little cane and traveling quietly as a cat. They were not ten feet apart, yet Kent had not heard him.
Mercer stopped. The cane dropped from his hand. Even in the starlight Kent could see his face turn white.
"Don't make a sound, Mercer," he warned. "I'm taking a little exercise in the open air. If you cry out, I'll kill you!"
He advanced slowly, speaking in a voice that could not have been heard at the windows behind him. And then a thing happened that froze the blood in his veins. He had heard the scream of every beast of the great forests, but never a scream like that which came from Mercer's lips now. It was not the cry of a man. To Kent it was the voice of a fiend, a devil. It did not call for help. It was wordless. And as the horrible sound issued from Mercer's mouth he could see the swelling throat and bulging eyes that accompanied the effort. They made him think of a snake, a cobra.
The chill went out of his blood, replaced by a flame of hottest fire. He forgot everything but that this serpent was in his path. Twice he had stood in his way. And he hated him. He hated him with a virulency that was death. Neither the call of freedom nor the threat of prison could keep him from wreaking vengeance now. Without a sound he was at Mercer's throat, and the scream ended in a choking shriek. His fingers dug into flabby flesh, and his clenched fist beat again and again into Mercer's face.
He went to the ground, crushing the human serpent under him. And he continued to strike and choke as he had never struck or choked another man, all other things overwhelmed by his mad desire to tear into pieces this two-legged English vermin who was too foul to exist on the face of the earth.
And he still continued to strike—even after the path lay clear once more between him and the river.