25230	----	None 
4515	----	THE GOLDEN SNARE BY JAMES OLIVER CURWOOD AUTHOR OF KAZAN, THE DANGER TRAIL, THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE, THE GRIZZLY KING, ETC. JTABLE 10 26 1 THE GOLDEN SNARE CHAPTER I Bram Johnson was an unusual man, even for the northland. He was, above all other things, a creature of environment--and necessity, and of that something else which made of him at times a man with a soul, and at others a brute with the heart of a devil. In this story of Bram, and the girl, and the other man, Bram himself should not be blamed too much. He was pathetic, and yet he was terrible. It is doubtful if he really had what is generally regarded as a soul. If he did, it was hidden--hidden to the forests and the wild things that had made him. Bram's story started long before he was born, at least three generations before. That was before the Johnsons had gone north of Sixty. But they were wandering, and steadily upward. If one puts a canoe in the Lower Athabasca and travels northward to the Great Slave and thence up the Mackenzie to the Arctic he will note a number of remarkable ethnological changes. The racial characteristics of the world he is entering change swiftly. The thin-faced Chippewa with his alert movements and high-bowed canoe turns into the slower moving Cree, with his broader cheeks, his more slanting eyes, and his racier birchbark. And even the Cree changes as he lives farther north; each new tribe is a little different from its southernmost neighbor, until at last the Cree looks like a Jap, and the Chippewyan takes his place. And the Chippewyan takes up the story of life where the Cree left off. Nearer the Arctic his canoe becomes a skin kaiak, his face is still broader, Ms eyes like a Chinaman's, and writers of human history call him Eskimo. The Johnsons, once they started, did not stop at any particular point. There was probably only one Johnson in the beginning of that hundred year story which was to have its finality in Bram. But there were more in time. The Johnson blood mixed itself first with the Chippewa, and then with the Cree--and the Cree-Chippewa Johnson blood, when at last it reached the Eskimo, had in it also a strain of Chippewyan. It is curious how the name itself lived. Johnson! One entered a tepee or a cabin expecting to find there a white man, and was startled when he discovered the truth. Bram, after nearly a century of this intermixing of bloods, was a throwback--a white man, so far as his skin and his hair and his eyes went. In other physical ways he held to the type of his half-strain Eskimo mother, except in size. He was six feet, and a giant in strength. His face was broad, his cheek-bones high, his lips thick, his nose flat. And he was WHITE. That was the shocking thing about it all. Even his hair was a reddish blonde, wild and coarse and ragged like a lion's mane, and his eyes were sometimes of a curious blue, and at others--when he was angered--green like a cat's at night-time. No man knew Bram for a friend. He was a mystery. He never remained at a post longer than was necessary to exchange his furs for supplies, and it might be months or even years before he returned to that particular post again. He was ceaselessly wandering. More or less the Royal Northwest Mounted Police kept track of him, and in many reports of faraway patrols filed at Headquarters there are the laconic words, "We saw Bram and his wolves traveling northward" or "Bram and his wolves passed us"--always Bram AND HIS WOLVES. For two years the Police lost track of him. That was when Bram was buried in the heart of the Sulphur Country east of the Great Bear. After that the Police kept an even closer watch on him, waiting, and expecting something to happen. And then--the something came. Bram killed a man. He did it so neatly and so easily, breaking him as he might have broken a stick, that he was well off in flight before it was discovered that his victim was dead. The next tragedy followed quickly--a fortnight later, when Corporal Lee and a private from the Fort Churchill barracks closed in on him out on the edge of the Barren. Bram didn't fire a shot. They could hear his great, strange laugh when they were still a quarter of a mile away from him. Bram merely set loose his wolves. By a miracle Corporal Lee lived to drag himself to a half-breed's cabin, where he died a little later, and the half-breed brought the story to Fort Churchill. After this, Bram disappeared from the eyes of the world. What he lived in those four or five years that followed would well be worth his pardon if his experiences could be made to appear between the covers of a book. Bram--AND HIS WOLVES! Think of it. Alone. In all that time without a voice to talk to him. Not once appearing at a post for food. A loup-garou. An animal-man. A companion of wolves. By the end of the third year there was not a drop of dog-blood in his pack. It was wolf, all wolf. From whelps he brought the wolves up, until he had twenty in his pack. They were monsters, for the under-grown ones he killed. Perhaps he would have given them freedom in place of death, but these wolf-beasts of Bram's would not accept freedom. In him they recognized instinctively the super-beast, and they were his slaves. And Bram, monstrous and half animal himself, loved them. To him they were brother, sister, wife--all creation. He slept with them, and ate with them, and starved with them when food was scarce. They were comradeship and protection. When Bram wanted meat, and there was meat in the country, he would set his wolf-horde on the trail of a caribou or a moose, and if they drove half a dozen miles ahead of Bram himself there would always be plenty of meat left on the bones when he arrived. Four years of that! The Police would not believe it. They laughed at the occasional rumors that drifted in from the far places; rumors that Bram had been seen, and that his great voice had been heard rising above the howl of his pack on still winter nights, and that half-breeds and Indians had come upon his trails, here and there--at widely divergent places. It was the French half-breed superstition of the chasse-galere that chiefly made them disbelieve, and the chasse-galere is a thing not to be laughed at in the northland. It is composed of creatures who have sold their souls to the devil for the power of navigating the air, and there were those who swore with their hands on the crucifix of the Virgin that they had with their own eyes seen Bram and his wolves pursuing the shadowy forms of great beasts through the skies. So the Police believed that Bram was dead; and Bram, meanwhile, keeping himself from all human eyes, was becoming more and more each day like the wolves who were his brothers. But the white blood in a man dies hard, and always there flickered in the heart of Bram's huge chest a great yearning. It must at times have been worse than death--that yearning to hear a human voice, to have a human creature to speak to, though never had he loved man or woman. Which brings us at last to the final tremendous climax in Bram's life--to the girl, and the other man. CHAPTER II The other man was Raine--Philip Raine. To-night he sat in Pierre Breault's cabin, with Pierre at the opposite side of the table between them, and the cabin's sheet iron stove blazing red just beyond. It was a terrible night outside. Pierre, the fox hunter, had built his shack at the end of a long slim forefinger of scrub spruce that reached out into the Barren, and to-night the wind was wailing and moaning over the open spaces in a way that made Raine shiver. Close to the east was Hudson's Bay--so close that a few moments before when Raine had opened the cabin door there came to him the low, never-ceasing thunder of the under-currents fighting their way down through the Roes Welcome from the Arctic Ocean, broken now and then by a growling roar as the giant forces sent a crack, like a great knife, through one of the frozen mountains. Westward from Pierre's cabin there stretched the lifeless Barren, illimitable and void, without rock or bush, and overhung at day by a sky that always made Raine think of a terrible picture he had once seen of Dore's "Inferno"--a low, thick sky, like purple and blue granite, always threatening to pitch itself down in terrific avalanches. And at night, when the white foxes yapped, and the wind moaned-- "As I have hope of paradise I swear that I saw him--alive, M'sieu," Pierre was saying again over the table. Raine, of the Fort Churchill patrol of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police, no longer smiled in disbelief. He knew that Pierre Breault was a brave man, or he would not have perched himself alone out in the heart of the Barren to catch the white foxes; and he was not superstitious, like most of his kind, or the sobbing cries and strife of the everlasting night-winds would have driven him away. "I swear it!" repeated Pierre. Something that was almost eagerness was burning now in Philip's face. He leaned over the table, his hands gripping tightly. He was thirty-five; almost slim as Pierre himself, with eyes as steely blue as Pierre's were black. There was a time, away back, when he wore a dress suit as no other man in the big western city where he lived; now the sleeves of his caribou skin coat were frayed and torn, his hands were knotted, in his face were the lines of storm and wind. "It is impossible," he said. "Bram Johnson is dead!" "He is alive, M'sieu." In Pierre's voice there was a strange tremble. "If I had only HEARD, if I had not SEEN, you might disbelieve, M'sieu," he cried, his eyes glowing with a dark fire. "Yes, I heard the cry of the pack first, and I went to the door, and opened it, and stood there listening and looking out into the night. UGH! they went near. I could hear the hoofs of the caribou. And then I heard a great cry, a voice that rose above the howl of the wolves like the voice of ten men, and I knew that Bram Johnson was on the trail of meat. MON DIEU--yes--he is alive. And that is not all. No. No. That is not all--" His fingers were twitching. For the third or fourth time in the last three-quarters of an hour Raine saw him fighting back a strange excitement. His own incredulity was gone. He was beginning to believe Pierre. "And after that--you saw him?" "Yes. I would not do again what I did then for all the foxes between the Athabasca and the Bay, M'sieu. It must have been--I don't know what. It dragged me out into the night. I followed. I found the trail of the wolves, and I found the snowshoe tracks of a man. Oui. I still followed. I came close to the kill, with the wind in my face, and I could hear the snapping of jaws and the rending of flesh--yes--yes--AND A MAN'S TERRIBLE LAUGH! If the wind had shifted--if that pack of devils' souls had caught the smell of me--tonnerre de dieu!" He shuddered, and the knuckles of his fingers snapped as he clenched and unclenched his hands. "But I stayed there, M'sieu, half buried in a snow dune. They went on after a long time. It was so dark I could not see them. I went to the kill then, and--yes, he had carried away the two hind quarters of the caribou. It was a bull, too, and heavy. I followed--clean across that strip of Barren down to the timber, and it was there that Bram built himself the fire. I could see him then, and I swear by the Blessed Virgin that it was Bram! Long ago, before he killed the man, he came twice to my cabin--and he had not changed. And around him, in the fire-glow, the wolves huddled. It was then that I came to my reason. I could see him fondling them. I could see their gleaming fangs. Yes, I could HEAR their bodies, and he was talking to them and laughing with them through his great beard--and I turned and fled back to the cabin, running so swiftly that even the wolves would have had trouble in catching me. And that--that--WAS NOT ALL!" Again his fingers were clenching and unclenching as he stared at Raine. "You believe me, M'sieu?" Philip nodded. "It seems impossible. And yet--you could not have been dreaming, Pierre." Breault drew a deep breath of satisfaction, and half rose to his feet. "And you will believe me if I tell you the rest?" "Yes." Swiftly Pierre went to his bunk and returned with the caribou skin pouch in which he carried his flint and steel and fire material for the trail. "The next day I went back, M'sieu," he said, seating himself again opposite Philip. "Bram and his wolves were gone. He had slept in a shelter of spruce boughs. And--and--par les mille cornes du diable if he had even brushed the snow out! His great moccasin tracks were all about among the tracks of the wolves, and they were big as the spoor of a monster bear. I searched everywhere for something that he might have left, and I found--at last--a rabbit snare." Pierre Breault's eyes, and not his words--and the curious twisting and interlocking of his long slim fingers about the caribou-skin bag in his hand stirred Philip with the thrill of a tense and mysterious anticipation, and as he waited, uttering no word, Pierre's fingers opened the sack, and he said: "A rabbit snare, M'sieu, which had dropped from his pocket into the snow--" In another moment he had given it into Philip's hands. The oil lamp was hung straight above them. Its light flooded the table between them, and from Philip's lips, as he stared at the snare, there broke a gasp of amazement. Pierre had expected that cry. He had at first been disbelieved; now his face burned with triumph. It seemed, for a space, as if Philip had ceased breathing. He stared--stared--while the light from above him scintillated on the thing he held. It was a snare. There could be no doubt of that. It was almost a yard in length, with the curious Chippewyan loop at one end and the double-knot at the other. The amazing thing about it was that it was made of a woman's golden hair. CHAPTER III The process of mental induction occasionally does not pause to reason its way, but leaps to an immediate and startling finality, which, by reason of its very suddenness, is for a space like the shock of a sudden blow. After that one gasp of amazement Philip made no sound. He spoke no word to Pierre. In a sudden lull of the wind sweeping over the cabin the ticking of his watch was like the beating of a tiny drum. Then, slowly, his eyes rose from the silken thread in his fingers and met Pierre's. Each knew what the other was thinking. If the hair had been black. If it had been brown. Even had it been of the coarse red of the blond Eskimo of the upper Mackenzie! But it was gold--shimmering gold. Still without speaking, Philip drew a knife from his pocket and cut the shining thread above the second knot, and worked at the finely wrought weaving of the silken filaments until a tress of hair, crinkled and waving, lay on the table before them. If he had possessed a doubt, it was gone now. He could not remember where he had ever seen just that colored gold in a woman's hair. Probably he had, at one time or another. It was not red gold. It possessed no coppery shades and lights as it rippled there in the lamp glow. It was flaxen, and like spun silk--so fine that, as he looked at it, he marveled at the patience that had woven it into a snare. Again he looked at Pierre. The same question was in their eyes. "It must be--that Bram has a woman with him," said Pierre. "It must be," said Philip. "Or--" That final word, its voiceless significance, the inflection which Philip gave to it as he gazed at Pierre, stood for the one tremendous question which, for a space, possessed the mind of each. Pierre shrugged his shoulders. He could not answer it. And as he shrugged his shoulders he shivered, and at a sudden blast of the wind against the cabin door he turned quickly, as though he thought the blow might have been struck by a human hand. "Diable!" he cried, recovering himself, his white teeth flashing a smile at Philip. "It has made me nervous--what I saw there in the light of the campfire, M'sieu. Bram, and his wolves, and THAT!" He nodded at the shimmering strands. "You have never seen hair the color of this, Pierre?" "Non. In all my life--not once." "And yet you have seen white women at Fort Churchill, at York Factory, at Lac la Biche, at Cumberland House, and Norway House, and at Fort Albany?" "Ah-h-h, and at many other places, M'sieu. At God's Lake, at Lac Seul, and over on the Mackenzie--and never have I seen hair on a woman like that." "And Bram has never been out of the northland, never farther south than Fort Chippewyan that we know of," said Philip. "It makes one shiver, eh, Pierre? It makes one think of--WHAT? Can't you answer? Isn't it in your mind?" French and Cree were mixed half and half in Pierre's blood. The pupils of his eyes dilated as he met Philip's steady gaze. "It makes one think," he replied uneasily, "of the chasse-galere and the loup-garou, and--and--almost makes one believe. I am not superstitious, M'sieu--non--non--I am not superstitious," he cried still more uneasily. "But many strange things are told about Bram and his wolves;--that he has sold his soul to the devil, and can travel through the air, and that he can change himself into the form of a wolf at will. There are those who have heard him singing the Chanson de Voyageur to the howling of his wolves away up in the sky. I have seen them, and talked with them, and over on the McLeod I saw a whole tribe making incantation because they had seen Bram and his wolves building themselves a conjuror's house in the heart of a thunder-cloud. So--is it strange that he should snare rabbits with, a woman's hair?" "And change black into the color of the sun?" added Philip, falling purposely into the other's humor. "If the rest is true--" Pierre did not finish. He caught himself, swallowing hard, as though a lump had risen in his throat, and for a moment or two Philip saw him fighting with himself, struggling with the age-old superstitions which had flared up for an instant like a powder-flash. His jaws tightened, and he threw back his head. "But those stories are NOT true, M'sieu," he added in a repressed voice. "That is why I showed you the snare. Bram Johnson is not dead. He is alive. And there is a woman with him, or--" "Or--" The same thought was in their eyes again. And again neither gave voice to it. Carefully Philip was gathering up the strands of hair, winding them about his forefinger, and placing them afterward in a leather wallet which he took from his pocket. Then, quite casually, he loaded his pipe and lighted it. He went to the door, opened it, and for a few moments stood listening to the screech of the wind over the Barren. Pierre, still seated at the table, watched him attentively. Philip's mind was made up when he closed the door and faced the half-breed again. "It is three hundred miles from here to Fort Churchill," he said. "Half way, at the lower end of Jesuche Lake, MacVeigh and his patrol have made their headquarters. If I go after Bram, Pierre, I must first make certain of getting a message to MacVeigh, and he will see that it gets to Fort Churchill. Can you leave your foxes and poison-baits and your deadfalls long enough for that?" A moment Pierre hesitated. Then he said: "I will take the message." Until late that night Philip sat up writing his report. He had started out to run down a band of Indian thieves. More important business had crossed his trail, and he explained the whole matter to Superintendent Fitzgerald, commanding "M" Division at Fort Churchill. He told Pierre Breault's story as he had heard it. He gave his reasons for believing it, and that Bram Johnson, three times a murderer, was alive. He asked that another man be sent after the Indians, and explained, as nearly as he could, the direction he would take in his pursuit of Bram. When the report was finished and sealed he had omitted just one thing. Not a word had he written about the rabbit snare woven from a woman's hair. CHAPTER IV The next morning the tail of the storm was still sweeping bitterly over the edge of the Barren, but Philip set out, with Pierre Breault as his guide, for the place where the half-breed had seen Bram Johnson and his wolves in camp. Three days had passed since that exciting night, and when they arrived at the spot where Bram had slept the spruce shelter was half buried in a windrow of the hard, shot like snow that the blizzard had rolled in off the open spaces. From this point Pierre marked off accurately the direction Bram had taken the morning after the hunt, and Philip drew the point of his compass to the now invisible trail. Almost instantly he drew his conclusion. "Bram is keeping to the scrub timber along the edge of the Barren," he said to Pierre. "That is where I shall follow. You might add that much to what I have written to MacVeigh. But about the snare, Pierre Breault, say not a word. Do you understand? If he is a loup-garou man, and weaves golden hairs out of the winds--" "I will say nothing, M'sieu," shuddered Pierre. They shook hands, and parted in silence. Philip set his face to the west, and a few moments later, looking back, he could no longer see Pierre. For an hour after that he was oppressed by the feeling that he was voluntarily taking a desperate chance. For reasons which he had arrived at during the night he had left his dogs and sledge with Pierre, and was traveling light. In his forty-pound pack, fitted snugly to his shoulders, were a three pound silk service-tent that was impervious to the fiercest wind, and an equal weight of cooking utensils. The rest of his burden, outside of his rifle, his Colt's revolver and his ammunition, was made up of rations, so much of which was scientifically compressed into dehydrated and powder form that he carried on his back, in a matter of thirty pounds, food sufficient for a month if he provided his meat on the trail. The chief article in this provision was fifteen pounds of flour; four dozen eggs he carried in one pound of egg powder; twenty-eight pounds of potatoes in four pounds of the dehydrated article; four pounds of onions in a quarter of a pound of the concentration, and so on through the list. He laughed a little grimly as he thought of this concentrated efficiency in the pack on his shoulders. In a curious sort of way it reminded him of other days, and he wondered what some of his old-time friends would say if he could, by some magic endowment, assemble them here for a feast on the trail. He wondered especially what Mignon Davenport would say--and do. P-f-f-f! He could see the blue-blooded horror in her aristocratic face! That wind from over the Barren would curdle the life in her veins. She would shrivel up and die. He considered himself a fairly good judge in the matter, for once upon a time he thought that he was going to marry her. Strange why he should think of her now, he told himself; but for all that he could not get rid of her for a time. And thinking of her, his mind traveled back into the old days, even as he followed over the hidden trail of Bram. Undoubtedly a great many of his old friends had forgotten him. Five years was a long time, and friendship in the set to which he belonged was not famous for its longevity. Nor love, for that matter. Mignon had convinced him of that. He grimaced, and in the teeth of the wind he chuckled. Fate was a playful old chap. It was a good joke he had played on him--first a bit of pneumonia, then a set of bad lungs afflicted with that "galloping" something-or-other that hollows one's cheeks and takes the blood out of one's veins. It was then that the horror had grown larger and larger each day in Mignon's big baby-blue eyes, until she came out with childish frankness and said that it was terribly embarrassing to have one's friends know that one was engaged to a consumptive. Philip laughed as he thought of that. The laugh came so suddenly and so explosively that Bram could have heard it a hundred yards away, even with the wind blowing as it was. A consumptive! Philip doubled up his arm until the hard muscles in it snapped. He drew in a deep lungful of air, and forced it out again with a sound like steam escaping from a valve. The NORTH had done that for him; the north with its wonderful forests, its vast skies, its rivers, and its lakes, and its deep snows--the north that makes a man out of the husk of a man if given half a chance. He loved it. And because he loved it, and the adventure of it, he had joined the Police two years ago. Some day he would go back, just for the fun of it; meet his old friends in his old clubs, and shock baby-eyed Mignon to death with his good health. He dropped these meditations as he thought of the mysterious man he was following. During the course of his two years in the Service he had picked up a great many odds and ends in the history of Bram's life, and in the lives of the Johnsons who had preceded him. He had never told any one how deeply interested he was. He had, at times, made efforts to discuss the quality of Bram's intelligence, but always he had failed to make others see and understand his point of view. By the Indians and half-breeds of the country in which he had lived, Bram was regarded as a monster of the first order possessed of the conjuring powers of the devil himself. By the police he was earnestly desired as the most dangerous murderer at large in all the north, and the lucky man who captured him, dead or alive, was sure of a sergeantcy. Ambition and hope had run high in many valiant hearts until it was generally conceded that Bram was dead. Philip was not thinking of the sergeantcy as he kept steadily along the edge of the Barren. His service would shortly be up, and he had other plans for the future. From the moment his fingers had touched the golden strand of hair he had been filled with a new and curious emotion. It possessed him even more strongly to-day than it had last night. He had not given voice to that emotion, or to the thoughts it had roused, even to Pierre. Perhaps he was ridiculous. But he possessed imagination, and along with that a great deal of sympathy for animals--and some human beings. He had, for the time, ceased to be the cool and calculating man-hunter intent on the possession of another's life. He knew that his duty was to get Bram and take him back to headquarters, and he also knew that he would perform his duty when the opportunity came--unless he had guessed correctly the significance of the golden snare. And had he guessed correctly? There was a tremendous doubt in his mind, and yet he was strangely thrilled. He tried to argue that there were many ways in which Bram might have secured the golden hairs that had gone into the making of his snare; and that the snare itself might long have been carried as a charm against the evils of disease and the devil by the strange creature whose mind and life were undoubtedly directed to a large extent by superstition. In that event it was quite logical that Bram had come into possession of his golden talisman years ago. In spite of himself, Philip could not believe that this was so. At noon, when he built a small fire to make tea and warm his bannock, he took the golden tress from his wallet and examined it even more closely than last night. It might have come from a woman's head only yesterday, so bright and shimmery was it in the pale light of the midday sun. He was amazed at the length and fineness of it, and the splendid texture of each hair. Possibly there were half a hundred hairs, each of an equal and unbroken length. He ate his dinner, and went on. Three days of storm had covered utterly every trace of the trail made by Bram and his wolves. He was convinced, however, that Bram would travel in the scrub timber close to the Barren. He had already made up his mind that this Barren--the Great Barren of the unmapped north--was the great snow sea in which Bram had so long found safety from the law. Beaching five hundred miles east and west, and almost from the Sixtieth degree to the Arctic Ocean, its un-peopled and treeless wastes formed a tramping ground for him as safe as the broad Pacific to the pirates of old. He could not repress a shivering exclamation as his mind dwelt on this world of Bram's. It was worse than the edge of the Arctic, where one might at least have the Eskimo for company. He realized the difficulty of his own quest. His one chance lay in fair weather, and the discovery of an old trail made by Bram and his pack. An old trail would lead to fresher ones. Also he was determined to stick to the edge of the scrub timber, for if the Barren was Bram's retreat he would sooner or later strike a trail--unless Bram had gone straight out into the vast white plain shortly after he had made his camp in the forest near Pierre Breault's cabin. In that event it might be weeks before Bram would return to the scrub timber again. That night the last of the blizzard that had raged for days exhausted itself. For a week clear weather followed. It was intensely cold, but no snow fell. In that week Philip traveled a hundred and twenty miles westward. It was on the eighth night, as he sat near his fire in a thick clump of dwarf spruce, that the thing happened which Pierre Breault, with a fatalism born of superstition, knew would come to pass. And it is curious that on this night, and in the very hour of the strange happening, Philip had with infinite care and a great deal of trouble rewoven the fifty hairs back into the form of the golden snare. CHAPTER V The night was so bright that the spruce trees cast vivid shadows on the snow. Overhead there were a billion stars in a sky as dear as an open sea, and the Great Dipper shone like a constellation of tiny suns. The world did not need a moon. At a distance of three hundred yards Philip could have seen a caribou if it had passed. He sat close to his fire, with the heat of it reflected from the blackened face of a huge rock, finishing the snare which had taken him an hour to weave. For a long time he had been conscious of the curious, hissing monotone of the Aurora, the "music of the skies," reaching out through the space of the earth with a purring sound that was at times like the purr of a cat and at others like the faint hum of a bee. Absorbed in his work he did not, for a time, hear the other sound. Not until he had finished, and was placing the golden snare in his wallet, did the one sound individualize and separate itself from the other. He straightened himself suddenly, and listened. Then he jumped to his feet and ran through fifty feet of low scrub to the edge of the white plain. It was coming from off there, a great distance away. Perhaps a mile. It might be two. The howling of wolves! It was not a new or unusual sound to him. He had listened to it many times during the last two years. But never had it thrilled him as it did now, and he felt the blood leap in sudden swiftness through his body as the sound bore straight in his direction. In a flash he remembered all that Pierre Breault had said. Bram and his pack hunted like that. And it was Bram who was coming. He knew it. He ran back to his tent and in what remained of the heat of the fire he warmed for a few moments the breech of his rifle. Then he smothered the fire by kicking snow over it. Returning to the edge of the plain, he posted himself near the largest spruce he could find, up which it would be possible for him to climb a dozen feet or so if necessity drove him to it. And this necessity bore down upon him like the wind. The pack, whether guided by man or beast, was driving straight at him, and it was less than a quarter of a mile away when Philip drew himself up in the spruce. His breath came quick, and his heart was thumping like a drum, for as he climbed up the slender refuge that was scarcely larger in diameter than his arm he remembered the time when he had hung up a thousand pounds of moose meat on cedars as thick as his leg, and the wolves had come the next night and gnawed them through as if they had been paper. From his unsteady perch ten feet off the ground he stared out into the starlit Barren. Then came the other sound. It was the swift chug, chug, chug of galloping feet--of hoofs breaking through the crust of the snow. A shape loomed up, and Philip knew it was a caribou running for its life. He drew an easier breath as he saw that the animal was fleeing parallel with the projecting finger of scrub in which he had made his camp, and that it would strike the timber a good mile below him. And now, with a still deeper thrill, he noted the silence of the pursuing wolves. It meant but one thing. They were so close on the heels of their prey that they no longer made a sound. Scarcely had the caribou disappeared when Philip saw the first of them--gray, swiftly moving shapes, spread out fan-like as they closed in on two sides for attack, so close that he could hear the patter of their feet and the blood-curdling whines that came from between their gaping jaws. There were at least twenty of them, perhaps thirty, and they were gone with the swiftness of shadows driven by a gale. From his uncomfortable position Philip lowered himself to the snow again. With its three or four hundred yard lead he figured that the caribou would almost reach the timber a mile away before the end came. Concealed in the shadow of the spruce, he waited. He made no effort to analyze the confidence with which he watched for Bram. When he at last heard the curious ZIP--ZIP--ZIP of snowshoes approaching his blood ran no faster than it had in the preceding minutes of his expectation, so sure had he been that the man he was after would soon loom up out of the starlight. In the brief interval after the passing of the wolves he had made up his mind what he would do. Fate had played a trump card into his hand. From the first he had figured that strategy would have much to do in the taking of Bram, who would be practically unassailable when surrounded by the savage horde which, at a word from him, had proved themselves ready to tear his enemies into pieces. Now, with the wolves gorging themselves, his plan was to cut Bram off and make him, a prisoner. From his knees he rose slowly to his feet, still hidden in the shadow of the spruce. His rifle he discarded. In his un-mittened hand he held his revolver. With staring eyes he looked for Bram out where the wolves had passed. And then, all at once, came the shock. It was tremendous. The trickery of sound on the Barren had played an unexpected prank with his senses, and while he strained his eyes to pierce the hazy starlight of the plain far out, Bram himself loomed up suddenly along the edge of the bush not twenty paces away. Philip choked back the cry on his lips, and in that moment Bram stopped short, standing full in the starlight, his great lungs taking in and expelling air with a gasping sound as he listened for his wolves. He was a giant of a man. A monster, Philip thought. It is probable that the elusive glow of the night added to his size as he stood there. About his shoulders fell a mass of unkempt hair that looked like seaweed. His beard was short and thick, and for a flash Philip saw the starlight in his eyes--eyes that were shining like the eyes of a cat. In that same moment he saw the face. It was a terrible, questing face--the face of a creature that was hunting, and yet hunted; of a creature half animal and half man. So long as he lived he knew that he would never forget it; the wild savagery of it, the questing fire that was in the eyes, the loneliness of it there in the night, set apart from all mankind; and with the face he would never forget that other thing that came to him audibly--the throbbing, gasping heartbeat of the man's body. In this moment Philip knew that the time to act was at hand. His fingers gripped tighter about the butt of his revolver as he stepped forward out of the shadow. Bram would have seen him then, but in that same instant he had flung back his head and from his throat there went forth a cry such as Philip had never heard from man or beast before. It began deep in Bram's cavernous chest, like the rolling of a great drum, and ended in a wailing shriek that must have carried for miles over the open plain--the call of the master to his pack, of the man-beast to his brothers. It may be that even before the cry was finished some super-instinct had warned Bram Johnson of a danger which he had not seen. The cry was cut short. It ended in a hissing gasp, as steam is cut off by a valve. Before Philip's startled senses had adjusted themselves to action Bram was off, and as his huge strides carried him swiftly through the starlight the cry that had been on his lips was replaced by the strange, mad laugh that Pierre Breault had described with a shiver of fear. Without moving, Philip called after him: "Bram--Bram Johnson--stop! In the name of the King--" It was the old formula, the words that carried with them the majesty and power of Law throughout the northland. Bram heard them. But he did not stop. He sped on more swiftly, and again Philip called his name. "Bram--Bram Johnson--" The laugh came back again. It was weird and chuckling, as though Bram was laughing at him. In the starlight Philip flung up his revolver. He did not aim to hit. Twice he fired over Bram's head and shoulders, so close that the fugitive must have heard the whine of the bullets. "Bram--Bram Johnson!" he shouted a third time. His pistol arm relaxed and dropped to his side, and he stood staring after the great figure that was now no more than a shadow in the gloom. And then it was swallowed up entirely. Once more he was alone under the stars, encompassed by a world of nothingness. He felt, all at once, that he had been a very great fool. He had played his part like a child; even his voice had trembled as he called out Bram's name. And Bram--even Bram--had laughed at him. Very soon he would pay the price of his stupidity--of his slowness to act. It was thought of that which quickened his pulse as he stared out into the white space into which Bram had gone. Before the night was over Bram would return, and with him would come the wolves. With a shudder Philip thought of Corporal Lee as he turned back through the scrub to the big rock where he had made his camp. The picture that flashed into his mind of the fate of the two men from Churchill added to the painful realization of his own immediate peril--a danger brought upon himself by an almost inconceivable stupidity. Philip was no more than the average human with good red blood in his veins. A certain amount of personal hazard held a fascination for him, but he had also the very great human desire to hold a fairly decent hand in any game of chance he entered. It was the oppressive conviction that he had no chance now that stunned him. For a few minutes he stood over the spot where his fire had been, a film of steam rising into his face, trying to adjust his mind to some sort of logical action. He was not afraid of Bram. He would quite cheerfully have gone out and fought open-handedly for his man, even though he had seen that Bram was a giant. This, much he told himself, as he fingered the breech of his rifle, and listened. But it was not Bram who would fight. The wolves would come. He probably would not see Bram again. He would hear only his laugh, or his great voice urging on his pack, as Corporal Lee and the other man had heard it. That Bram would not return for vengeance never for a moment entered his analysis of the situation. By firing after his man Philip had too clearly disclosed his identity and his business; and Bram, fighting for his own existence, would be a fool not to rid himself of an immediate and dangerous enemy. And then, for the first time since he had returned from the edge of the Barren, Philip saw the man again as he had seen him standing under the white glow of the stars. And it struck him, all at once, that Bram had been unarmed. Comprehension of this fact, slow as it had been, worked a swift and sudden hope in him, and his eyes took in quickly the larger trees about him. From a tree he could fight the pack and kill them one by one. He had a rifle and a revolver, and plenty of ammunition. The advantage would lay all with him. But if he was treed, and Bram happened to have a rifle-- He put on the heavy coat he had thrown off near the fire, filled his pockets with loose ammunition, and hunted for the tree he wanted. He found it a hundred yards from his camp. It was a gnarled and wind-blown spruce six inches in diameter, standing in an open. In this open Philip knew that he could play havoc with the pack. On the other hand, if Bram possessed a rifle, the gamble was against him. Perched in the tree, silhouetted against the stars that made the night like day, he would be an easy victim. Bram could pick him off without showing himself. But it was his one chance, and he took it. CHAPTER VI An hour later Philip looked at his watch. It was close to midnight. In that hour his nerves had been keyed to a tension that was almost at the breaking point. Not a sound came from off the Barren or from out of the scrub timber that did not hold a mental and physical shock for him. He believed that Bram and his pack would come up quietly; that he would not hear the man's footsteps or the soft pads of his beasts until they were very near. Twice a great snow owl fluttered over his head. A third time it pounced down upon a white hare back in the shrub, and for an instant Philip thought the time had come. The little white foxes, curious as children, startled him most. Half a dozen times they sent through him the sharp thrill of anticipation, and twice they made him climb his tree. After that hour the reaction came, and with the steadying of his nerves and the quieter pulse of his blood Philip began to ask himself if he was going to escape the ordeal which a short time before he had accepted as a certainty. Was it possible that his shots had frightened Bram? He could not believe that. Cowardice was the last thing he would associate with the strange man he had seen in the starlight. Vividly he saw Bram's face again. And now, after the almost unbearable strain he had been under, a mysterious SOMETHING that had been in that face impinged itself upon him above all other things. Wild and savage as the face had been, he had seen in it the unutterable pathos of a creature without hope. In that moment, even as caution held him listening for the approach of danger, he no longer felt the quickening thrill of man on the hunt for man. He could not have explained the change in himself--the swift reaction of thought and emotion that filled him with a mastering sympathy for Bram Johnson. He waited, and less and less grew his fear of the wolves. Even more clearly he saw Bram as the time passed; the hunted look in the man's eyes, even as he hunted--the loneliness of him as he had stood listening for a sound from the only friends he had--the padded beasts ahead. In spite of Bram's shrieking cry to his pack, and the strangeness of the laugh that had floated back out of the white night after the shots, Philip was convinced that he was not mad. He had heard of men whom loneliness had killed. He had known one--Pelletier, up at Point Fullerton, on the Arctic. He could repeat by heart the diary Pelletier had left scribbled on his cabin door. It was worse than madness. To Pelletier death had come at last as a friend. And Bram had been like that--dead to human comradeship for years. And yet-- Under it all, in Philip's mind, ran the thought of the woman's hair. In Pierre Breault's cabin he had not given voice to the suspicion that had flashed upon him. He had kept it to himself, and Pierre, afraid to speak because of the horror of it, had remained as silent as he. The thought oppressed him now. He knew that human hair retained its life and its gloss indefinitely, and that Bram might have had the golden snare for years. It was quite reasonable to suppose that he had bartered for it with some white man in the years before he had become an outlaw, and that some curious fancy or superstition had inspired him in its possession. But Philip had ceased to be influenced by reason alone. Sharply opposed to reason was that consciousness within him which told him that the hair had been freshly cut from a woman's head. He had no argument with which to drive home the logic of this belief even with himself, and yet he found it impossible not to accept that belief fully and unequivocally. There was, or HAD been, a woman with Bram--and as he thought of the length and beauty and rare texture of the silken strand in his pocket he could not repress a shudder at the possibilities the situation involved. Bram--and a woman! And a woman with hair like that! He left his tree after a time. For another hour he paced slowly back and forth at the edge of the Barren, his senses still keyed to the highest point of caution. Then he rebuilt his fire, pausing every few moments in the operation to listen for a suspicious sound. It was very cold. He noticed, after a little, that the weird sound of the lights over the Pole had become only a ghostly whisper. The stars were growing dimmer, and he watched them as they seemed slowly to recede farther and farther away from the world of which he was a part. This dying out of the stars always interested him. It was one of the miracles of the northern world that lay just under the long Arctic night which, a few hundred miles beyond the Barren, was now at its meridian. It seemed to him as though ten thousand invisible hands were sweeping under the heavens extinguishing the lights first in ones and twos and then in whole constellations. It preceded by perhaps half an hour the utter and chaotic blackness that comes before the northern dawn, and it was this darkness that Philip dreaded as he waited beside his fire. In the impenetrable gloom of that hour Bram might come. It was possible that he had been waiting for that darkness. Philip looked at his watch. It was four o'clock. Once more he went to his tree, and waited. In another quarter of an hour he could not see the tree beside which he stood. And Bram did not come. With the beginning of the gray dawn Philip rebuilt his fire for the third time and prepared to cook his breakfast. He felt the need of coffee--strong coffee--and he boiled himself a double ration. At seven o'clock he was ready to take up the trail. He believed now that some mysterious and potent force had restrained Bram Johnson from taking advantage of the splendid opportunity of that night to rid himself of an enemy. As he made his way through the scrub timber along the edge of the Barren it was with the feeling that he no longer desired Bram as a prisoner. A thing more interesting than Bram had entered into the adventure. It was the golden snare. Not with Bram himself, but only at the end of Bram's trail, would he find what the golden snare stood for. There he would discover the mystery and the tragedy of it, if it meant anything at all. He appreciated the extreme hazard of following Bram to his long hidden retreat. The man he might outwit in pursuit and overcome in fair fight, if it came to a fight, but against the pack he was fighting tremendous odds. What this odds meant had not fully gripped him until he came cautiously out of the timber half an hour later and saw what was left of the caribou the pack had killed. The bull had fallen within fifty yards of the edge of the scrub. For a radius of twenty feet about it the snow was beaten hard by the footprints of beasts, and this arena was stained red with blood and scattered thickly with bits of flesh, broken bones and patches of hide. Philip could see where Bram had come in on the run, and where he had kicked off his snowshoes. After that his great moccasin tracks mingled with those of the wolves. Bram had evidently come in time to save the hind quarters, which had been dragged to a spot well out of the red ring of slaughter. After that the stars must have looked down upon an amazing scene. The hungry horde had left scarcely more than the disemboweled offal. Where Bram had dragged his meat there was a small circle worn by moccasin tracks, and here, too, were small bits of flesh, scattered about--the discarded remnants of Bram's own feast. The snow told as clearly as a printed page what had happened after that. Its story amazed Philip. From somewhere Bram had produced a sledge, and on this sledge he had loaded what remained of the caribou meat. From the marks in the snow Philip saw that it had been of the low ootapanask type, but that it was longer and broader than any sledge he had ever seen. He did not have to guess at what had happened. Everything was too clear for that. Far back on the Barren Bram had loosed his pack at sight of the caribou, and the pursuit and kill had followed. After that, when beasts and man had gorged themselves, they had returned through the night for the sledge. Bram had made a wide detour so that he would not again pass near the finger of scrub timber that concealed his enemy, and with a curious quickening of the blood in his veins Philip observed how closely the pack hung at his heels. The man was master--absolutely. Later they had returned with the sledge, Bram had loaded his meat, and with his pack had struck out straight north over the Barren. Every wolf was in harness, and Bram rode on the sledge. Philip drew a deep breath. He was learning new things about Bram Johnson. First he assured himself that Bram was not afraid, and that his disappearance could not be called a flight. If fear of capture had possessed him he would not have returned for his meat. Suddenly he recalled Pierre Breault's story of how Bram had carried off the haunches of a bull upon his shoulders as easily as a child might have carried a toy gun, and he wondered why Bram--instead of returning for the meat this night--had not carried the meat to his sledge. It would have saved time and distance. He was beginning to give Bram credit for a deeply mysterious strategy. There was some definite reason why he had not made an attack with his wolves that night. There was a reason for the wide detour around the point of timber, and there was a still more inexplicable reason why he had come back with his sledge for the meat, instead of carrying his meat to the sledge. The caribou haunch had not weighed more than sixty or seventy pounds, which was scarcely half a burden for Bram's powerful shoulders. In the edge of the timber, where he could secure wood for his fire, Philip began to prepare. He cooked food for six days. Three days he would follow Bram out into that unmapped and treeless space--the Great Barren. Beyond that it would be impossible to go without dogs or sledge. Three days out, and three days back--and even at that he would be playing a thrilling game with death. In the heart of the Barren a menace greater than Bram and his wolves would be impending. It was storm. His heart sank a little as he set out straight north, marking the direction by the point of his compass. It was a gray and sunless day. Beyond him for a distance the Barren was a white plain, and this plain seemed always to be merging not very far ahead into the purple haze of the sky. At the end of an hour he was in the center of a vast amphitheater which was filled with the gloom and the stillness of death. Behind him the thin fringe of the forest had disappeared. The rim of the sky was like a leaden thing, widening only as he advanced. Under that sky, and imprisoned within its circular walls, he knew that men had gone mad; he felt already the crushing oppression of an appalling loneliness, and for another hour he fought an almost irresistible desire to turn back. Not a rock or a shrub rose to break the monotony, and over his head--so low that at times it seemed as though he might have flung a stone up to them--dark clouds rolled sullenly from out of the north and east. Half a dozen times in those first two hours he looked at his compass. Not once in that time did Bram diverge from his steady course into the north. In the gray gloom, without a stone or a tree to mark his way, his sense of orientation was directing him as infallibly as the sensitive needle of the instrument which Philip carried. It was in the third hour, seven or eight miles from the scene of slaughter, that Philip came upon the first stopping place of the sledge. The wolves had not broken their traveling rank, and for this reason he guessed that Bram had paused only long enough to put on his snowshoes. After this Philip could measure quite accurately the speed of the outlaw and his pack. Bram's snow-shoe strides were from twelve to sixteen inches longer than his own, and there was little doubt that Bram was traveling six miles to his four. It was one o'clock when Philip stopped to eat his dinner. He figured that he was fifteen miles from the timber-line. As he ate there pressed upon him more and more persistently the feeling that he had entered upon an adventure which was leading toward inevitable disaster for him. For the first time the significance of Bram's supply of meat, secured by the outlaw at the last moment before starting out into the Barren, appeared to him with a clearness that filled him with uneasiness. It meant that Bram required three or four days' rations for himself and his pack in crossing this sea of desolation that reached in places to the Arctic. In that time, if necessity was driving him, he could cover a hundred and fifty miles, while Philip could make less than a hundred. Until three o'clock in the afternoon he followed steadily over Bram's trail. He would have pursued for another hour if a huge and dome-shaped snowdrift had not risen in his path. In the big drift he decided to make his house for the night. It was an easy matter--a trick learned of the Eskimo. With his belt-ax he broke through the thick crust of the drift, using care that the "door" he thus opened into it was only large enough for the entrance of his body. Using a snowshoe as a shovel he then began digging out the soft interior of the drift, burrowing a two foot tunnel until he was well back from the door, where he made himself a chamber large enough for his sleeping-bag. The task employed him less than an hour, and when his bed was made, and he stood in front of the door to his igloo, his spirits began to return. The assurance that he had a home at his back in which neither cold nor storm could reach him inspirited him with an optimism which he had not felt at any time during the day. From the timber he had borne a precious bundle of finely split kindlings of pitch-filled spruce, and with a handful of these he built himself a tiny fire over which, on a longer stick brought for the purpose, he suspended his tea pail, packed with snow. The crackling of the flames set him whistling. Darkness was falling swiftly about him. By the time his tea was ready and he had warmed his cold bannock and bacon the gloom was like a black curtain that he might have slit with a knife. Not a star was visible in the sky. Twenty feet on either side of him he could not see the surface of the snow. Now and then he added a bit of his kindling to the dying embers, and in the glow of the last stick he smoked his pipe, and as he smoked he drew from his wallet the golden snare. Coiled in the hollow of his hand and catching the red light of the pitch-laden fagot it shone with the rich luster of rare metal. Not until the pitch was burning itself out in a final sputter of flame did Philip replace it in the wallet. With the going of the fire an utter and chaotic blackness shut him in. Feeling his way he crawled through the door of his tunnel, over the inside of which he had fastened as a flap his silk service tent. Then he stretched himself out in his sleeping-bag. It was surprisingly comfortable. Since he had left Breault's cabin he had not enjoyed such a bed. And last night he had not slept at all. He fell into deep sleep. The hours and the night passed over him. He did not hear the wailing of the wind that came with the dawn. When day followed dawn there were other sounds which he did not hear. His inner consciousness, the guardian of his sleep, cried for him to arouse himself. It pounded like a little hand in his brain, and at last he began to move restlessly, and twist in his sleeping-bag. His eyes shot open suddenly. The light of day filled his tunnel. He looked toward the "door" which he had covered with his tent. The tent was gone. In its place was framed a huge shaggy head, and Philip found himself staring straight into the eyes of Bram Johnson. CHAPTER VII Philip was not unaccustomed to the occasional mental and physical shock which is an inevitable accompaniment of the business of Law in the northland. But never had he felt quite the same stir in his blood as now--when he found himself looking down the short tunnel into the face of the man he was hunting. There come now and then moments in which a curious understanding is impinged upon one without loss of time in reason and surmise--and this was one of those moments for Philip. His first thought as he saw the great wild face in the door of his tunnel was that Bram had been looking at him for some time--while he was asleep; and that if the desire to kill had been in the outlaw's breast he might have achieved his purpose with very little trouble. Equally swift was his observance of the fact that the tent with which he had covered the aperture was gone, and that his rifle, with the weight of which he had held the tent in place, had disappeared. Bram had secured possession of them before he had roused himself. It was not the loss of these things, or entirely Bram's sudden and unexpected appearance, that sent through him the odd thrill, which he experienced. It was Bram's face, his eyes, the tense and mysterious earnestness that was in his gaze. It was not the watchfulness of a victor looking at his victim. In it there was no sign of hatred or of exultation. There was not even unfriendliness there. Rather it was the study of one filled with doubt and uneasiness, and confronted by a question which he could not answer. There was not a line of the face which Philip could not see now--its high cheek-bones, its wide cheeks, the low forehead, the flat nose, the thick lips. Only the eyes kept it from being a terrible face. Straight down through the generations Bram must have inherited those eyes from some woman of the past. They were strange things in that wild and hunted creature's face--gray eyes, large, beautiful. With the face taken away they would have been wonderful. For a full minute not a sound passed between the two men. Philip's hand had slipped to the butt of his revolver, but he had no intention of using it. Then he found his voice. It seemed the most natural thing in the world that he should say what he did. "Hello, Bram!" "Boo-joo, m'sieu!" Only Bram's thick lips moved. His voice was low and guttural. Almost instantly his head disappeared from the opening. Philip dug himself quickly from his sleeping-bag. Through the aperture there came to him now another sound, the yearning whine of beasts. He could not hear Bram. In spite of the confidence which his first look at Bram had given him he felt a sudden shiver run up his spine as he faced the end of the tunnel on his hands and knees, his revolver in his hand. What a rat in a trap he would be if Bram loosed his wolves! What sport for the pack--and perhaps for the master himself! He could kill two or three--and that would be all. They would be in on him like a whirlwind, diving through his snow walls as easily as a swimmer might cut through water. Had he twice made a fool of himself? Should he have winged Bram Johnson, three times a murderer, in place of offering him a greeting? He began crawling toward the opening, and again he heard the snarl and whine of the beasts. The sound seemed some distance away. He reached the end of the tunnel and peered out through the "door" he had made in the crust. From his position he could see nothing--nothing but the endless sweep of the Barren and his old trail leading up to the snow dune. The muzzle of his revolver was at the aperture when he heard Bram's voice. "M'sieu--ze revolv'--ze knife--or I mus' keel yon. Ze wolve plent' hungr'--" Bram was standing just outside of his line of vision. He had not spoken loudly or threateningly, but Philip felt in the words a cold and unexcited deadliness of purpose against which he knew that it would be madness for him to fight. Bram had more than the bad man's ordinary drop on him. In his wolves he possessed not only an advantage but a certainty. If Philip had doubted this, as he waited for another moment with the muzzle of his revolver close to the opening, his uncertainty was swept away by the appearance thirty feet in front of his tunnel of three of Bram's wolves. They were giants of their kind, and as the three faced his refuge he could see the snarling gleam of their long fangs. A fourth and a fifth joined them, and after that they came within his vision in twos and threes until a score of them were huddled straight in front of him. They were restless and whining, and the snap of their jaws was like the clicking of castanets. He caught the glare of twenty pairs of eyes fastened on his retreat and involuntarily he shrank back that they might not see him. He knew that it was Bram who was holding them back, and yet he had heard no word, no command. Even as he stared a long snakelike shadow uncurled itself swiftly in the air and the twenty foot lash of Bram's caribou-gut whip cracked viciously over the heads of the pack. At the warning of the whip the horde of beasts scattered, and Bram's voice came again. "M'sieu--ze revolv'--ze knife--or I loose ze wolve--" The words were scarcely out of his mouth when Philip's revolver flew through the opening and dropped in the snow. "There it is, old man," announced Philip. "And here comes the knife." His sheath-knife followed the revolver. "Shall I throw out my bed?" he asked. He was making a tremendous effort to appear cheerful. But he could not forget that last night he had shot at Bram, and that it was not at all unreasonable to suppose that Bram might knock his brains out when he stuck his head out of the hole. The fact that Bram made no answer to his question about the bed did not add to his assurance. He repeated the question, louder than before, and still there was no answer. In the face of his perplexity he could not repress a grim chuckle as he rolled up his blankets. What a report he would have for the Department--if he lived to make it! On paper there would be a good deal of comedy about it--this burrowing oneself up like a hibernating woodchuck, and then being invited out to breakfast by a man with a club and a pack of brutes with fangs that had gleamed at him like ivory stilettos. He had guessed at the club, and a moment later as he thrust his sleeping-bag out through the opening he saw that it was quite obviously a correct one. Bram was possessing himself of the revolver and the knife. In the same hand he held his whip and a club. Seizing the opportunity, Philip followed his bed quickly, and when Bram faced him he was standing on his feet outside the drift. "Morning, Bram!" His greeting was drowned in a chorus of fierce snarls that made his blood curdle even as he tried to hide from Bram any visible betrayal of the fact that every nerve up and down his spine was pricking him, like a pin. From Bram's throat there shot forth at the pack a sudden sharp clack of Eskimo, and with it the long whip snapped in their faces again. Then he looked steadily at his prisoner. For the first time Philip saw the look which he dreaded darkening his face. A greenish fire burned in the strange eyes. The thick lips were set tightly, the flat nose seemed flatter, and with a shiver Philip noticed Bram's huge, naked hand gripping his club until the cords stood out like babiche thongs under the skin. In that moment he was ready to kill. A wrong word, a wrong act, and Philip knew that the end was inevitable. In the same thick guttural voice which he used in his half-breed patois he demanded, "Why you shoot--las' night!" "Because I wanted to talk with you, Bram," replied Philip calmly. "I didn't shoot to hit you. I fired over your head." "You want--talk," said Bram, speaking as if each word cost him a certain amount of effort. "Why--talk?" "I wanted to ask you why it was that you killed a man down in the God's Lake country." The words were out before Philip could stop them. A growl rose in Bram's chest. It was like the growl of a beast. The greenish fire in his eyes grew brighter. "Ze poleece," he said. "KA, ze poleece--like kam from Churchill an' ze wolve keel!" Philip's hand was fumbling in his pocket. The wolves were behind him and he dared not turn to look. It was their ominous silence that filled him with dread. They were waiting--watching--their animal instinct telling them that the command for which they yearned was already trembling on the thick lips of their master. The revolver and the knife dropped from Bram's hand. He held only the whip and the club. Philip drew forth the wallet. "You lost something--when you camped that night near Pierre Breault's cabin," he said, and his own voice seemed strange and thick to him. "I've followed you--to give it back. I could have killed you if I had wanted to--when I fired over your head. But I wanted to stop you. I wanted to give you--this." He held out to Bram the golden snare. CHAPTER VIII It must have been fully half a minute that Bram stood like a living creature turned suddenly into dead stone. His eyes had left Philip's face and were fixed on the woven tress of shining hair. For the first time his thick lips had fallen agape. He did not seem to breathe. At the end of the thirty seconds his hand unclenched from about the whip and the club and they fell into the snow. Slowly, his eyes still fixed on the snare as if it held for him an overpowering fascination, he advanced a step, and then another, until he reached out and took from Philip the thing which he held. He uttered no word. But from his eyes there disappeared the greenish fire. The lines in his heavy face softened and his thick lips lost some of their cruelty as he held up the snare before his eyes so that the light played on its sheen of gold. It was then that Philip saw that which must have meant a smile in Bram's face. Still this strange man made no spoken sound as he coiled the silken thread around one of his great fingers and then placed it somewhere inside his coat. He seemed, all at once, utterly oblivious of Philip's presence. He picked up the revolver, gazed heavily at it for a moment, and with a grunt which must have reflected his mental decision hurled it far out over the plain. Instantly the wolves were after it in a mad rush. The knife followed the revolver; and after that, as coolly as though breaking firewood, the giant went to Philip's rifle, braced it across his knee, and with a single effort snapped the stock off close to the barrel. "The devil!" growled Philip. He felt a surge of anger rise in him, and for an instant the inclination to fling himself at Bram in the defense of his property. If he had been helpless a few minutes before, he was utterly so now. In the same breath it flashed upon him that Bram's activity in the destruction of his weapons meant that his life was spared, at least for the present. Otherwise Bram would not be taking these precautions. The futility of speech kept his own lips closed. At last Bram looked at him, and pointed to his snowshoes where he had placed them last night against the snow dune. His invitation for Philip to prepare himself for travel was accompanied by nothing more than a grunt. The wolves were returning, sneaking in watchfully and alert. Bram greeted them with the snap of his whip, and when Philip was ready motioned him to lead the way into the north. Half a dozen paces behind Philip followed Bram, and twice that distance behind the outlaw came the pack. Now that his senses were readjusting themselves and his pulse beating more evenly Philip began to take stock of the situation. It was, first of all, quite evident that Bram had not accepted him as a traveling companion, but as a prisoner; and he was equally convinced that the golden snare had at the last moment served in some mysterious way to save his life. It was not long before he saw how Bram had out-generaled him. Two miles beyond the big drift they came upon the outlaw's huge sledge, from which Bram and his wolves had made a wide circle in order to stalk him from behind. The fact puzzled him. Evidently Bram had expected his unknown enemy to pursue him, and had employed his strategy accordingly. Why, then, had he not attacked him the night of the caribou kill? He watched Bram as he got the pack into harness. The wolves obeyed him like dogs. He could perceive among them a strange comradeship, even an affection, for the man-monster who was their master. Bram spoke to them entirely in Eskimo--and the sound of it was like the rapid CLACK--CLACK--CLACK of dry bones striking together. It was weirdly different from the thick and guttural tones Bram used in speaking Chippewyan and the half-breed patois. Again Philip made an effort to induce Bram to break his oppressive silence. With a suggestive gesture and a hunch of his shoulders he nodded toward the pack, just as they were about to start. "If you thought I tried to kill you night before last why didn't you set your wolves after me, Bram--as you did those other two over on the Barren north of Kasba Lake? Why did you wait until this morning? And where--WHERE in God's name are we going?" Bram stretched out an arm. "There!" It was the one question he answered, and he pointed straight as the needle of a compass into the north. And then, as if his crude sense of humor had been touched by the other thing Philip had asked, he burst into a laugh. It made one shudder to see laughter in a face like Bram's. It transformed his countenance from mere ugliness into one of the leering gargoyles carven under the cornices of ancient buildings. It was this laugh, heard almost at Bram's elbow, that made Philip suddenly grip hard at a new understanding--the laugh and the look in Bram's eyes. It set him throbbing, and filled him all at once with the desire to seize his companion by his great shoulders and shake speech from his thick lips. In that moment, even before the laughter had gone from Bram's face, he thought again of Pelletier. Pelletier must have been like this--in those terrible days when he scribbled the random thoughts of a half-mad man on his cabin door. Bram was not yet mad. And yet he was fighting the thing that had killed Pelletier. Loneliness. The fate forced upon him by the law because he had killed a man. His face was again heavy and unemotional when with a gesture he made Philip understand that he was to ride on the sledge. Bram himself went to the head of the pack. At the sharp clack of his Eskimo the wolves strained in their traces. Another moment and they were off, with Bram in the lead. Philip was amazed at the pace set by the master of the pack. With head and shoulders hunched low he set off in huge swinging strides that kept the team on a steady trot behind him. They must have traveled eight miles an hour. For a few minutes Philip could not keep his eyes from Bram and the gray backs of the wolves. They fascinated him, and at the same time the sight of them--straining on ahead of him into a voiceless and empty world--filled him with a strange and overwhelming compassion. He saw in them the brotherhood of man and beast. It was splendid. It was epic. And to this the Law had driven them! His eyes began to take in the sledge then. On it was a roll of bear skins--Bram's blankets. One was the skin of a polar bear. Near these skins were the haunches of caribou meat, and so close to him that he might have reached out and touched it was Bram's club. At the side of the club lay a rifle. It was of the old breech-loading, single-shot type, and Philip wondered why Bram had destroyed his own modern weapon instead of keeping it in place of this ancient Company relic. It also made him think of night before last, when he had chosen for his refuge a tree out in the starlight. The club, even more than the rifle, bore marks of use. It was of birch, and three feet in length. Where Bram's hand gripped it the wood was worn as smooth and dark as mahogany. In many places the striking end of the club was dented as though it had suffered the impact of tremendous blows, and it was discolored by suggestive stains. There was no sign of cooking utensils and no evidence of any other food but the caribou flesh. On the rear of the sledge was a huge bundle of pitch-soaked spruce tied with babiche, and out of this stuck the crude handle of an ax. Of these things the gun and the white bear skin impressed Philip most. He had only to lean forward a little to reach the rifle, and the thought that he could scarcely miss the broad back of the man ahead of him struck him all at once with a sort of mental shock. Bram had evidently forgotten the weapon, or was utterly confident in the protection of the pack. Or--had he faith in his prisoner? It was this last question that Philip would liked to have answered in the affirmative. He had no desire to harm Bram. He had even a less desire to escape him. He had forgotten, so far as his personal intentions were concerned, that he was an agent of the Law--under oath to bring in to Divisional Headquarters Bram's body dead or alive. Since night before last Bram had ceased to be a criminal for him. He was like Pelletier, and through him he was entering upon a strange adventure which held for him already the thrill and suspense of an anticipation which he had never experienced in the game of man-hunting. Had the golden snare been taken from the equation--had he not felt the thrill of it in his fingers and looked upon the warm fires of it as it lay unbound on Pierre Breault's table, his present relation with Bram Johnson he would have considered as a purely physical condition, and he might then have accepted the presence of the rifle there within his reach as a direct invitation from Providence. As it was, he knew that the master of the wolves was speeding swiftly to the source of the golden snare. From the moment he had seen the strange transformation it had worked in Bram that belief within him had become positive. And now, as his eyes turned from the inspection of the sledge to Bram and his wolves, he wondered where the trail was taking him. Was it possible that Bram was striking straight north for Coronation Gulf and the Eskimo? He had noted that the polar bear skin was only slightly worn--that it had not long been taken from the back of the animal that had worn it. He recalled what he could remember of his geography. Their course, if continued in the direction Bram was now heading, would take them east of the Great Slave and the Great Bear, and they would hit the Arctic somewhere between Melville Sound and the Coppermine River. It was a good five hundred miles to the Eskimo settlements there. Bram and his wolves could make it in ten days, possibly in eight. If his guess was correct, and Coronation Gulf was Bram's goal, he had found at least one possible explanation for the tress of golden hair. The girl or woman to whom it had belonged had come into the north aboard a whaling ship. Probably she was the daughter or the wife of the master. The ship had been lost in the ice--she had been saved by the Eskimo--and she was among them now, with other white men. Philip pictured it all vividly. It was unpleasant--horrible. The theory of other white men being with her he was conscious of forcing upon himself to offset the more reasonable supposition that, as in the case of the golden snare, she belonged to Bram. He tried to free himself of that thought, but it clung to him with a tenaciousness that oppressed him with a grim and ugly foreboding. What a monstrous fate for a woman! He shivered. For a few moments every instinct in his body fought to assure him that such a thing could not happen. And yet he knew that it COULD happen. A woman up there--with Bram! A woman with hair like spun gold--and that giant half-mad enormity of a man! He clenched his hands at the picture his excited brain was painting for him. He wanted to jump from the sledge, overtake Bram, and demand the truth from him. He was calm enough to realize the absurdity of such action. Upon his own strategy depended now whatever answer he might make to the message chance had sent to him through the golden snare. For an hour he marked Bram's course by his compass. It was straight north. Then Bram changed the manner of his progress by riding in a standing position behind Philip. With his long whip he urged on the pack until they were galloping over the frozen level of the plain at a speed that must have exceeded ten miles an hour. A dozen times Philip made efforts at conversation. Not a word did he get from Bram in reply. Again and again the outlaw shouted to his wolves in Eskimo; he cracked his whip, he flung his great arms over his head, and twice there rolled out of his chest deep peals of strange laughter. They had been traveling more than two hours when he gave voice to a sudden command that stopped the pack, and at a second command--a staccato of shrill Eskimo accompanied by the lash of his whip--the panting wolves sank upon their bellies in the snow. Philip jumped from the sledge, and Bram went immediately to the gun. He did not touch it, but dropped on his knees and examined it closely. Then he rose to his feet and looked at Philip, and there was no sign of madness in his heavy face as he said, "You no touch ze gun, m'sieu. Why you no shoot when I am there--at head of pack?" The calmness and directness with which Bram put the question after his long and unaccountable silence surprised Philip. "For the same reason you didn't kill me when I was asleep, I guess," he said. Suddenly he reached out and caught Bram's arm. "Why the devil don't you come across!" he demanded. "Why don't you talk? I'm not after you--now. The Police think you are dead, and I don't believe I'd tip them off even if I had a chance. Why not be human? Where are we going? And what in thunder--" He did not finish. To his amazement Bram flung back his head, opened his great mouth, and laughed. It was not a taunting laugh. There was no humor in it. The thing seemed beyond the control of even Bram himself, and Philip stood like one paralyzed as his companion turned quickly to the sledge and returned in a moment with the gun. Under Philip's eyes he opened the breech. The chamber was empty. Bram had placed in his way a temptation--to test him! There was saneness in that stratagem--and yet as Philip looked at the man now his last doubt was gone. Bram Johnson was hovering on the borderland of madness. Replacing the gun on the sledge, Bram began hacking off chunks of the caribou flesh with a big knife. Evidently he had decided that it was time for himself and his pack to breakfast. To each of the wolves he gave a portion, after which he seated himself on the sledge and began devouring a slice of the raw meat. He had left the blade of his knife buried in the carcass--an invitation for Philip to help himself. Philip seated himself near Bram and opened his pack. Purposely he began placing his food between them, so that the other might help himself if he so desired. Bram's jaws ceased their crunching. For a moment Philip did not look up. When he did he was startled. Bram's eyes were blazing with a red fire. He was staring at the cooked food. Never had Philip seen such a look in a human face before. He reached out and seized a chunk of bannock, and was about to bite into it when with the snarl of a wild beast Bram dropped his meat and was at him. Before Philip could raise an arm in defense his enemy had him by the throat. Back over the sledge they went. Philip scarcely knew how it happened--but in another moment the giant had hurled him clean over his head and he struck the frozen plain with a shock that stunned him. When he staggered to his feet, expecting a final assault that would end him, Bram was kneeling beside his pack. A mumbling and incoherent jargon of sound issued from his thick lips as he took stock of Philip's supplies. Of Philip himself he seemed now utterly oblivious. Still mumbling, he dragged the pile of bear skins from the sledge, unrolled them, and revealed a worn and tattered dunnage bag. At first Philip thought this bag was empty. Then Bram drew from it a few small packages, some of them done up in paper and others in bark. Only one of these did Philip recognize--a half pound package of tea such as the Hudson's Bay Company offers in barter at its stores. Into the dunnage bag Bram now put Philip's supplies, even to the last crumb of bannock, and then returned the articles he had taken out, after which he rolled the bag up in the bear skins and replaced the skins on the sledge. After that, still mumbling, and still paying no attention to Philip, he reseated himself on the edge of the sledge and finished his breakfast of raw meat. "The poor devil!" mumbled Philip. The words were out of his mouth before he realized that he had spoken them. He was still a little dazed by the shock of Bram's assault, but it was impossible for him to bear malice or thought of vengeance. In Bram's face, as he had covetously piled up the different articles of food, he had seen the terrible glare of starvation--and yet he had not eaten a mouthful. He had stored the food away, and Philip knew it was as much as his life was worth to contend its ownership. Again Bram seemed to be unconscious of his presence, but when Philip went to the meat and began carving himself off a slice the wolf-man's eyes shot in his direction just once. Purposely he stood in front of Bram as he ate the raw steak, feigning a greater relish than he actually enjoyed in consuming his uncooked meal. Bram did not wait for him to finish. No sooner had he swallowed the last of his own breakfast than he was on his feet giving sharp commands to the pack. Instantly the wolves were alert in their traces. Philip took his former position on the sledge, with Bram behind him. Never in all the years afterward did he forget that day. As the hours passed it seemed to him that neither man nor beast could very long stand the strain endured by Bram and his wolves. At times Bram rode on the sledge for short distances, but for the most part he was running behind, or at the head of the pack. For the pack there was no rest. Hour after hour it surged steadily onward over the endless plain, and whenever the wolves sagged for a moment in their traces Brain's whip snapped over their gray backs and his voice rang out in fierce exhortation. So hard was the frozen crust of the Barren that snowshoes were no longer necessary, and half a dozen times Philip left the sledge and ran with the wolf-man and his pack until he was winded. Twice he ran shoulder to shoulder with Bram. It was in the middle of the afternoon that his compass told him they were no longer traveling north--but almost due west. Every quarter of an hour after that he looked at his compass. And always the course was west. He was convinced that some unusual excitement was urging Bram on, and he was equally certain this excitement had taken possession of him from the moment he had found the food in his pack. Again and again he heard the strange giant mumbling incoherently to himself, but not once did Bram utter a word that he could understand. The gray world about them was darkening when at last they stopped. And now, strangely as before, Bram seemed for a few moments to turn into a sane man. He pointed to the bundle of fuel, and as casually as though he had been conversing with him all the day he said to Philip: "A fire, m'sieu." The wolves had dropped in their traces, their great shaggy heads stretched out between their paws in utter exhaustion, and Bram went slowly down the line speaking to each one in turn. After that he fell again into his stolid silence. From the bear skins he produced a kettle, filled it with snow, and hung it over the pile of fagots to which Philip was touching a match. Philip's tea pail he employed in the same way. "How far have we come, Bram?" Philip asked. "Fift' mile, m'sieu," answered Bram without hesitation. "And how much farther have we to go?" Bram grunted. His face became more stolid. In his hand he was holding the big knife with which he cut the caribou meat. He was staring at it. From the knife he looked at Philip. "I keel ze man at God's Lake because he steal ze knife--an' call me lie. I keel heem--lak that!"--and he snatched up a stick and broke it into two pieces. His weird laugh followed the words. He went to the meat and began carving off chunks for the pack, and for a long time after that one would have thought that he was dumb. Philip made greater effort than ever to rouse him into speech. He laughed, and whistled, and once tried the experiment of singing a snatch of the Caribou Song which he knew that Bram must have heard many times before. As he roasted his steak over the fire he talked about the Barren, and the great herd of caribou he had seen farther east; he asked Bram questions about the weather, the wolves, and the country farther north and west. More than once he was certain that Bram was listening intently, but nothing more than an occasional grunt was his response. For an hour after they had finished their supper they continued to melt snow for drinking water for themselves and the wolves. Night shut them in, and in the glow of the fire Bram scooped a hollow in the snow for a bed, and tilted the big sledge over it as a roof. Philip made himself as comfortable as he could with his sleeping bag, using his tent as an additional protection. The fire went out. Bram's heavy breathing told Philip that the wolf-man was soon asleep. It was a long time before he felt a drowsiness creeping over himself. Later he was awakened by a heavy grasp on his arm, and roused himself to hear Bram's voice close over him. "Get up, m'sieu." It was so dark he could not see Bram when he got on his feet, but he could hear him a moment later among the wolves, and knew that he was making ready to travel. When his sleeping-bag and tent were on the sledge he struck a match and looked at his watch. It was less than a quarter of an hour after midnight. For two hours Bram led his pack straight into the west. The night cleared after that, and as the stars grew brighter and more numerous in the sky the plain was lighted up on all sides of them, as on the night when Philip had first seen Bram. By lighting an occasional match Philip continued to keep a record of direction and time. It was three o'clock, and they were still traveling west, when to his surprise they struck a small patch of timber. The clump of stunted and wind-snarled spruce covered no more than half an acre, but it was conclusive evidence they were again approaching a timber-line. From the patch of spruce Bram struck due north, and for another hour their trail was over the white Barren. Soon after this they came to a fringe of scattered timber which grew steadily heavier and deeper as they entered into it. They must have penetrated eight or ten miles into the forest before the dawn came. And in that dawn, gray and gloomy, they came suddenly upon a cabin. Philip's heart gave a jump. Here, at last, would the mystery of the golden snare be solved. This was his first thought. But as they drew nearer, and stopped at the threshold of the door, he felt sweep over him an utter disappointment. There was no life here. No smoke came from the chimney and the door was almost buried in a huge drift of snow. His thoughts were cut short by the crack of Bram's whip. The wolves swept onward and Bram's insane laugh sent a weird and shuddering echo through the forest. From the time they left behind them the lifeless and snow-smothered cabin Philip lost account of time and direction. He believed that Bram was nearing the end of his trail. The wolves were dead tired. The wolf-man himself was lagging, and since midnight had ridden more frequently on the sledge. Still he drove on, and Philip searched with increasing eagerness the trail ahead of them. It was eight o'clock--two hours after they had passed the cabin--when they came to the edge of a clearing in the center of which was a second cabin. Here at a glance Philip saw there was life. A thin spiral of smoke was rising from the chimney. He could see only the roof of the log structure, for it was entirely shut in by a circular stockade of saplings six feet high. Twenty paces from where Bram stopped his team was the gate of the stockade. Bram went to it, thrust his arm through a hole even with his shoulders, and a moment later the gate swung inward. For perhaps a space of twenty seconds he looked steadily at Philip, and for the first time Philip observed the remarkable change that had come into his face. It was no longer a face of almost brutish impassiveness. There was a strange glow in his eyes. His thick lips were parted as if on the point of speech, and he was breathing with a quickness which did not come of physical exertion. Philip did not move or speak. Behind him he heard the restless whine of the wolves. He kept his eyes on Bram, and as he saw the look of joy and anticipation deepening in the wolf-man's face the appalling thought of what it meant sickened him. He clenched his hands. Bram did not see the act. He was looking again toward the cabin and at the spiral of smoke rising out of the chimney. Then he faced Philip, and said, "M'sieu, you go to ze cabin." He held the gate open, and Philip entered. He paused to make certain of Bram's intention. The wolf-man swept an arm about the enclosure. "In ze pit I loose ze wolve, m'sieu." Philip understood. The stockade enclosure was Bram's wolf-pit, and Bram meant that he should reach the cabin before he gave the pack the freedom of the corral. He tried to conceal the excitement in his face as he turned toward the cabin. From the gate to the door ran a path worn by many footprints, and his heart beat faster as he noted the smallness of the moccasin tracks. Even then his mind fought against the possibility of the thing. Probably it was an Indian woman who lived with Bram, or an Eskimo girl he had brought down from the north. He made no sound as he approached the door. He did not knock, but opened it and entered, as Bram had invited him to do. From the gate Bram watched the cabin door as it closed behind him, and then he threw back his head and such a laugh of triumph came from his lips that even the tired beasts behind him pricked up their ears and listened. And Philip, in that same moment, had solved the mystery of the golden snare. CHAPTER IX Philip had entered Bram Johnson's cabin from the west. Out of the east the pale fire of the winter sun seemed to concentrate itself on the one window of Bram's habitation, and flooded the opposite partition. In this partition there was a doorway, and in the doorway stood a girl. She was standing full in the light that came through the window when Philip saw her. His first impression was that she was clouded in the same wonderful hair that had gone into the making of the golden snare. It billowed over her arms and breast to her hips, aflame with the living fires of the reflected sun. His second impression was that his entrance had interrupted her while she was dressing and that she was benumbed with astonishment as she stared at him. He caught the white gleam of her bare shoulders under her hair. And then, with a shock, he saw what was in her face. It turned his blood cold. It was the look of a soul that had been tortured. Agony and doubt burned in the eyes that were looking at him. He had never seen such eyes. They were like violet amethysts. Her face was dead white. It was beautiful. And she was young. She was not over twenty, it flashed upon him--but she had gone through a hell. "Don't let me alarm you," he said, speaking gently. "I am Philip Raine of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police." It did not surprise him that she made no answer. As plainly as if she had spoken it he had in those few swift moments read the story in her face. His heart choked him as he waited for her lips to move. It was a mystery to him afterward why he accepted the situation so utterly as he stood there. He had no question to ask, and there was no doubt in his mind. He knew that he would kill Bram Johnson when the moment arrived. The girl had not seemed to breathe, but now she drew in her breath in a great gasp. He could see the sudden throb of her breast under her hair, but the frightened light did not leave her eyes even when he repeated the words he had spoken. Suddenly she ran to the window, and Philip saw the grip of her hands at the sill as she looked out. Through the gate Bram was driving his wolves. When she faced him again, her eyes had in them the look of a creature threatened by a whip. It amazed and startled him. As he advanced a step she cringed back from him. It struck him then that her face was like the face of an angel--filled with a mad horror. She reached out her bare arms to hold him back, and a strange pleading cry came from her lips. The cry stopped him like a shot. He knew that she had spoken to him. And yet he had not understood! He tore open his coat and the sunlight fell on his bronze insignia of the Service. Its effect on her amazed him even more than had her sudden fear of him. It occurred to him suddenly that with a two weeks' ragged growth of beard on his face he must look something like a beast himself. She had feared him, as she feared Bram, until she saw the badge. "I am Philip Raine, of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police," he repeated again. "I have come up here especially to help you, if you need help. I could have got Bram farther back, but there was a reason why I didn't want him until I found his cabin. That reason was you. Why are you here with a madman and a murderer?" She was watching him intently. Her eyes were on his lips, and into her face--white a few moments before--had risen swiftly a flush of color. He saw the dread die out of her eyes in a new and dazzling excitement. Outside they could hear Bram. The girl turned again and looked through the window. Then she began talking, swiftly and eagerly, in a language that was as strange to Philip as the mystery of her presence in Bram Johnson's cabin. She knew that he could not understand, and suddenly she came up close to him and put a finger to his lips, and then to her own, and shook her head. He could fairly feel the throb of her excitement. The astounding truth held him dumb. She was trying to make him comprehend something--in a language which he had never heard before in all his life. He stared at her--like an idiot he told himself afterward. And then the shuffle of Bram's heavy feet sounded just outside the door. Instantly the old light leapt into the girl's eyes. Before the door could open she had darted into the room from which she had first appeared, her hair floating about her in a golden cloud as she ran. The door opened, and Bram entered. At his heels, beyond the threshold, Philip caught a glimpse of the pack glaring hungrily into the cabin. Bram was burdened under the load he had brought from the sledge. He dropped it to the floor, and without looking at Philip his eyes fastened themselves on the door to the inner room. They stood there for a full minute, Bram as if hypnotized by the door, and Philip with his eyes on Bram. Neither moved, and neither made a sound. A curtain had dropped over the entrance to the inner room, and beyond that they could hear the girl moving about. A dozen emotions were fighting in Philip. If he had possessed a weapon he would have ended the matter with Bram then, for the light that was burning like a strange flame in the wolf-man's eyes convinced him that he had guessed the truth. Bare-handed he was no match for the giant madman. For the first time he let his glance travel cautiously about the room. Near the stove was a pile of firewood. A stick of this would do--when the opportunity came. And then, in a way that made him almost cry out, every nerve in his body was startled. The girl appeared in the doorway, a smile on her lips and her eyes shining radiantly--straight at Bram! She partly held out her arms, and began talking. She seemed utterly oblivious of Philip's presence. Not a word that she uttered could he understand. It was not Cree or Chippewyan or Eskimo. It was not French or German or any tongue that he had ever heard. Her voice was pure and soft. It trembled a little, and she was breathing quickly. But the look in her face that had at first horrified him was no longer there. She had braided her hair and had coiled the shining strands on the crown of her head, and the coloring in her face was like that of a rare painting. In these astounding moments he knew that such color and such hair did not go with any race that had ever bred in the northland. From her face, even as her lips spoke, he looked at Bram. The wolf-man was transfigured. His strange eyes were shining, his heavy face was filled with a dog-like joy, and his thick lips moved as if he was repeating to himself what the girl was saying. Was it possible that he understood her? Was the strange language in which she was speaking common between them! At first Philip thought that it must be so--and all the horrors of the situation that he had built up for himself fell about him in confusing disorder. The girl, as she stood there now, seemed glad that Bram had returned; and with a heart choking him with its suspense he waited for Bram to speak, and act. When the girl ceased speaking the wolf-man's response came in a guttural cry that was like a paean of triumph. He dropped on his knees beside the dunnage bag and mumbling thickly as he worked he began emptying its contents upon the floor. Philip looked at the girl. She was looking at him now. Her hands were clutched at her breast, and in her face and attitude there was a wordless entreaty for him to understand. The truth came to him like a flash. For some reason she had forced herself to appear that way to the wolf-man. She had forced herself to smile, forced the look of gladness into her face, and the words from her lips. And now she was trying to tell him what it meant, and pointing to Bram as he knelt with his huge head and shoulders bent over the dunnage bag on the floor she exclaimed in a low, tense voice: "Tossi--tossi--han er tossi!" It was useless. He could not understand, and it was impossible for him to hide the bewilderment in his face. All at once an inspiration came to him. Bram's back was toward him, and he pointed to the sticks of firewood. His pantomime was clear. Should he knock the wolf-man's brains out as he knelt there? He could see that his question sent a thrill of alarm through her. She shook her head. Her lips formed strange words, and looking again at Bram she repeated, "Tossi--tossi--han er tossi!" She clasped her hands suddenly to her head then. Her slim fingers buried themselves in the thick braids of her hair. Her eyes dilated--and suddenly understanding flashed upon him. She was telling him what he already knew--that Bram Johnson was mad, and he repeated after her the "Tossi-tossi," tapping his forehead suggestively, and nodding at Bram. Yes, that was it. He could see it in the quick intake of her breath and the sudden expression of relief that swept over her face. She had been afraid he would attack the wolf-man. And now she was glad that he understood he was not to harm him. If the situation had seemed fairly clear to him a few minutes before it had become more deeply mysterious than ever now. Even as the wolf-man rose from his knees, still mumbling to himself in incoherent exultation, the great and unanswerable question pounded in Philip's brain: "Who was this girl, and what was she to Bram Johnson--the crazed outlaw whom she feared and yet whom she did not wish him to harm?" And then he saw her staring at the things which Bram had sorted out on the floor. In her eyes was hunger. It was a living, palpitant part of her now as she stared at the things which Bram had taken from the dunnage bag--as surely as Bram's madness was a part of him. As Philip watched her he knew that slowly the curtain was rising on the tragedy of the golden snare. In a way the look that he saw in her face shocked him more than anything that he had seen in Bram's. It was as if, in fact, a curtain had lifted before his eyes revealing to him an unbelievable truth, and something of the hell through which she had gone. She was hungry--FOR SOMETHING THAT WAS NOT FLESH! Swiftly the thought flashed upon him why the wolf-man had traveled so far to the south, and why he had attacked him for possession of his food supply. It was that he might bring these things to the girl. He knew that it was sex-pride that restrained the impulse that was pounding in every vein of her body. She wanted to fling herself down on her knees beside that pile of stuff--but she remembered HIM! Her eyes met his, and the shame of her confession swept in a crimson flood into her face. The feminine instinct told her that she had betrayed herself--like an animal, and that he must have seen in her for a moment something that was almost like Bram's own madness. CHAPTER X Until he felt the warm thrill of the girl's arm under his hand Philip did not realize the hazard he had taken. He turned suddenly to confront Bram. He would not have known then that the wolf-man was mad, and impulsively he reached out a hand. "Bram, she's starving," he cried. "I know now why you wanted that stuff! But why didn't you tell me! Why don't you talk, and let me know who she is, and why she is here, and what you want me to do?" He waited, and Bram stared at him without a sound. "I tell you I'm a friend," he went on. "I--" He got no farther than that, for suddenly the cabin was filled with the madness of Bram's laugh. It was more terrible than out on the open Barren, or in the forest, and he felt the shudder of the girl at his side. Her face was close to his shoulder, and looking down he saw that it was white as death, but that even then she was trying to smile at Bram. And Bram continued to laugh--and as he laughed, his eyes blazing a greenish fire, he turned to the stove and began putting fuel into the fire. It was horrible. Bram's laugh--the girl's dead white face, AND HER SMILE! He no longer asked himself who she was, and why she was there. He was overwhelmed by the one appalling fact that she WAS here, and that the stricken soul crying out to him from the depths of those eyes that were like wonderful blue amethysts told him that Bram had made her pay the price. His muscles hardened as he looked at the huge form bending over the stove. It was a splendid opportunity. A single leap and he would be at the outlaw's throat. With that advantage, in open combat, the struggle would at least be equal. The girl must have guessed what was in his mind, for suddenly her fingers were clutching at his arm and she was pulling him away from the wolf-man, speaking to him in the language which he could not understand. And then Bram turned from the stove, picked up a pail, and without looking at them left the cabin. They could hear his laugh as he joined the wolves. Again Philip's conclusions toppled down about him like a thing made of blocks. During the next few moments he knew that the girl was telling him that Bram had not harmed her. She seemed almost hysterically anxious to make him understand this, and at last, seizing him by the hand, she drew him into the room beyond the curtained door. Her meaning was quite as plain as words. She was showing him what Bram had done for her. He had made her this separate room by running a partition across the cabin, and in addition to this he had built a small lean-to outside the main wall entered through a narrow door made of saplings that were still green. He noticed that the partition was also made of fresh timber. Except for the bunk built against the wall, a crude chair, a sapling table and half a dozen bear skins that carpeted the floor the room was empty. A few garments hung on the wall--a hood made of fur, a thick mackinaw coat belted at the waist with a red scarf, and something done up in a small bundle. "I guess--I begin to get your meaning," he said, looking straight into her shining blue eyes. "You want to impress on me that I'm not to wring Bram Johnson's neck when his back is turned, or at any other time, and you want me to believe that he hasn't done you any harm. And yet you're afraid to the bottom of your soul. I know it. A little while ago your face was as white as chalk, and now--now--it's the prettiest face I've ever seen. Now, see here, little girl--" It gave him a pleasant thrill to see the glow in her eyes and the eager poise of her slim, beautiful body as she listened to him. "I'm licked," he went on, smiling frankly at her. "At least for the present. Maybe I've gone loony, like Bram, and don't realize it yet. I set out for a couple of Indians, and find a madman; and at the madman's cabin I find YOU, looking at first as though you were facing straight up against the door of-of-well, seeing that you can't understand I might as well say it--OF HELL! Now, if you weren't afraid of Bram, and if he hasn't hurt you, why did you look like that? I'm stumped. I repeat it--dead stumped. I'd give a million dollars if I could make Bram talk. I saw what was in his eyes. YOU saw it--and that pretty pink went out of your face so quick it seemed as though your heart must have stopped beating. And yet you're trying to tell me he hasn't harmed you. My God--I wish I could believe it!" In her face he saw the reflection of the change that must have come suddenly into his own. "You're a good fifteen hundred miles from any other human being with hair and eyes and color like yours," he continued, as though in speaking his thoughts aloud to her some ray of light might throw itself on the situation. "If you had something black about you. But you haven't. You're all gold--pink and white and gold. If Bram has another fit of talking he may tell me you came from the moon--that a chasse-galere crew brought you down out of space to keep house for him. Great Scott, can't you give me some sort of an idea of who you are and where you same from?" He paused for an answer--and she smiled at him. There was something pathetically sweet in that smile. It brought a queer lump into his throat, and for a space he forgot Bram. "You don't understand a cussed word of it, do you?" he said, taking her hand in both his own and holding it closely for a moment. "Not a word. But we're getting the drift of things--slowly. I know you've been here quite a while, and that morning, noon and night since the chasse-galere brought you down from the moon you've had nothing to put your little teeth into but meat. Probably without salt, too. I saw how you wanted to throw yourself down on that pile of stuff on the floor. Let's have breakfast!" He led her into the outer room, and eagerly she set to work helping him gather the things from the floor. He felt that an overwhelming load had been lifted from his heart, and he continued to tell her about it while he hurried the preparation of the breakfast for which he knew she was hungering. He did not look at her too closely. All at once it had dawned upon him that her situation must be tremendously more embarrassing than his own. He felt, too, the tingle of a new excitement in his veins. It was a pleasurable sensation, something which he did not pause to analyze just at present. Only he knew that it was because she had told him as plainly as she could that Bram had not harmed her. "And if he HAD I guess you'd have let me smash his brains out when he was bending over the stove, wouldn't you?" he said, stirring the mess of desiccated potato he was warming in one of his kit-pans. He looked up to see her eyes shining at him, and her lips parted. She was delightfully pretty. He knew that every nerve in her body was straining to understand him. Her braid had slipped over her shoulder. It was as thick as his wrist, and partly undone. He had never dreamed that a woman's hair could hold such soft warm fires of velvety gold. Suddenly he straightened himself and tapped his chest, an inspiring thought leaping into his head. "I am Philip Raine," he said. "Philip Raine--Philip Raine--Philip Raine--" He repeated the name over and over again, pointing each time to himself. Instantly light flashed into her face. It was as if all at once they had broken through the barrier that had separated them. She repeated his name, slowly, clearly, smiling at him, and then with both hands at her breast, she said: "Celie Armin." He wanted to jump over the stove and shake hands with her, but the potatoes were sizzling. Celie Armin! He repeated the name as he stirred the potatoes, and each time he spoke it she nodded. It was decidedly a French name--but half a minute's experiment with a few simple sentences of Pierre Breault's language convinced him that the girl understood no word of it. Then he said again: "Celie!" Almost in the same breath she answered: "Philip!" Sounds outside the cabin announced the return of Bram. Following the snarl and whine of the pack came heavy footsteps, and the wolf-man entered. Philip did not turn his head toward the door. He did not look at first to see what effect Bram's return had on Celie Armin. He went on casually with his work. He even began to whistle; and then, after a final stir or two at the potatoes, he pointed to the pail in which the coffee was bubbling, and said: "Turn the coffee, Celie. We're ready!" He caught a glimpse of her face then. The excitement and color had partly died out of it. She took the pail of coffee and went with it to the table. Then Philip faced Bram. The wolf-man was standing with his back to the door. He had not moved since entering, and he was staring at the scene before him in a dull, stupid sort of way. In one hand he carried a pail filled with water; in the other a frozen fish. "Too late with the fish, Bram," said Philip. "We couldn't make the little lady wait. Besides, I think you've fed her on fish and meat until she is just about ready to die. Come to breakfast!" He loaded a tin plate with hot potatoes, bannock-bread and rice that he had cooked before setting out on the Barren, and placed it before the girl. A second plate he prepared for Bram, and a third for himself. Bram had not moved. He still held the pail and the fish in his hands. Suddenly he lowered both to the floor with a growl that seemed to come from the bottom of his great chest, and came to the table. With one huge hand he seized Philip's arm. It was not a man's grip. There was apparently no effort in it, and yet it was a vise-like clutch that threatened to snap the bone. And all the time Bram's eyes were on the girl. He drew Philip back, released the terrible grip on his arm, and shoved the two extra plates of food to the girl. Then he faced Philip. "We eat ze meat, m'sieu!" Quietly and sanely he uttered the words. In his eyes and face there was no trace of madness. And then, even as Philip stared, the change came. The giant flung back his head and his wild, mad laugh rocked the cabin. Out in the corral the snarl and cry of the wolves gave a savage response to it. It took a tremendous effort for Philip to keep a grip on himself. In that momentary flash of sanity Bram had shown a chivalry which must have struck deep home in the heart of the girl. There was a sort of triumph in her eyes when he looked at her. She knew now that he must understand fully what she had been trying to tell him. Bram, in his madness, had been good to her. Philip did not hesitate in the impulse of the moment. He caught Bram's hand and shook it. And Bram, his laugh dying away in a mumbling sound, seemed not to notice it. As Philip began preparing the fish the wolf-man took up a position against the farther wall, squatted Indian-fashion on his heels. He did not take his eyes from the girl until she had finished, and Philip brought him a half of the fried fish. He might as well have offered the fish to a wooden sphinx. Bram rose to his feet, mumbling softly, and taking what was left of one of the two caribou quarters he again left the cabin. His mad laugh and the snarling outcry of the wolves came to them a moment later. CHAPTER XI Scarcely had the door closed when Celie Armin ran to Philip and pulled him to the table. In the tense half hour of Bram's watchfulness she had eaten her own breakfast as if nothing unusual had happened; now she insisted on adding potatoes and bannock to Philip's fish, and turned him a cup of coffee. "Bless your heart, you don't want to see me beat out of a breakfast, do you?" he smiled up at her, feeling all at once an immense desire to pull her head down to him and kiss her. "But you don't understand the situation, little girl. Now I've been eating this confounded bannock"--he picked up a chunk of it to demonstrate his point--"morning, noon and night until the sight of it makes me almost cry for one of mother's green cucumber pickles. I'm tired of it. Bram's fish is a treat. And this coffee, seeing that you have turned it in that way--" She sat opposite him while he ate, and he had the chance of observing her closely while his meal progressed. It struck him that she was growing prettier each time that he looked at her, and he was more positive than ever that she was a stranger in the northland. Again he told himself that she was not more than twenty. Mentally he even went so far as to weigh her and would have gambled that she would not have tipped a scale five pounds one way or the other from a hundred and twenty. Some time he might have seen the kind of violet-blue that was in her eyes, but he could not remember it. She was lost--utterly lost at this far-end of the earth. She was no more a part of it than a crepe de chine ball dress or a bit of rose china. And there she was, sitting opposite him, a bewitching mystery for him to solve. And she WANTED to be solved! He could see it in her eyes, and in the little beating throb at her throat. She was fighting, with him, to find a way; a way to tell him who she was, and why she was here, and what he must do for her. Suddenly he thought of the golden snare. That, after all, he believed to be the real key to the mystery. He rose quickly from the table and drew the girl to the window. At the far end of the corral they could see Bram tossing chunks of meat to the horde of beasts that surrounded him. In a moment or two he had the satisfaction of seeing that his companion understood that he was directing her attention to the wolf-man and not the pack. Then he began unbraiding her hair. His fingers thrilled at the silken touch of it. He felt his face flushing hot under his beard, and he knew that her eyes were on him wonderingly. A small strand he divided into three parts and began weaving into a silken thread only a little larger than the wolf-man's snare. From, the woven tress he pointed to Bram and in an instant her face lighted up with understanding. She answered him in pantomime. Either she or Bram had cut the tress from her head that had gone into the making of the golden snare. And not only one tress, but several. There had been a number of golden snares. She bowed her head and showed him where strands as large as her little finger had been clipped in several places. Philip almost groaned. She was telling him nothing new, except that there had been many snares instead of one. He was on the point of speech when the look in her face held him silent. Her eyes glowed with a sudden excitement--a wild inspiration. She held out her hands until they nearly touched his breast. "Philip Raine--Amerika!" she cried. Then, pressing her hands to her own breast, she added eagerly: "Celie Armin--Danmark!" "Denmark!" exclaimed Philip. "Is that it, little girl? You're from Denmark? Denmark!" She nodded. "Kobenhavn--Danmark!" "Copenhagen, Denmark," he translated for himself. "Great Scott, Celie--we're TALKING! Celie Armin, from Copenhagen, Denmark! But how in Heaven's name did you get HERE?" He pointed to the floor under their feet and embraced the four walls of the cabin in a wide gesture of his arms. "How did you get HERE?" Her next words thrilled him. "Kobenhavn--Muskvas--St. Petersburg--Rusland--Sibirien--Amerika." "Copenhagen--Muskvas, whatever that is--St. Petersburg--Russia--Siberia--America," he repeated, staring at her incredulously. "Celie, if you love me, be reasonable! Do you expect me to believe that you came all the way from Denmark to this God-forsaken madman's cabin in the heart of the Canada Barrens by way of Russia and Siberia? YOU! I can't believe it. There's a mistake somewhere. Here--" He thought of his pocket atlas, supplied by the department as a part of his service kit, and remembered that in the back of it was a small map of the world. In half a minute he had secured it and was holding the map under her eyes. Her little forefinger touched Copenhagen. Leaning over her shoulder, he felt her hair crumpling against his breast. He felt an insane desire to bury his face in it and hug her up close in his arms--for a single moment the question of whether she came from Copenhagen or the moon was irrelevant and of little consequence. He, at least, had found her. He was digging her out of chaos, and he was filled with the joyous exultation of a triumphant discoverer--almost the thrill of ownership. He held his breath as he watched the little forefinger telling him its story on the map. From Copenhagen it went to Moscow--which must have been Muskvas, and from there it trailed slowly to St. Petersburg and thence straight across Russia and Siberia to Bering Sea. "Skunnert," she said softly, and her finger came across to the green patch on the map which was Alaska. It hesitated there. Evidently it was a question in her own mind where she had gone after that. At least she could not tell him on the map. And now, seeing that he was understanding her, she was becoming visibly excited. She pulled him to the window and pointed to the wolves. Alaska--and after that dogs and sledge. He nodded. He was jubilant. She was Celie Armin, of Copenhagen, Denmark, and had come to Alaska by way of Russia and Siberia--and after that had traveled by dog-train. But WHY had she come, and what had happened to make her the companion or prisoner of Bram Johnson? He knew she was trying to tell him. With her back to the window she talked to him again, gesturing with her hands, and almost sobbing under the stress of the emotion that possessed her. His elation turned swiftly to the old dread as he watched the change in her face. Apprehension--a grim certainty--gripped hold of him. Something terrible had happened to her--a thing that had racked her soul and that filled her eyes with the blaze of a strange terror as she struggled to make him understand. And then she broke down, and with a sobbing cry covered her face with her hands. Out in the corral Philip heard Bram Johnson's laugh. It was a mockery--a challenge. In an instant every drop of blood in his body answered it in a surge of blind rage. He sprang to the stove, snatched up a length of firewood, and in another moment was at the door. As he opened it and ran out he heard Celie's wild appeal for him to stop. It was almost a scream. Before he had taken a dozen steps from the cabin he realized what the warning meant. The pack had seen him and from the end of the corral came rushing at him in a thick mass. This time Bram Johnson's voice did not stop them. He saw Philip, and from the doorway Celie looked upon the scene while the blood froze in her veins. She screamed--and in the same breath came the wolf-man's laugh. Philip heard both as he swung the stick of firewood over his head and sent it hurling toward the pack. The chance accuracy of the throw gave him an instant's time in which to turn and make a dash for the cabin. It was Celie who slammed the door shut as he sprang through. Swift as a flash she shot the bolt, and there came the lunge of heavy bodies outside. They could hear the snapping of jaws and the snarling whine of the beasts. Philip had never seen a face whiter than the girl's had gone. She covered it with her hands, and he could see her trembling. A bit of a sob broke hysterically from her lips. He knew of what she was thinking--the horrible thing she was hiding from her eyes. It was plain enough to him now. Twenty seconds more and they would have had him. And then-- He drew in a deep breath and gently uncovered her face. Her hands shivered in his. And then a great throb of joy repaid him for his venture into the jaws of death as he saw the way in which her beautiful eyes were looking at him. "Celie--my little mystery girl--I've discovered something," he cried huskily, holding her hands so tightly that it must have hurt her. "I'm almost glad you can't understand me, for I wouldn't blame you for being afraid of a man who told you he loved you an hour or two after he first saw you. I love you. I've never wanted anything in all my life as I want you. And I must be careful and not let you know it, mustn't I? If I did you'd think I was some kind of an animal-brute--like Bram. Wouldn't you?" Bram's voice came in a sharp rattle of Eskimo outside. Philip could hear the snarling rebellion of the wolves as they slunk away from the cabin, and he drew Celie back from the door. Suddenly she freed her hands, ran to the door and slipped back the wooden bolt as the wolf-man's hand fumbled at the latch. In a moment she was back at his side. When Bram entered every muscle in Philip's body was prepared for action. He was amazed at the wolf-man's unconcern. He was mumbling and chuckling to himself, as if amused at what he had seen. Celie's little fingers dug into Philip's arm and he saw in her eyes a tense, staring look that had not been there before. It was as if in Bram's face and his queer mumbling she had recognized something which was not apparent to him. Suddenly she left him and hurried into her room. During the few moments she was gone Bram did not look once at Philip. His mumbling was incessant. Perhaps a minute passed before the girl reappeared. She went straight to Bram and before the wolf-man's eyes held a long, shining tress of hair! Instantly the mumbling in Bram's throat ceased and he thrust out slowly a huge misshapen hand toward the golden strand. Philip felt his nerves stretching to the breaking point. With Bram the girl's hair was a fetich. A look of strange exultation crept over the giant's heavy features as his fingers clutched the golden offering. It almost drew a cry of warning from Philip. He saw the girl smiling in the face of a deadly peril--a danger of which she was apparently unconscious. Her hair still fell loose about her in a thick and shimmering glory. And BRAM'S EYES WERE ON IT AS HE TOOK THE TRESS FROM HER FINGERS! Was it conceivable that this mad-man did not comprehend his power! Had the thought not yet burned its way into his thick brain that a treasure many times greater than, that which she had doled out to him lay within the reach of his brute hands at any time he cared to reach out for it? And was it possible that the girl did not guess her danger as she stood there? What she could see of his face must have been as pale as her own when she looked at him. She smiled, and nodded at Bram. The giant was turning slowly toward the window, and after a moment or two in which they could hear him mumbling softly he sat down cross-legged against the wall, divided the tress into three silken threads and began weaving them into a snare. The color was returning to Celie's face when Philip looked at her again. She told him with a gesture of her head and hands that she was going into her room for a time. He didn't blame her. The excitement had been rather unusual. After she had gone he dug his shaving outfit out of his kit-bag. It included a mirror and the reflection he saw in this mirror fairly shocked him. No wonder the girl had been frightened at his first appearance. It took him half an hour to shave his face clean, and all that time Bram paid no attention to him but went on steadily at his task of weaving the golden snare. Celie did not reappear until the wolf-man had finished and was leaving the cabin. The first thing she noticed was the change in Philip's face. He saw the pleasure in her eyes and felt himself blushing. From the window they watched Bram. He had called his wolves and was going with them to the gate. He carried his snowshoes and his long whip. He went through the gate first and one by one let his beasts out until ten of the twenty had followed him. The gate was closed then. Celie turned to the table and Philip saw that she had brought from her room a pencil and a bit of paper. In a moment she held the paper out to him, a light of triumph in her face. At last they had found a way to talk. On the paper was a crude sketch of a caribou head. It meant that Bram had gone hunting. And in going Bram had left a half of his blood-thirsty pack in the corral. There was no longer a doubt in Philip's mind. They were not the chance guests of this madman. They were prisoners. CHAPTER XII For a few minutes after the wolf-man and his hunters had gone from the corral Philip did not move from the window. He almost forgot that the girl was standing behind him. At no time since Pierre Breault had revealed the golden snare had the situation been more of an enigma to him than now. Was Bram Johnson actually mad--or was he playing a colossal sham? The question had unleashed itself in his brain with a suddenness that had startled him. Out of the past a voice came to him distinctly, and it said, "A madman never forgets!" It was the voice of a great alienist, a good friend of his, with whom he had discussed the sanity of a man whose crime had shocked the country. He knew that the words were true. Once possessed by an idea the madman will not forget it. It becomes an obsession with him--a part of his existence. In his warped brain a suspicion never dies. A fear will smolder everlastingly. A hatred lives steadily on. If Bram Johnson was mad would he play the game as he was playing it now! He had almost killed Philip for possession of the food, that the girl might have the last crumb of it. Now, without a sign of the madman's caution, he had left it all within his reach again. A dozen times the flaming suspicion in his eyes had been replaced by a calm and stupid indifference. Was the suspicion real and the stupidity a clever dissimulation? And if dissimulation--why? He was positive now that Bram had not harmed the girl in the way he had dreaded. Physical desire had played no part in the wolf-man's possession of her. Celie had made him understand that;--and yet in Bram's eyes he had caught a look now and then that was like the dumb worship of a beast. Only once had that look been anything different--and that was when Celie had given him a tress of her hair. Even the suspicion roused in him then was gone now, for if passion and desire were smoldering in the wolf-man's breast he would not have brought a possible rival to the cabin, nor would he have left them alone together. His mind worked swiftly as he stared unseeing out into the corral. He would no longer play the part of a pawn. Thus far Bram had held the whip hand. Now he would take it from him no matter what mysterious protestation the girl might make! The wolf-man had given him a dozen opportunities to deliver the blow that would make him a prisoner. He would not miss the next. He faced Celie with the gleam of this determination in his eyes. She had been watching him intently and he believed that she had guessed a part of his thoughts. His first business was to take advantage of Brain's absence to search the cabin. He tried to make Celie understand what his intentions were as he began. "You may have done this yourself," he told her. "No doubt you have. There probably isn't a corner you haven't looked into. But I have a hunch I may find something you missed--something interesting." She followed him closely. He began at each wall and went over it carefully, looking for possible hiding places. Then he examined the floor for a loose sapling. At the end of half an hour his discoveries amounted to nothing. He gave an exclamation of satisfaction when under an old blanket in a dusty corner he found a Colt army revolver. But it was empty, and he found no cartridges. At last there was nothing left to search but the wolf-man's bunk. At the bottom of this he found what gave him his first real thrill--three of the silken snares made from Celie Armin's hair. "We won't touch them," he said after a moment, replacing the bear skin that had covered them. "It's good etiquette up here not to disturb another man's cache and that's Bram's. I can't imagine any one but a madman doing that. And yet--" He looked suddenly at Celie. "Do you suppose he was afraid of YOU?" he asked her. "Is that why he doesn't leave even the butcher-knife in this shack? Was he afraid you might shoot him in his sleep if he left the temptation in your way?" A commotion among the wolves drew him to the window. Two of the beasts were fighting. While his back was turned Celie entered her room and returned a moment or two later with a handful of loose bits of paper. The pack held Philip's attention. He wondered what chance he would have in an encounter with the beasts which Bram had left behind as a guard. Even if he killed Bram or made him a prisoner he would still have that horde of murderous brutes to deal with. If he could in some way induce the wolf-man to bring his rifle into the cabin the matter would be easy. With Bram out of the way he could shoot the wolves one by one from the window. Without a weapon their situation would be hopeless. The pack--with the exception of one huge, gaunt beast directly under the window--had swung around the end of the cabin out of his vision. The remaining wolf in spite of the excitement of battle was gnawing hungrily at a bone. Philip could hear the savage grind of its powerful jaws, and all at once the thought of how they might work out their salvation flashed upon him. They could starve the wolves! It would take a week, perhaps ten days, but with Bram out of the way and the pack helplessly imprisoned within the corral it could be done. His first impulse now was to impress on Celie the necessity of taking physical action against Bram. The sound of his own name turned him from the window with a sudden thrill. If the last few minutes had inspired an eagerness for action in his own mind he saw at a glance that something equally exciting had possessed Celie Armin. Spread out on the table were the bits of paper she had brought from her room, and, pointing to them, she again called him by name. That she was laboring under a new and unusual emotion impressed him immediately. He could see that she was fighting to restrain an impulse to pour out in words what would have been meaningless to him, and that she was telling him the bits of paper were to take the place of voice. For one swift moment as he advanced to the table the papers meant less to him than the fact that she had twice spoken his name. Her soft lips seemed to whisper it again as she pointed, and the look in her eyes and the poise of her body recalled to him vividly the picture of her as he had first seen her in the cabin. He looked at the bits of paper. There were fifteen or twenty pieces, and on each was sketched a picture. He heard a low catch in Celie's breath as he bent over them, and his own pulse quickened. A glance was sufficient to show him that with the pictures Celie was trying to tell him what he wanted to know. They told her own story--who she was, why she was at Bram Johnson's cabin, and how she had come. This, at least, was the first thought that impressed him. He observed then that the bits of paper were soiled and worn as though they had been handled a great deal. He made no effort to restrain the exclamation that followed this discovery. "You drew these pictures for Bram," he scanning them more carefully. "That settles one thing. Bram doesn't know much more about you than, I do. Ships, and dogs, and men--and fighting--a lot of fighting--and--" His eyes stopped at one of the pictures and his heart gave a sudden excited thump. He picked up the bit of paper which had evidently been part of a small sack. Slowly he turned to the girl and met her eyes. She was trembling in her eagerness for him to understand. "That is YOU," he said, tapping the central figure in the sketch, and nodding at her. "You--with your hair down, and fighting a bunch of men who look as though they were about to beat your brains out with clubs! Now--what in God's name does it mean? And here's a ship up in the corner. That evidently came first. You landed from that ship, didn't you? From the ship--the ship--the ship--" "Skunnert!" she cried softly, touching the ship with her finger. "Skunnert--Sibirien!" "Schooner-Siberia," translated Philip. "It sounds mightily like that, Celie. Look here--" He opened his pocket atlas again at the map of the world. "Where did you start from, and where did you come ashore? If we can get at the beginning of the thing--" She had bent her head over the crook of his arm, so that in her eager scrutiny of the map his lips for a moment or two touched the velvety softness of her hair. Again he felt the exquisite thrill of her touch, the throb of her body against him, the desire to take her in his arms and hold her there. And then she drew back a little, and her finger was once more tracing out its story on the map. The ship had started from the mouth of the Lena River, in Siberia, and had followed the coast to the blue space that marked the ocean above Alaska. And there the little finger paused, and with a hopeless gesture Celie intimated that was all she knew. From somewhere out of that blue patch the ship had touched the American shore. One after another she took up from the table the pieces of paper that carried on the picture-story from that point. It was, of course, a broken and disjointed story. But as it progressed every drop of blood in Philip's body was stirred by the thrill and mystery of it. Celie Armin had traveled from Denmark through Russia to the Lena River in Siberia, and from there a ship had brought her to the coast of North America. There had been a lot of fighting, the significance of which he could only guess at; and now, at the end, the girl drew for Philip another sketch in which a giant and a horde of beasts appeared. It was a picture of Bram and his wolves, and at last Philip understood why she did not want him to harm the wolf-man. Bram had saved her from the fate which the pictures only partly portrayed for him. He had brought her far south to his hidden stronghold, and for some reason which the pictures failed to disclose was keeping her a prisoner there. Beyond these things Celie Armin was still a mystery. Why had she gone to Siberia? What had brought her to the barren Arctic coast of America? Who were the mysterious enemies from whom Bram the madman had saved her? And who--who-- He looked again at one of the pictures which he had partly crumpled in his hand. On it were sketched two people. One was a figure with her hair streaming down--Celie herself. The other was a man. The girl had pictured herself close in the embrace of this man's arms. Her own arms encircled the man's neck. From the picture Philip had looked at Celie, and the look he had seen in her eyes and face filled his heart with a leaden chill. It was more than hope that had flared up in his breast since he had entered Bram Johnson's cabin. And now that hope went suddenly out, and with its extinguishment he was oppressed by a deep and gloomy foreboding. He went slowly to the window and looked out. The next moment Celie was startled by the sudden sharp cry that burst from his lips. Swiftly she ran to his side. He had dropped the paper. His hands were gripping the edge of the sill, and he was staring like one who could not believe his own eyes. "Good God--look! Look at that!" They had heard no sound outside the cabin during the last few minutes. Yet under their eyes, stretched out in the soiled and trampled snow, lay the wolf that a short time before had been gnawing a bone. The animal was stark dead. Not a muscle of its body moved. Its lips were drawn back, its jaws agape, and under the head was a growing smear of blood. It was not these things--not the fact but the INSTRUMENT of death that held Philip's eyes. The huge wolf had been completely transfixed by a spear. Instantly Philip recognized it--the long, slender, javelin-like narwhal harpoon used by only one people in the world, the murderous little black-visaged Kogmollocks of Coronation Gulf and Wollaston Land. He sprang suddenly back from the window, dragging Celie with him. CHAPTER XIII "Kogmollocks--the blackest-hearted little devils alive when it comes to trading wives and fighting," said Philip, a little ashamed of the suddenness with which he had jumped back from the window. "Excuse my abruptness, dear. But I'd recognize that death-thing on the other side of the earth. I've seen them throw it like an arrow for a hundred yards--and I have a notion they're watching that window!" At sight of the dead wolf and the protruding javelin Celie's face had gone as white as ash. Snatching up one of the pictures from the table, she thrust it into Philip's hand. It was one of the fighting pictures. "So it's YOU?" he said, smiling at her and trying to keep the tremble of excitement out of his voice. "It's you they want, eh? And they must want you bad. I've never heard of those little devils coming within a hundred miles of this far south. They MUST want you bad. Now--I wonder WHY?" His voice was calm again. It thrilled him to see how utterly she was judging the situation by the movement of his lips and the sound of his voice. With him unafraid she would be unafraid. He judged that quickly. Her eyes bared her faith in him, and suddenly he reached out and took her face between his two hands, and laughed softly, while each instant he feared the smash of a javelin through the window. "I like to see that look in your eyes," he went on. "And I'm almost glad you can't understand me, for I couldn't lie to you worth a cent. I understand those pictures now--and I think we're in a hell of a fix. The Eskimos have followed you and Bram down from the north, and I'm laying a wager with myself that Bram won't return from the caribou hunt. If they were Nunatalmutes or any other tribe I wouldn't be so sure. But they're Kogmollocks. They're worse than the little brown head-hunters of the Philippines when it comes to ambush, and if Bram hasn't got a spear through him this minute I'll never guess again!" He withdrew his hands from her face, still smiling at her as he talked. The color was returning into her face. Suddenly she made a movement as if to approach the window. He detained her, and in the same moment there came a fierce and snarling outcry from the wolves in the corral. Making Celie understand that she was to remain where he almost forcibly placed her near the table, Philip went again to the window. The pack had gathered close to the gate and two or three of the wolves were leaping excitedly against the sapling bars of their prison. Between the cabin and the gate a second body lay in the snow. Philip's mind leapt to a swift conclusion. The Eskimos had ambushed Bram, and they believed that only the girl was in the cabin. Intuitively he guessed how the superstitious little brown men of the north feared the madman's wolves. One by one they were picking them off with their javelins from outside the corral. As he looked a head and pair of shoulders rose suddenly above the top of the sapling barrier, an arm shot out and he caught the swift gleam of a javelin as it buried itself in the thick of the pack. In a flash the head and shoulders of the javelin-thrower had disappeared, and in that same moment Philip heard a low cry behind him. Celie had returned to the window. She had seen what he had seen, and her breath came suddenly in a swift and sobbing excitement. In amazement he saw that she was no longer pale. A vivid flush had gathered in each of her cheeks and her eyes blazed with a dark fire. One of her hands caught his arm and her fingers pinched his flesh. He stared dumbly for a moment at the strange transformation in her. He almost believed that she wanted to fight--that she was ready to rush out shoulder to shoulder with him against their enemies. Scarcely had the cry fallen from her lips when she turned and ran swiftly into her room. It seemed to Philip that she was not gone ten seconds. When she returned she thrust into his hand a revolver. It was a toy affair. The weight and size of the weapon told him that before he broke it and looked at the caliber. It was a "stocking" gun as they called those things in the service, fully loaded with .22 caliber shots and good for a possible partridge at fifteen or twenty paces. Under other conditions it would have furnished him with considerable amusement. But the present was not yesterday or the day before. It was a moment of grim necessity--and the tiny weapon gave him the satisfaction of knowing that he was not entirely helpless against the javelins. It would shoot as far as the stockade, and it might topple a man over if he hit him just right. Anyway, it would make a noise. A noise! The grin that had come into his face died out suddenly as he looked at Celie. He wondered if to her had come the thought that now flashed upon him--if it was that thought that had made her place the revolver in his hand. The blaze of excitement in her wonderful eyes almost told him that it was. With Bram gone, the Eskimos believed she was alone and at their mercy as soon as the wolves were out of the way. Two or three shots from the revolver--and Philip's appearance in the corral--would shake their confidence. It would at least warn them that Celie was not alone, and that her protector was armed. For that reason Philip thanked the Lord that a "stocking" gun had a bark like the explosion of a toy cannon even if its bite was like that of an insect. Cautiously he took another look at Bram's wolves. The last javelin had transfixed another of their number and the animal was dragging itself toward the center of the corral. The remaining seven were a dozen yards on the other side of the gate now, leaping and snarling at the stockade, and he knew that the next attack would come from there. He sprang to the door. Celie was only a step behind him as he ran out, and was close at his side when he peered around the end of the cabin. "They must not see you," he made her understand. "It won't do any good and when they see another man they may possibly get the idea in their heads that you're not here. There can't be many of them or they'd make quicker work of the wolves. I should say not more than--" "Se! Se!" The warning came in a low cry from Celie's lips. A dark head was appearing slowly above the top of the stockade, and Philip darted suddenly out into the open. The Eskimo did not see him, and Philip waited until he was on the point of hurling his javelin before he made a sound. Then he gave a roar that almost split his throat. In the same instant he began firing. The crack of his pistol and the ferocious outcry he made sent the Eskimo off the stockade like a ball hit by a club. The pack, maddened by their inability to reach their enemies, turned like a flash. Warned by one experience, Philip hustled Celie into the cabin. They were scarcely over the threshold when the wolves were at the door. "We're sure up against a nice bunch," he laughed, standing for a moment with his arm still about Celie's waist. "A regular hell of a bunch, little girl! Now if those wolves only had sense enough to know that we're a little brother and sister to Bram, we'd be able to put up a fight that would be some circus. Did you see that fellow topple off the fence? Don't believe I hit him. At least I hope I didn't. If they ever find out the size of this pea-shooter's sting they'll sit up there like a row of crows and laugh at us. But--what a bully NOISE it made!" He was blissfully unmindful of danger as he held her in the crook of his arm, looking straight into her lovely face as he talked. It was a moment of splendid hypocrisy. He knew that in her excitement and the tremendous effort she was making to understand something of what he was saying that she was unconscious of his embrace. That, and the joyous thrill of the situation, sent the hot blood into his face. "I'm dangerously near to going the limit," he told her, speaking with a seriousness that would impress her. "I'd fight twenty of those little devils single-handed to know just how you'd take it, and I'd fight another dozen to know who that fellow is in the picture. I'm tempted right now to hug you up close, and kiss you, and let you know how I feel. I'd like to do that--before--anything happens. But would you understand? That's it--would you understand that I love every inch of you from the ground up or would you think I was just beast? That's what I'm afraid of. But I'd like to let you know before I have to put up the big fight for you. And it's coming--if they've got Bram. They'll break down the gate to-night, or burn it, and with the wolves out of the way they'll rush the cabin. And then--" Slowly he drew his arm from her, and something of the reaction of his thoughts must have betrayed itself in the look that came into his face. "I guess I've already pulled off a rotten deal on the other fellow," he said, turning to the window. "That is, if you belong to him. And if you didn't why would you stand there with your arms about his neck and he hugging you up like that!" A few minutes before he had crumpled the picture in his hand and dropped it on the floor. He picked it up now and mechanically smoothed it out as he made his observation, through the window. The pack had returned to the stockade. By the aimless manner in which they had scattered he concluded that for the time at least their mysterious enemies had drawn away from the corral. Celie had not moved. She was watching him earnestly. It seemed to him, as he went to her with the picture, that a new and anxious questioning had come into her eyes. It was as if she had discovered something in him which she had not observed before, something which she was trying to analyze even as he approached her. He felt for the first time a sense of embarrassment. Was it possible that she had comprehended some word or thought of what he had expressed to her? He could not believe it And yet, a woman's intuition-- He held out the picture. Celie took it and for a space looked at it steadily without raising her eyes to meet his. When she did look at him the blue in her eyes was so wonderful and deep and the soul that looked out of them was so clear to his own vision that the shame of that moment's hypocrisy when he had stood with his arm about her submerged him completely. If she had not understood him she at least HAD GUESSED. "Min fader," she said quietly, with the tip of her little forefinger on the man in the picture. "Min fader." For a moment he thought she had spoken in English. "Your--your father?" he cried. She nodded. "Oo-ee-min fader!" "Thank the Lord," gasped Philip. And then he suddenly added, "Celie, have you any more cartridges for this pop-gun? I feel like licking the world!" CHAPTER XIV He tried to hide his jubilation as he talked of more cartridges. He forgot Bram, and the Eskimos waiting outside the corral, and the apparent hopelessness of their situation. HER FATHER! He wanted to shout, or dance around the cabin with Celie in his arms. But the change that he had seen come over her made him understand that he must keep hold of himself. He dreaded to see another light come into those glorious blue eyes that had looked at him with such a strange and questioning earnestness a few moments before--the fire of suspicion, perhaps even of fear if he went too far. He realized that he had betrayed his joy when she had said that the man in the picture was her father. She could not have missed that. And he was not sorry. For him. there was an unspeakable thrill in the thought that to a woman, no matter under what sun she is born, there is at least one emotion whose understanding needs no words of speech. And as he had talked to her, sublimely confident that she could not understand him, she had read the betrayal in his face. He was sure of it. And so he talked about cartridges. He talked, he told himself afterwards, like an excited imbecile. There were no more cartridges. Celie made him understand that. All they possessed were the four that remained in the revolver. As a matter of fact this discovery did not disturb him greatly. At close quarters he would prefer a good club to the pop-gun. Such a club, in the event of a rush attack by the Eskimos, was an important necessity, and he began looking about the cabin to see what he could lay his hands on. He thought of the sapling cross-pieces in Bram's bunk against the wall and tore one out. It was four feet in length and as big around as his fist at one end while at the other it tapered down so that he could grip it easily with his hands. "Now we're ready for them," he said, testing the poise and swing of the club as he stood in the center of the room. "Unless they burn us out they'll never get through that door. I'm promising you that--s'elp me God I am, Celie!" As she looked at him a flush burned in her cheeks. He was eager to fight--it seemed to her that he was almost hoping for the attack at the door. It made her splendidly unafraid, and suddenly she laughed softly--a nervous, unexpected little laugh which she could not hold back, and he turned quickly to catch the warm glow in her eyes. Something went up into his throat as she stood there looking at him like that. He had never seen any one quite so beautiful. He dropped his club, and held out his hand. "Let's shake, Celie," he said. "I'm mighty glad you understand--we're pals." Unhesitatingly she gave him her hand, and in spite of the fact that death lurked outside they smiled into each other's eyes. After that she went into her room. For half an hour Philip did not see her again. During that half hour he measured up the situation more calmly. He realized that the exigency was tremendously serious, and that until now he had not viewed it with the dispassionate coolness that characterized the service of the uniform he wore. Celie was accountable for that. He confessed the fact to himself, not without a certain pleasurable satisfaction. He had allowed her presence, and his thoughts of her, to fill the adventure completely for him, and as a result they were now facing an appalling danger. If he had followed his own judgment, and had made Bram Johnson a prisoner, as he should have done in his line of duty, matters would have stood differently. For several minutes after Celie had disappeared into her room he studied the actions of the wolves in the corral. A short time before he had considered a method of ridding himself of Bram's watchful beasts. Now he regarded them as the one greatest protection they possessed. There were seven left. He was confident they would give warning the moment the Eskimos approached the stockade again. But would their enemies return? The fact that only one man had attacked the wolves at a time was almost convincing evidence that they were very few in number--perhaps only a scouting party of three or four. Otherwise, if they had come in force, they would have made short work of the pack. The thought became a positive conviction as he looked through the window. Bram had fallen a victim to a single javelin, and the scouting party of Kogmollocks had attempted to complete their triumph by carrying Celie back with them to the main body. Foiled in this attempt, and with the knowledge that a new and armed enemy opposed them, they were possibly already on their way for re-enforcements. If this were so there could be but one hope--and that was an immediate escape from the cabin. And between the cabin door and the freedom of the forest were Bram's seven wolves! A feeling of disgust, almost of anger, swept over him as he drew Celie's little revolver from his pocket and held it in the palm of his hand. There were four cartridges left. But what would they avail against that horde of beasts! They would stop them no more than so many pin-pricks. And what even would the club avail? Against two or three he might put up a fight. But against seven-- He cursed Bram under his breath. It was curious that in that same instant the thought flashed upon him that the wolf-man might not have fallen a victim to the Eskimos. Was it not possible that the spying Kogmollocks had seen him go away on the hunt, and had taken advantage of the opportunity to attack the cabin? They had evidently thought their task would be an easy one. What Philip saw through the window set his pulse beating quickly with the belief that this last conjecture was the true one. The world outside was turning dark. The sky was growing thick and low. In half an hour a storm would break. The Eskimos had foreseen that storm. They knew that the trail taken in their flight, after they had possessed themselves of the girl, would very soon be hidden from the eyes of Bram and the keen scent of his wolves. So they had taken the chance--the chance to make Celie their prisoner before Bram returned. And why, Philip asked himself, did these savage little barbarians of the north want HER? The fighting she had pictured for him had not startled him. For a long time the Kogmollocks had been making trouble. In the last year they had killed a dozen white men along the upper coast, including two American explorers and a missionary. Three patrols had been sent to Coronation Gulf and Bathurst Inlet since August. With the first of those patrols, headed by Olaf Anderson, the Swede, he had come within an ace of going himself. A rumor had come down to Churchill just before he left for the Barrens that Olaf's party of five men had been wiped out. It was not difficult to understand why the Eskimos had attacked Celie Armin's father and those who had come ashore with him from the ship. It was merely a question of lust for white men's blood and white men's plunder, and strangers in their country would naturally be regarded as easy victims. The mysterious and inexplicable part of the affair was their pursuit of the girl. In this pursuit the Kogmollocks had come far beyond the southernmost boundary of their hunting grounds. Philip was sufficiently acquainted with the Eskimos to know that in their veins ran very little of the red-blooded passion of the white man. Matehood was more of a necessity imposed by nature than a joy in their existence, and it was impossible for him to believe that even Celie Armin's beauty had roused the desire for possession among them. His attention turned to the gathering of the storm. The amazing swiftness with which the gray day was turning into the dark gloom of night fascinated him and he almost called to Celie that she might look upon the phenomenon with him. It was piling in from the vast Barrens to the north and east and for a time it was accompanied by a stillness that was oppressive. He could no longer distinguish a movement in the tops of the cedars and banskian pine beyond the corral. In the corral itself he caught now and then the shadowy, flitting movement of the wolves. He did not hear Celie when she came out of her room. So intently was he straining his eyes to penetrate the thickening pall of gloom that he was unconscious of her presence until she stood close at his side. There was something in the awesome darkening of the world that brought them closer in that moment, and without speaking Philip found her hand and held it in his own. They heard then a low whispering sound--a sound that came creeping up out of the end of the world like a living thing; a whisper so vast that, after a little, it seemed to fill the universe, growing louder and louder until it was no longer a whisper but a moaning, shrieking wail. It was appalling as the first blast of it swept over the cabin. No other place in the world is there storm like the storm that sweeps over the Great Barren; no other place in the world where storm is filled with such a moaning, shrieking tumult of VOICE. It was not new to Philip. He had heard it when it seemed to him that ten thousand little children were crying under the rolling and twisting onrush of the clouds; he had heard it when it seemed to him the darkness was filled with an army of laughing, shrieking madmen--storm out of which rose piercing human shrieks and the sobbing grief of women's voices. It had driven people mad. Through the long dark night of winter, when for five months they caught no glimpse of the sun, even the little brown Eskimos went keskwao and destroyed themselves because of the madness that was in that storm. And now it swept over the cabin, and in Celie's throat there rose a little sob. So swiftly had darkness gathered that Philip could no longer see her, except where her face made a pale shadow in the gloom, but he could feel the tremble of her body against him. Was it only this morning that he had first seen her, he asked himself? Was it not a long, long time ago, and had she not in that time become, flesh and soul, a part of him? He put out his arms. Warm and trembling and unresisting in that thick gloom she lay within them. His soul rose in a wild ecstasy and rode on the wings of the storm. Closer he held her against his breast, and he said: "Nothing can hurt you, dear. Nothing--nothing--" It was a simple and meaningless thing to say--that, and only that. And yet he repeated it over and over again, holding her closer and closer until her heart was throbbing against his own. "Nothing can hurt you. Nothing--nothing--" He bent his head. Her face was turned up to him, and suddenly he was thrilled by the warm sweet touch of her lips. He kissed her. She did not strain away from him. He felt--in that darkness--the wild fire in her face. "Nothing can hurt you, nothing--nothing--" he cried almost sobbingly in his happiness. Suddenly there came a blast of the storm that rocked the cabin like the butt of a battering-ram, and in that same moment there came from just outside the window a shrieking cry such as Philip had never heard in all his life before. And following the cry there rose above the tumult of the storm the howling of Bram Johnson's wolves. CHAPTER XV For a space Philip thought that the cry must have come from Bram Johnson himself--that the wolf-man had returned in the pit of the storm. Against his breast Celie had apparently ceased to breathe. Both listened for a repetition of the sound, or for a signal at the barred door. It was strange that in that moment the wind should die down until they could hear the throbbing of their own hearts. Celie's was pounding like a little hammer, and all at once he pressed his face down against hers and laughed with sudden and joyous understanding. "It was only the wind, dear," he said. "I never heard anything like it before--never! It even fooled the wolves. Bless your dear little heart how it frightened you! And it was enough, too. Shall we light some of Bram's candles?" He held her hand as he groped his way to where he had seen Bram's supply of bear-dips. She held two of the candles while he lighted them and their yellow flare illumined her face while his own was still in shadow. What he saw in its soft glow and the shine of her eyes made him almost take her in his arms again, candles and all. And then she turned with them and went to the table. He continued to light candles until the sputtering glow of half a dozen of them filled the room. It was a wretched wastefulness, but it was also a moment in which he felt himself fighting to get hold of himself properly. And he felt also the desire to be prodigal about something. When he had lighted his sixth candle, and then faced Celie, she was standing near the table looking at him so quietly and so calmly and with such a wonderful faith in her eyes that he thanked God devoutly he had kissed her only once--just that once! It was a thrilling thought to know that SHE knew he loved her. There was no doubt of it now. And the thought of what he might have done in that darkness and in the moment of her helplessness sickened him. He could look her straight in the eyes now--unashamed and glad. And she was unashamed, even if a little flushed at what had happened. The same thought was in their minds--and he knew that she was not sorry. Her eyes and the quivering tremble of a smile on her lips told him that. She had braided her hair in that interval when she had gone to her room, and the braid had fallen over her breast and lay there shimmering softly in the candle-glow. He wanted to take her in his arms again. He wanted to kiss her on the mouth and eyes. But instead of that he took the silken braid gently in his two hands and crushed it against his lips. "I love you," he cried softly. "I love you." He stood for a moment or two with his head bowed, the thrill of her hair against his face. It was as if he was receiving some kind of a wonderful benediction. And then in a voice that trembled a little she spoke to him. Before he could see fully what was in her eyes she turned suddenly to the wall, took down his coat, and hung it over the window. When he saw her face again it was gloriously flushed. She pointed to the candles. "No danger of that," he said, comprehending her. "They won't throw any javelins in this storm. Listen!" It was the wolves again. In a moment their cry was drowned in a crash of the storm that smote the cabin like a huge hand. Again it was wailing over them in a wild orgy of almost human tumult. He could see its swift effect on Celie in spite of her splendid courage. It was not like the surge of mere wind or the roll of thunder. Again he was inspired by thought of his pocket atlas, and opened it at the large insert map of Canada. "I'll show you why the wind does that," he explained to her, drawing her to the table and spreading out the map. "See, here is the cabin." He made a little black dot with her pencil, and turning to the four walls of Bram's stronghold made her understand what it meant. "And there's the big Barren," he went on, tracing it out with the pencil-point. "Up here, you see, is the Arctic Ocean, and away over there the Roes Welcome and Hudson's Bay. That's where the storm starts, and when it gets out on the Barren, without a tree or a rock to break its way for five hundred miles--" He told of the twisting air-currents there and how the storm-clouds sometimes swept so low that they almost smothered one. For a few moments he did not look at Celie or he would have seen something in her face which could not have been because of what he was telling her, and which she could at best only partly understand. She had fixed her eyes on the little black dot. THAT was the cabin. For the first time the map told her where she was, and possibly how she had arrived there. Straight down to that dot from the blue space of the ocean far to the north the map-makers had trailed the course of the Coppermine River. Celie gave an excited little cry and caught Philip's arm, stopping him short in his explanation of the human wailings in the storm. Then she placed a forefinger on the river. "There--there it is!" she told him, as plainly as though her voice was speaking to him in his own language. "We came down that river. The Skunnert landed us THERE," and she pointed to the mouth of the Coppermine where it emptied into Coronation Gulf. "And then we came down, down, down--" He repeated the name of the river. "THE COPPERMINE." She nodded, her breath breaking a little in an increasing excitement. She seized the pencil and two-thirds of the distance down the Coppermine made a cross. It was wonderful, he thought, how easily she made him understand. In a low, eager voice she was telling him that where she had put the cross the treacherous Kogmollocks had first attacked them. She described with the pencil their flight away from the river, and after that their return--and a second fight. It was then Bram Johnson had come into the scene. And back there, at the point from which the wolf-man had fled with her, was her FATHER. That was the chief thing she was striving to drive home in his comprehension of the situation. Her FATHER! And she believed he was alive, for it was an excitement instead of hopelessness or grief that possessed her as she talked to him. It gave him a sort of shock. He wanted to tell her, with his arms about her, that it was impossible, and that it was his duty to make her realize the truth. Her father was dead now, even if she had last seen him alive. The little brown men had got him, and had undoubtedly hacked him into small pieces, as was their custom when inspired by war-madness. It was inconceivable to think of him as still being alive even if there had been armed friends with him. There was Olaf Anderson and his five men, for instance. Fighters every one of them. And now they were dead. What chance could this other man have? Her joy when she saw that he understood her added to the uncertainty which was beginning to grip him in spite of all that the day had meant for him. Her faith in him, since that thrilling moment in the darkness, was more than ever like that of a child. She was unafraid of Bram now. She was unafraid of the wolves and the storm and the mysterious pursuers from out of the north. Into his keeping she had placed herself utterly, and while this knowledge filled him with a great happiness he was now disturbed by the fact that, if they escaped from the cabin and the Eskimos, she believed he would return with her down the Coppermine in an effort to find her father. He had already made the plans for their escape and they were sufficiently hazardous. Their one chance was to strike south across the thin arm of the Barren for Pierre Breault's cabin. To go in the opposite direction--farther north without dogs or sledge--would be deliberate suicide. Several times during the afternoon he tried to bring himself to the point of urging on her the naked truth--that her father was dead. There was no doubt of that--not the slightest. But each time he fell a little short. Her confidence in the belief that her father was alive, and that he was where she had marked the cross on the map, puzzled him. Was it conceivable, he asked himself, that the Eskimos had some reason for NOT killing Paul Armin, and that Celie was aware of the fact? If so he failed to discover it. Again and again he made Celie understand that he wanted to know why the Eskimos wanted HER, and each time she answered him with a hopeless little gesture, signifying that she did not know. He did learn that there were two other white men with Paul Armin. Only by looking at his watch did he know when the night closed in. It was seven o'clock when he led Celie to her room and urged her to go to bed. An hour later, listening at her door, he believed that she was asleep. He had waited for that, and quietly he prepared for the hazardous undertaking he had set for himself. He put on his cap and coat and seized the club he had taken from Bram's bed. Then very cautiously he opened the outer door. A moment later he stood outside, the door closed behind him, with the storm pounding in his face. Fifty yards away he could not have heard the shout of a man. And yet he listened, gripping his club hard, every nerve in his body strained to a snapping tension. Somewhere within that small circle of the corral were Bram Johnson's wolves, and as he hesitated with his back to the door he prayed that there would come no lull in the storm during the next few minutes. It was possible that he might evade them with the crash and thunder of the gale about him. They could not see him, or hear him, or even smell him in that tumult of wind unless on his way to the gate he ran into them. In that moment he would have given a year of life to have known where they were. Still listening, still fighting to hear some sound of them in the shriek of the storm, he took his first step out into the pit of darkness. He did not run, but went as cautiously as though the night was a dead calm, the club half poised in his hands. He had measured the distance and the direction of the gate and when at last he touched the saplings of the stockade he knew that he could not be far off in his reckoning. Ten paces to the right he found the gate and his heart gave a sudden jump of relief. Half a minute more and it was open. He propped it securely against the beat of the storm with the club he had taken from Bram Johnson's bed. Then he turned back to the cabin, with the little revolver clutched in his hand, and his face was strained and haggard when he found the door and returned again into the glow of the candle-light. In the center of the room, her face as white as his own, stood Celie. A great fear must have gripped her, for she stood there in her sleeping gown with her hands clutched at her breast, her eyes staring at him in speechless questioning. He explained by opening the door a bit and pantomiming to the gate outside the cabin. "The wolves will be gone in the morning," he said, a ring of triumph in his voice. "I have opened the gate. There is nothing in our way now." She understood. Her eyes were a glory to look into then. Her fingers unclenched at her breast, she gave a short, quick breath and a little cry--and her arms almost reached out to him. He was afraid of himself as he went to her and led her again to the door of her room. And there for a moment they paused, and she looked up into his face. Her hand crept from his and went softly to his shoulder. She said something to him, almost in a whisper, and he could no longer fight against the pride and the joy and the faith he saw in her eyes. He bent down, slowly so that she might draw away from him if she desired, and kissed her upturned lips. And then, with a strange little cry that was like the soft note of a bird, she turned from him and disappeared into the darkness of her room. A great deal of that night's storm passed over his head unheard after that. It was late when he went to bed. He crowded Bram's long box-stove with wood before he extinguished the last candle. And for an hour after that he lay awake, thinking of Celie and of the great happiness that had come into his life all in one day. During that hour he made the plans of a lifetime. Then he, too, fell into sleep--a restless, uneasy slumber filled with many visions. For a time there had come a lull in the gale, but now it broke over the cabin in increased fury. A hand seemed slapping at the window, threatening to break it, and a volley of wind and snow shot suddenly down the chimney, forcing open the stove door, so that a shaft of ruddy light cut like a red knife through the dense gloom of the cabin. In varying ways the sounds played a part in Philip's dreams. In all those dreams, and segments of dreams, the girl was present. It was strange that in all of them she should be his wife. And it was strange that the big woods and the deep snows played no part in them. He was back home. And Celie was with him. Once they went for wildflowers and were caught in a thunderstorm, and ran to an old and disused barn in the center of a field for shelter. He could feel Celie trembling against him, and he was stroking her hair as the thunder crashed over them and the lightning filled her eyes with fear. After that there came to him a vision of early autumn nights when they went corn-roasting, with other young people. He had always been afflicted with a slight nasal trouble, and smoke irritated him. It set him sneezing, and kept him dodging about the fire, and Celie was laughing as the smoke persisted in following him about, like a young scamp of a boy bent on tormenting him. The smoke was unusually persistent on this particular night, until at last the laughter went out of the girl's face, and she ran into his arms and covered his eyes with her soft hands. Restlessly he tossed in his bunk, and buried his face in the blanket that answered for a pillow. The smoke reached him; even there, and he sneezed chokingly. In that instant Celie's face disappeared. He sneezed again--and awoke. In that moment his dazed senses adjusted themselves. The cabin was full of smoke. It partly blinded him, but through it he could see tongues of fire shooting toward the ceiling. He heard then the crackling of burning pitch--a dull and consuming roar, and with a stifled cry he leaped from his bunk and stood on his feet. Dazed by the smoke and flame, he saw that there was not the hundredth part of a second to lose. Shouting Celie's name he ran to her door, where the fire was already beginning to shut him out. His first cry had awakened her and she was facing the lurid glow of the flame as he rushed in. Almost before she could comprehend what was happening he had wrapped one of the heavy bear skins about her and had swept her into his arms. With her face crushed against his breast he lowered his head and dashed back into the fiery holocaust of the outer room. The cabin, with its pitch-filled logs, was like a box made of tinder, and a score of men could not have beat out the fire that was raging now. The wind beating from the west had kept it from reaching the door opening into the corral, but the pitch was hissing and smoking at the threshold as Philip plunged through the blinding pall and fumbled for the latch. Not ten seconds too soon did he stagger with his burden out into the night. As the wind drove in through the open door the flames seemed to burst in a sudden explosion and the cabin was a seething snarl of flame. It burst through the window and out of the chimney and Philip's path to the open gate was illumined by a fiery glow. Not until he had passed beyond the stockade to the edge of the forest did he stop and look back. Over their heads the wind wailed and moaned in the spruce tops, but even above that sound came the roar of the fire. Against his breast Philip heard a sobbing cry, and suddenly he held the girl closer, and crushed his face down against hers, fighting to keep back the horror that was gripping at his heart. Even as he felt her arms creeping up out of the bearskin and clinging about his neck he felt upon him like a weight of lead the hopelessness of a despair as black as the night itself. The cabin was now a pillar of flame, and in it was everything that had made life possible for them. Food, shelter, clothing--all were gone. In this moment he did not think of himself, but of the girl he held in his arms, and he strained her closer and kissed her lips and her eyes and her tumbled hair there in the storm-swept darkness, telling her what he knew was now a lie--that she was safe, that nothing could harm her. Against him he felt the tremble and throb of her soft body, and it was this that filled him with the horror of the thing--the terror of the thought that her one garment was a bearskin. He had felt, a moment before, the chill touch of a naked little foot. And yet he kept saying, with his face against hers: "It's all right, little sweetheart. We'll come out all right--we sure will!" CHAPTER XVI His first impulse, after those few appalling seconds following their escape from the fire, was to save something from the cabin. Still talking to Celie he dropped on his knees and tucked her up warmly in the bearskin, with her back to a tree. He thanked God that it was a big skin and that it enveloped her completely. Leaving her there he ran back through the gate. He no longer feared the wolves. If they had not already escaped into the forest he knew they would not attack him in that hot glare of the one thing above all others they feared--fire. For a space thought of the Eskimos, and the probability of the fire bringing them from wherever they had sought shelter from the storm, was secondary to the alarming necessity which faced him. Because of his restlessness and his desire to be ready for any emergency he had not undressed when he threw himself on his bunk that night, but he was without a coat or cap. And Celie! He cried out aloud in his anguish when he stopped just outside the deadline of the furnace of flame that was once the cabin, and standing there with clenched hands he cursed himself for the carelessness that had brought her face to face with a peril deadlier than the menace of the Eskimos or Bram Johnson's wolves. He alone was responsible. His indiscretion in overfilling the stove had caused the fire, and in that other moment--when he might have snatched up more than the bearskin--his mind had failed to act. In the short space he stood there helplessly in the red heat of the fire the desperateness of the situation seared itself like the hot flame itself in his brain. As prisoners in Bram's cabin, guarded by the wolves and attacked by the Eskimos, they still had shelter, food, clothing--a chance to live, at least the chance to fight. And now-- He put a hand to his bare head and faced the direction of the storm. With the dying away of the wind snow had begun to fall, and with this snow he knew there would come a rising temperature. It was probably twenty degrees below zero, and unless the wind went down completely his ears would freeze in an hour or two. Then he thought of the thick German socks he wore. One of them would do for a cap. His mind worked swiftly after that. There was, after all, a tremendous thrill in the thought of fighting the odds against him, and in the thought of the girl waiting for him in the bearskin, her life depending upon him utterly now. Without him she could not move from the tree where he had left her unless her naked feet buried themselves in the snow. If something happened to him--she would die. Her helplessness filled him suddenly with a wild exultation, the joy of absolute possession that leapt for an instant or two above his fears. She was something more--now--than the woman he loved. She was a little child, to be carried in his arms, to be sheltered from the wind and the cold until the last drop of blood had ceased to flow in his veins. His was the mighty privilege now to mother her until the end came for them both--or some miracle saved them. The last barrier was gone from between them. That he had met her only yesterday was an unimportant incident now. The world had changed, life had changed, a long time had passed. She belonged to him as utterly as the stars belonged to the skies. In his arms she would find life--or death. He was braced for the fight. His mind, riding over its first fears, began to shape itself for action even as he turned back toward the edge of the forest. Until then he had not thought of the other cabin--the cabin which Bram and he had passed on their way in from the Barren. His heart rose up suddenly in his throat and he wanted to shout. That cabin was their salvation! It was not more than eight or ten miles away, and he was positive that he could find it. He ran swiftly through the increasing circle of light made by the burning logs. If the Eskimos had not gone far some one of them would surely see the red glow of the fire, and discovery now meant death. In the edge of the trees, where the shadows were deep, he paused and looked back. His hand fumbled where the left-pocket of his coat would have been, and as he listened to the crackling of the flames and stared into the heart of the red glow there smote him with sudden and sickening force a realization of their deadliest peril. In that twisting inferno of burning pitch was his coat, and in the left-hand pocket of that coat WERE HIS MATCHES! Fire! Out there in the open a seething, twisting mass of it, taunting him with its power, mocking him as pitiless as the mirage mocks a thirst-crazed creature of the desert. In an hour or two it would be gone. He might keep up its embers for a time--until the Eskimos, or starvation, or still greater storm put an end to it. The effort, in any event, would be futile in the end. Their one chance lay in finding the other cabin, and reaching it quickly. When it came to the point of absolute necessity he could at least try to make fire as he had seen an Indian make it once, though at the time he had regarded the achievement as a miracle born of unnumbered generations of practice. He heard the glad note of welcome in Celie's throat when he returned to her. She spoke his name. It seemed to him that there was no note of fear in her voice, but just gladness that he had come back to her in that pit of darkness. He bent down and tucked her snugly in the big bear-skin before he took her up in his arms again. He held her so that her face was snuggled close against his neck, and he kissed her soft mouth again, and whispered to her as he began picking his way through the forest. His voice, whispering, made her understand that they must make no sound. She was tightly imprisoned in the skin, but all at once he felt one of her hands work its way out of the warmth of it and lay against his cheek. It did not move away from his face. Out of her soul and body there passed through that contact of her hand the confession that made him equal to fighting the world. For many minutes after that neither of them spoke. The moan of the wind was growing less and less in the treetops, and once Philip saw a pale break where the clouds had split asunder in the sky. The storm was at an end--and it was almost dawn. In a quarter of an hour the shot like snow of the blizzard had changed to big soft flakes that dropped straight out of the clouds in a white deluge. By the time day came their trail would be completely hidden from the eyes of the Eskimos. Because of that Philip traveled as swiftly as the darkness and the roughness of the forest would allow him. As nearly as he could judge he kept due east. For a considerable time he did not feel the weight of the precious burden in his arms. He believed that they were at least half a mile from the burned cabin before he paused to rest. Even then he spoke to Celie in a low voice. He had stopped where the trunk of a fallen tree lay as high as his waist, and on this he seated the girl, holding her there in the crook of his arm. With his other hand he fumbled to see if the bearskin protected her fully, and in the investigation his hand came in contact again with one of her bare feet. Celie gave a little jump. Then she laughed, and he made sure that the foot was snug and warm before he went on. Twice in the nest half mile he stopped. The third time, a full mile from the cabin, was in a dense growth of spruce through the tops of which snow and wind did not penetrate. Here he made a nest of spruce-boughs for Celie, and they waited for the day. In the black interval that precedes Arctic dawn they listened for sounds that might come to them. Just once came the wailing howl of one of Bram's wolves, and twice Philip fancied that he heard the distant cry of a human voice. The second time Celie's fingers tightened about his own to tell him that she, too, had heard. A little later, leaving Celie alone, Philip went back to the edge of the spruce thicket and examined closely their trail where it had crossed a bit of open. It was not half an hour old, yet the deluge of snow had almost obliterated the signs of their passing. His one hope was that the snowfall would continue for another hour. By that time there would not be a visible track of man or beast, except in the heart of the thickets. But he knew that he was not dealing with white men or Indians now. The Eskimos were night-trackers and night-hunters. For five months out of every twelve their existence depended upon their ability to stalk and kill in darkness. If they had returned to the burning cabin it was possible, even probable, that they were close on their heels now. For a second time he found himself a stout club. He waited, listening, and straining his eyes to penetrate the thick gloom; and then, as his own heart-beats came to him audibly, he felt creeping over him a slow and irresistible foreboding--a premonition of something impending, of a great danger close at hand. His muscles grew tense, and he clutched the club, ready for action. CHAPTER XVII It seemed to Philip, as he stood with the club ready in his hand, that the world had ceased to breathe in its anticipation of the thing for which he was waiting--and listening. The wind had dropped dead. There was not a rustle in the tree-tops, not a sound to break the stillness. The silence, so close after storm, was an Arctic phenomenon which did not astonish him, and yet the effect of it was almost painfully gripping. Minor sounds began to impress themselves on his senses--the soft murmur of the falling snow, his own breath, the pounding of his heart. He tried to throw off the strange feeling that oppressed him, but it was impossible. Out there in the darkness he would have sworn that there were eyes and ears strained as his own were strained. And the darkness was lifting. Shadows began to disentangle themselves from the gray chaos. Trees and bushes took form, and over his head the last heavy windrows of clouds shouldered their way out of the sky. Still, as the twilight of dawn took the place of night, he did not move, except to draw himself a little closer into the shelter of the scrub spruce behind which he had hidden himself. He wondered if Celie would be frightened at his absence. But he could not compel himself to go on--or back. SOMETHING WAS COMING! He was as positive of it as he was of the fact that night was giving place to day. Yet he could see nothing--hear nothing. It was light enough now for him to see movement fifty yards away, and he kept his eyes fastened on the little open across which their trail had come. If Olaf Anderson the Swede had been there he might have told him of another night like this, and another vigil. For Olaf had learned that the Eskimos, like the wolves, trail two by two and four by four, and that--again like the wolves--they pursue not ON the trail but with the trail between them. But it was the trail that Philip watched; and as he kept his vigil--that inexplicable mental undercurrent telling him that his enemies were coming--his mind went back sharply to the girl a hundred yards behind him. The acuteness of the situation sent question after question rushing through his mind, even as he gripped his club, For her he was about to fight. For her he was ready to kill, and not afraid to die. He loved her. And yet--she was a mystery. He had held her in his arms, had felt her heart beating against his breast, had kissed her lips and her eyes and her hair, and her response had been to place herself utterly within the shelter of his arms. She had given herself to him and he was possessed of the strength of one about to fight for his own. And with that strength the questions pounded again in his head. Who was she? And for what reason were mysterious enemies coming after her through the gray dawn? In that moment he heard a sound. His heart stood suddenly still. He held his breath. It was a sound almost indistinguishable from the whisper of the air and the trees and yet it smote upon his senses like the detonation of a thunder-clap. It was more of a PRESENCE than a sound. The trail was clear. He could see to the far side of the open now, and there was no movement. He turned his head--slowly and without movement of his body, and in that instant a gasp rose to his lips, and died there. Scarcely a dozen paces from him stood a poised and hooded figure, a squat, fire-eyed apparition that looked more like monster than man in that first glance. Something acted within him that was swifter than reason--a sub-conscious instinct that works for self-preservation like the flash of powder in a pan. It was this sub-conscious self that received the first photographic impression--the strange poise of the hooded creature, the uplifted arm, the cold, streaky gleam of something in the dawn-light, and in response to that impression Philip's physical self crumpled down in the snow as a javelin hissed through the space where his head and shoulders had been. So infinitesimal was the space of time between the throwing of the javelin and Philip's movement that the Eskimo believed he had transfixed his victim. A scream of triumph rose in his throat. It was the Kogmollock sakootwow--the blood-cry, a single shriek that split the air for a mile. It died in another sort of cry. From where he had dropped Philip was up like a shot. His club swung through the air and before the amazed hooded creature could dart either to one side or the other it had fallen with crushing force. That one blow must have smashed his shoulder to a pulp. As the body lurched downward another blow caught the hooded head squarely and the beginning of a second cry ended in a sickening grunt. The force of the blow carried Philip half off his feet, and before he could recover himself two other figures had rushed upon him from out of the gloom. Their cries as they came at him were like the cries of beasts. Philip had no time to use his club. From his unbalanced position he flung himself upward and at the nearest of his enemies, saving himself from the upraised javelin by clinching. His fist shot out and caught the Eskimo squarely in the mouth. He struck again--and the javelin dropped from the Kogmollock's hand. In that moment, every vein in his body pounding with the rage and excitement of battle, Philip let out a yell. The end of it was stifled by a pair of furry arms. His head snapped back--and he was down. A thrill of horror shot through him. It was the one unconquerable fighting trick of the Eskimos--that neck hold. Caught from behind there was no escape from it. It was the age-old sasaki-wechikun, or sacrifice-hold, an inheritance that came down from father to son--the Arctic jiu-jitsu by which one Kogmollock holds the victim helpless while a second cuts out his heart. Flat on his back, with his head and shoulders bent under him, Philip lay still for a single instant. He heard the shrill command of the Eskimo over him--an exhortation for the other to hurry up with the knife. And then, even as he heard a grunting reply, his hand came in contact with the pocket which held Celie's little revolver. He drew it quickly, cocked it under his back, and twisting his arm until the elbow-joint cracked, he fired. It was a chance shot. The powder-flash burned the murderous, thick-lipped face in the sealskin hood. There was no cry, no sound that Philip heard. But the arms relaxed about his neck. He rolled over and sprang to his feet. Three or four paces from him was the Eskimo he had struck, crawling toward him on his hands and knees, still dazed by the blows he had received. In the snow Philip saw his club. He picked it up and replaced the revolver in his pocket. A single blow as the groggy Eskimo staggered to his feet and the fight was over. It had taken perhaps three or four minutes--no longer than that. His enemies lay in three dark and motionless heaps in the snow. Fate had played a strong hand with him. Almost by a miracle he had escaped and at least two of the Eskimos were dead. He was still watchful, still guarding against a further attack, and suddenly he whirled to face a figure that brought from him a cry of astonishment and alarm. It was Celie. She was standing ten paces from him, and in the wild terror that had brought her to him she had left the bearskin behind. Her naked feet were buried in the snow. Her arms, partly bared, were reaching out to him in the gray Arctic dawn, and then wildly and moaningly there came to him-- "Philip--Philip--" He sprang to her, a choking cry on his own lips. This, after all, was the last proof--when she had thought that their enemies were killing him SHE HAD COME TO HIM. He was sobbing her name like a boy as he ran back with her in his arms. Almost fiercely he wrapped the bearskin about her again, and then crushed her so closely in his arms that he could hear her gasping faintly for breath. In that wild and glorious moment he listened. A cold and leaden day was breaking over the world and as they listened their hearts throbbing against each other, the same sound came to them both. It was the sakootwow--the savage, shrieking blood-cry of the Kogmollocks, a scream that demanded an answer of the three hooded creatures who, a few minutes before, had attacked Philip in the edge of the open. The cry came from perhaps a mile away. And then, faintly, it was answered far to the west. For a moment Philip pressed his face down to Celie's. In his heart was a prayer, for he knew that the fight had only begun. CHAPTER XVIII That the Eskimos both to the east and the west were more than likely to come their way, converging toward the central cry that was now silent, Philip was sure. In the brief interval in which he had to act he determined to make use of his fallen enemies. This he impressed on Celie's alert mind before he ran back to the scene of the fight. He made no more than a swift observation of the field in these first moments--did not even look for weapons. His thought was entirely of Celie. The smallest of the three forms on the snow was the Kogmollock he had struck down with his club. He dropped on his knees and took off first the sealskin bashlyk, or hood. Then he began stripping the dead man of his other garments. From the fur coat to the caribou-skin moccasins they were comparatively new. With them in his arms he hurried back to the girl. It was not a time for fine distinctions. The clothes were a godsend, though they had come from a dead man's back, and an Eskimo's at that. Celie's eyes shone with joy. It amazed him more than ever to see how unafraid she was in this hour of great danger. She was busy with the clothes almost before his back was turned. He returned to the Eskimos. The three were dead. It made him shudder--one with a tiny bullet hole squarely between the eyes, and the others crushed by the blows of the club. His hand fondled Celie's little revolver--the pea-shooter he had laughed at. After all it had saved his life. And the club-- He did not examine too closely there. From the man he had struck with his naked fist he outfitted himself with a hood and temiak, or coat. In the temiak there were no pockets, but at the waist of each of the dead men a narwhal skin pouch which answered for all pockets. He tossed the three pouches in a little heap on the snow before he searched for weapons. He found two knives and half a dozen of the murderous little javelins. One of the knives was still clutched in the hand of the Eskimo who was creeping up to disembowel him when Celie's revolver saved him. He took this knife because it was longer and sharper than the other. On his knees he began to examine the contents of the three pouches. In each was the inevitable roll of babiche, or caribou-skin cord, and a second and smaller waterproof narwhal bag in which were the Kogmollock fire materials. There was no food. This fact was evident proof that the Eskimos were in camp somewhere in the vicinity. He had finished his investigation of the pouches when, looking up from his kneeling posture, he saw Celie approaching. In spite of the grimness of the situation he could not repress a smile as he rose to greet her. At fifty paces, even with her face toward him, one would easily make the error of mistaking her for an Eskimo, as the sealskin bashlyk was so large that it almost entirely concealed her face except when one was very close to her. Philip's first assistance was to roll back the front of the hood. Then he pulled her thick braid out from under the coat and loosed the shining glory of her hair until it enveloped her in a wonderful shimmering mantle. Their enemies could not mistake her for a man NOW, even at a hundred yards. If they ran into an ambuscade she would at least be saved from the javelins. Celie scarcely realized what he was doing. She was staring at the dead men--silent proof of the deadly menace that had threatened them and of the terrific fight Philip must have made. A strange note rose in her throat, and turning toward him suddenly she flung herself into his arms. Her own arms encircled his neck, and for a space she lay shudderingly against his breast, as if sobbing. How many times he kissed her in those moments Philip could not have told. It must have been a great many. He knew only that her arms were clinging tighter and tighter about his neck, and that she was whispering his name, and that his hands were buried in her soft hair. He forgot time, forgot the possible cost of precious seconds lost. It was a small thing that recalled him to his senses. From out of a spruce top a handful of snow fell on his shoulder. It startled him like the touch of a strange hand, and in another moment he was explaining swiftly to Celie that there were other enemies near and that they must lose no time in flight. He fastened one of the pouches at his waist, picked up his club, and--on second thought--one of the Kogmollock javelins. He had no very definite idea of how he might use the latter weapon, as it was too slender to be of much avail as a spear at close quarters. At a dozen paces he might possibly throw it with some degree of accuracy. In a Kogmollock's hand it was a deadly weapon at a hundred paces. With the determination to be at his side when the next fight came Celie possessed herself of a second javelin. With her hand in his Philip set out then due north through the forest. It was in that direction he knew the cabin must lay. After striking the edge of the timber after crossing the Barren Bram Johnson had turned almost directly south, and as he remembered the last lap of the journey Philip was confident that not more than eight or ten miles had separated the two cabins. He regretted now his carelessness in not watching Brain's trail more closely in that last hour or two. His chief hope of finding the cabin was in the discovery of some landmark at the edge of the Barren. He recalled distinctly where they had turned into the forest, and in less than half an hour after that they had come upon the first cabin. Their immediate necessity was not so much the finding of the cabin as escape from the Eskimos. Within half an hour, perhaps even less, he believed that other eyes would know of the fight at the edge of the open. It was inevitable. If the Kogmollocks on either side of them struck the trail before it reached the open they would very soon run upon the dead, and if they came upon footprints in the snow this side of the open they would back-trail swiftly to learn the source and meaning of the cry of triumph that had not repeated itself. Celie's little feet, clad in moccasins twice too big for her, dragged in the snow in a way that would leave no doubt in the Eskimo mind. As Philip saw the situation there was one chance for them, and only one. They could not escape by means of strategy. They could not hide from their pursuers. Hope depended entirely upon the number of their enemies. If there were only three or four of them left they would not attack in the open. In that event he must watch for ambuscade, and dread the night. He looked down at Celie, buried in her furry coat and hood and plodding along courageously at his side with her hand in his. This was not a time in which to question him, and she was obeying his guidance with the faith of a child. It was tremendous, he thought--the most wonderful moment that had ever entered into his life. It is this dependence, this sublime faith and confidence in him of the woman he loves that gives to a man the strength of a giant in the face of a great crisis and makes him put up a tiger's fight for her. For such a woman a man must win. And then Philip noticed how tightly Celie's other hand was gripping the javelin with which she had armed herself. She was ready to fight, too. The thrill of it all made him laugh, and her eyes shot up to him suddenly, filled with a moment's wonder that he should be laughing now. She must have understood, for the big hood hid her face again almost instantly, and her fingers tightened the smallest bit about his. For a matter of a quarter of an hour they traveled as swiftly as Celie could walk. Philip was confident that the Eskimo whose cries they had heard would strike directly for the point whence the first cry had come, and it was his purpose to cover as much distance as possible in the first few minutes that their enemies might be behind them. It was easier to watch the back trail than to guard against ambuscades ahead. Twice in that time he stopped where they would be unseen and looked back, and in advancing he picked out the thinnest timber and evaded whatever might have afforded a hiding place to a javelin-thrower. They had progressed another half mile when suddenly they came upon a snowshoe trail in the snow. It had crossed at right angles to their own course, and as Philip bent over it a sudden lump rose into his throat. The other Eskimos had not worn snowshoes. That in itself had not surprised him, for the snow was hard and easily traveled in moccasins. The fact that amazed him now was that the trail under his eyes had not been made by Eskimo usamuks. The tracks were long and narrow. The web imprint in the snow was not that of the broad narwhal strip, but the finer mesh of babiche. It was possible that an Eskimo was wearing them, but they were A WHITE MAN'S SHOES! And then he made another discovery. For a dozen paces he followed in the trail, allowing six inches with each step he took as the snowshoe handicap. Even at that he could not easily cover the tracks. The man who had made them had taken a longer snowshoe stride than his own by at least nine inches. He could no longer keep the excitement of his discovery from Celie. "The Eskimo never lived who could make that track," he exclaimed. "They can travel fast enough but they're a bunch of runts when it comes to leg-swing. It's a white man--or Bram!" The announcement of the wolf-man's name and Philip's gesture toward the trail drew a quick little cry of understanding from Celie. In a flash she had darted to the snowshoe tracks and was examining them with eager intensity. Then she looked up and shook her head. It wasn't Bram! She pointed to the tail of the shoe and catching up a twig broke it under Philip's eyes. He remembered now. The end of Bram's shoes was snubbed short off. There was no evidence of that defect in the snow. It was not Bram who had passed that way. For a space he stood undecided. He knew that Celie was watching him--that she was trying to learn something of the tremendous significance of that moment from his face. The same unseen force that had compelled him to wait and watch for his foes a short time before seemed urging him now to follow the strange snowshoe trail. Enemy or friend the maker of those tracks would at least be armed. The thought of what a rifle and a few cartridges would mean to him and Celie now brought a low cry of decision from him. He turned quickly to Celie. "He's going east--and we ought to go north to find the cabin," he told her, pointing to the trail. "But we'll follow him. I want his rifle. I want it more than anything else in this world, now that I've got you. We'll follow--" If there had been a shadow of hesitation in his mind it was ended in that moment. From behind them there came a strange hooting cry. It was not a yell such as they had heard before. It was a booming far-reaching note that had in it the intonation of a drum--a sound that made one shiver because of its very strangeness. And then, from farther west, it came-- "Hoom--Hoom--Ho-o-o-o-o-m-m-m-m--" In the next half minute it seemed to Philip that the cry was answered from half a dozen different quarters. Then again it came from directly behind them. Celie uttered a little gasp as she clung to his hand again. She understood as well as he. One of the Eskimos had discovered the dead and their foes were gathering in behind them. CHAPTER XIX Before the last of the cries had died away Philip flung far to one side of the trail the javelin he carried, and followed it up with Celie's, impressing on her that every ounce of additional weight meant a handicap for them now. After the javelins went his club. "It's going to be the biggest race I've ever run," he smiled at her. "And we've got to win. If we don't--" Celie's eyes were aglow as she looked at him, He was splendidly calm. There was no longer a trace of excitement in his face, and he was smiling at her even as he picked her up suddenly in his arms. The movement was so unexpected that she gave a little gasp. Then she found herself borne swiftly over the trail. For a distance of a hundred yards Philip ran with her before he placed her on her feet again. In no better way could he have impressed on her that they were partners in a race against death and that every energy must be expended in that race. Scarcely had her feet touched the snow than she was running at his side, her hand clasped in his. Barely a second was lost. With the swift directness of the trained man-hunter Philip had measured his chances of winning. The Eskimos, first of all, would gather about their dead. After one or two formalities they would join in a chattering council, all of which meant precious time for them. The pursuit would be more or less cautious because of the bullet hole in the Kogmollock's forehead. If it had been possible for Celie to ask him just what he expected to gain by following the strange snowshoe trail he would have had difficulty in answering. It was, like his single shot with Celie's little revolver, a chance gamble against big odds. A number of possibilities had suggested themselves to him. It even occurred to him that the man who was hurrying toward the east might be a member of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police. Of one thing, however, he was confident. The maker of the tracks would not be armed with javelins. He would have a rifle. Friend or foe, he was after that rifle. The trick was to catch sight of him at the earliest possible moment. How much of a lead the stranger had was a matter at which he could guess with considerable accuracy. The freshness of the trail was only slightly dimmed by snow, which was ample proof that it had been made at the very tail-end of the storm. He believed that it was not more than an hour old. For a good two hundred yards Philip set a dog-trot pace for Celie, who ran courageously at his side. At the end of that distance he stopped. Celie was panting for breath. Her hood had slipped back and her face was flushed like a wildflower by her exertion. Her eyes shone like stars, and her lips were parted a little. She was temptingly lovely, but again Philip lost not a second of unnecessary time. He picked her up in his arms again and continued the race. By using every ounce of his own strength and endurance in this way he figured that their progress would be at least a third faster than the Eskimos would follow. The important question was how long he could keep up the pace. Against his breast Celie was beginning to understand his scheme as plainly as if he had explained it to her in words. At the end of the fourth hundred yards she let him know that she was ready to run another lap. He carried her on fifty yards more before he placed her on her feet. In this way they had gone three-quarters of a mile when the trail turned abruptly from its easterly course to a point of the compass due north. So sharp was the turn that Philip paused to investigate the sudden change in direction. The stranger had evidently stood for several minutes at this point, which was close to the blasted stub of a dead spruce. In the snow Philip observed for the first time a number of dark brown spots. "Here is where he took a new bearing--and a chew of tobacco," said Philip, more to himself than to Celie. "And there's no snow in his tracks. By George, I don't believe he's got more than half an hour's start of us this minute!" It was his turn to carry Celie again, and in spite of her protest that she was still good for another run he resumed their pursuit of the stranger with her in his arms. By her quick breathing and the bit of tenseness that had gathered about her mouth he knew that the exertion she had already been put to was having its effect on her. For her little feet and slender body the big moccasins and cumbersome fur garments she wore were a burden in themselves, even at a walk. He found that by holding her higher in his arms, with her own arms encircling his shoulders, it was easier to run with her at the pace he had set for himself. And when he held her in this way her hair covered his breast and shoulders so that now and then his face was smothered in the velvety sweetness of it. The caress of it and the thrill of her arms about him spurred him on. Once he made three hundred yards. But he was gulping for breath when he stopped. That time Celie compelled him to let her run a little farther, and when they paused she was swaying on her feet, and panting. He carried her only a hundred and fifty yards in the interval after that. Both realized what it meant. The pace was telling on them. The strain of it was in Celie's eyes. The flower-like flush of her first exertion was gone from her face. It was pale and a little haggard, and in Philip's face she saw the beginning of the things which she did not realize was betraying itself so plainly in her own. She put her hands up to his cheeks, and smiled. It was tremendous--that moment;--her courage, her splendid pride in him, her manner of telling him that she was not afraid as her little hands lay against his face. For the first time he gave way to his desire to hold her close to him, and kiss the sweet mouth she held up to his as her head nestled on his breast. After a moment or two he looked at his watch. Since striking the strange trail they had traveled forty minutes. In that tine they had covered at least three miles, and were a good four miles from the scene of the fight. It was a big start. The Eskimos were undoubtedly a half that distance behind them, and the stranger whom they were following could not be far ahead. They went on at a walk. For the third time they came to a point in the trail where the stranger had stopped to make observations. It was apparent to Philip that the man he was after was not quite sure of himself. Yet he did not hesitate in the course due north. For half an hour they continued in that direction. Not for an instant now did Philip allow; his caution to lag. Eyes and ears were alert for sound or movement either behind or ahead of them, and more and more frequently he turned to scan the back trail. They were at least five miles from the edge of the open where the fight had occurred when they came to the foot of a ridge, and Philip's heart gave a sudden thump of hope. He remembered that ridge. It was a curiously formed "hog-back"--like a great windrow of snow piled up and frozen. Probably it was miles in length. Somewhere he and Bram had crossed it soon after passing the first cabin. He had not tried to tell Celie of this cabin. Time had been too precious. But now, in the short interval of rest he allowed themselves, he drew a picture of it in the snow and made her understand that it was somewhere close to the ridge and that it looked as though the stranger was making for it. He half carried Celie up the ridge after that. She could not hide from him that her feet were dragging even at a walk. Exhaustion showed in her face, and once when she tried to speak to him her voice broke in a little gasping sob. On the far side of the ridge he took her in his arms and carried her again. "It can't be much farther," he encouraged her. "We've got to overtake him pretty soon, dear. Mighty soon." Her hand pressed gently against his cheek, and he swallowed a thickness that in spite of his effort gathered in his throat. During that last half hour a different look had come into her eyes. It was there now as she lay limply with her head on his breast--a look of unutterable tenderness, and of something else. It was that which brought the thickness into his throat. It was not fear. It was the soft glow of a great love--and of understanding. She knew that even he was almost at the end of his fight. His endurance was giving out. One of two things must happen very soon. She continued to stroke his cheek gently until he placed her on her feet again, and then she held one of his hands close to her breast as they looked behind them, and listened. He could feel the soft throbbing of her heart. If he needed greater courage then it was given to him. They went on. And then, so suddenly that it brought a stifled cry from the girl's lips, they came upon the cabin. It was not a hundred yards from them when they first saw it. It was no longer abandoned. A thin spiral of smoke was rising from the chimney. There was no sign of life other than that. For half a minute Philip stared at it. Here, at last, was the final hope. Life or death, all that the world might hold for him and the girl at his side, was in that cabin. Gently he drew her so that she would be unseen. And then, still looking at the cabin, he drew off his coat and dropped it in the snow. It was the preparation of a man about to fight. The look of it was in his face and the stiffening of his muscles, and when he turned to his little companion she was as white as the snow under her feet. "We're in time," he breathed. "You--you stay here." She understood. Her hands clutched at him as he left her. A gulp rose in her throat. She wanted to call out. She wanted to hold him back--or go with him. Yet she obeyed. She stood with a heart that choked her and watched him go. For she knew, after all, that it was the thing to do. Sobbingly she breathed his name. It was a prayer. For she knew what would happen in the cabin. CHAPTER XX Philip came up behind the windowless end of the cabin. He noticed in passing with Bram that on the opposite side was a trap-window of saplings, and toward this he moved swiftly but with caution. It was still closed when he came where he could see. But with his ear close to the chinks he heard a sound--the movement of some one inside. For an instant he looked over his shoulder. Celia was standing where he had left her. He could almost feel the terrible suspense that was in her eyes as she watched him. He moved around toward the door. There was in him an intense desire to have it over with quickly. His pulse quickened as the thought grew in him that the maker of the strange snowshoe trail might be a friend after all. But how was he to discover that fact? He had decided to take no chances in the matter. Ten seconds of misplaced faith in the stranger might prove fatal. Once he held a gun in his hands he would be in a position to wait for introductions and explanations. But until then, with their Eskimo enemies close at their heels-- His mind did not finish that final argument. The end of it smashed upon him in another way. The door came within his vision. As it swung inward he could not at first see whether it was open or closed. Leaning against the logs close to the door was a pair of long snowshoes and a bundle of javelins. A sickening disappointment swept over him as he stared at the javelins. A giant Eskimo and not a white man had made the trail they had followed. Their race against time had brought them straight to the rendezvous of their foes--and there would be no guns. In that moment when all the hopes he had built up seemed slipping away from under him he could see no other possible significance in the presence of the javelins. Then, for an instant, he held his breath and sniffed the air like a dog getting the wind. The cabin door was open. And out through that door came the mingling aroma of coffee and tobacco! An Eskimo might have tobacco, or even tea. But coffee--never! Every drop of blood in his body pounded like tiny beating fists as he crossed silently and swiftly the short space between the corner of the cabin and the open door. For perhaps half a dozen seconds he closed his eyes to give his snow-strained vision an even chance with the man in the cabin. Then he looked in. It was a small cabin. It was possibly not more than ten feet square inside, and at the far end of it was a fireplace from which rose the chimney through the roof. At first Philip saw nothing except the dim outlines of things. It was a moment or two before he made out the figure of a man stooping over the fire. He stepped over the threshold, making no sound. The occupant of the cabin straightened himself slowly, lifting with, extreme care a pot of coffee from the embers. A glance at his broad back and his giant stature told Philip that he was not an Eskimo. He turned. Even then for an infinitesimal space he did not see Philip as he stood fronting the door with the light in his face. It was a white man's face--a face almost hidden in a thick growth of beard and a tangle of hair that fell to the shoulders. Another instant and he had seen the intruder and stood like one turned suddenly into stone. Philip had leveled Celie's little revolver. "I am Philip Raine of His Majesty's service, the Royal Mounted," he said. "Throw, up your hands!" The moment's tableau was one of rigid amazement on one side, of waiting tenseness on the other. Philip believed that the shadow of his body concealed the size of the tiny revolver in his hand. Anyway it would be effective at that distance, and he expected to see the mysterious stranger's hands go over his head the moment he recovered from the shock that had apparently gone with the command. What did happen he expected least of all. The arm holding the pot of steaming coffee shot out and the boiling deluge hissed straight at Philip's face. He ducked to escape it, and fired. Before he could throw back the hammer of the little single-action weapon for a second shot the stranger was at him. The force of the attack sent them both crashing back against the wall of the cabin, and in the few moments that followed Philip blessed the providential forethought that had made him throw off his fur coat and strip for action. His antagonist was not an ordinary man. A growl like that of a beast rose in his throat as they went to the floor, and in that death-grip Philip thought of Bram. More than once in watching the wolf-man he had planned how he would pit himself against the giant if it came to a fight, and how he would evade the close arm-to-arm grapple that would mean defeat for him. And this man was Bram's equal in size and strength. He realized with the swift judgment of the trained boxer that open fighting and the evasion of the other's crushing brute strength was his one hope. On his knees he flung himself backward, and struck out. The blow caught his antagonist squarely in the face before he had succeeded in getting a firm clinch, and as he bent backward under the force of the blow Philip exerted every ounce of his strength, broke the other's hold, and sprang to his feet. He felt like uttering a shout of triumph. Never had the thrill of mastery and of confidence surged through him more hotly than it did now. On his feet in open fighting he had the agility of a cat. The stranger was scarcely on his feet before he was at him with a straight shoulder blow that landed on the giant's jaw with crushing force. It would have put an ordinary man down in a limp heap. The other's weight saved him. A second blow sent him reeling against the log wall like a sack of grain. And then in the half-gloom of the cabin Philip missed. He put all his effort in that third blow and as his clenched fist shot over the other's shoulder he was carried off his balance and found himself again in the clutch of his enemy's arms. This time a huge hand found his throat. The other he blocked with his left arm, while with his right he drove in short-arm jabs against neck and jaw. Their ineffectiveness amazed him. His guard-arm was broken upward, and to escape the certain result of two hands gripping at his throat he took a sudden foot-lock on his adversary, flung all his weight forward, and again they went to the floor of the cabin. Neither caught a glimpse of the girl standing wide-eyed and terrified in the door. They rolled almost to her feet. Full in the light she saw the battered, bleeding face of the strange giant, and Philip's fist striking it again and again. Then she saw the giant's two hands, and why he was suffering that punishment. They were at Philip's throat--huge hairy hands stained with his own blood. A cry rose to her lips and the blue in her eyes darkened with the fighting fire of her ancestors. She darted across the room to the fire. In an instant she was back with a stick of wood in her hands. Philip saw her then--her streaming hair and white face above them, and the club fell. The hands at his throat relaxed. He swayed to his feet and with dazed eyes and a weird sort of laugh opened his arms. Celie ran into them. He felt her sobbing and panting against him. Then, looking down, he saw that for the present the man who had made the strange snowshoe trail was as good as dead. The air he was taking into his half strangled lungs cleared his head and he drew away from Celie to begin the search of the room. His eyes were more accustomed to the gloom, and suddenly he gave a cry of exultation. Against the end of the mud and stone fireplace stood a rifle and over the muzzle of this hung a belt and holster. In the holster was a revolver. In his excitement and joy his breath was almost a sob as he snatched it from the holster and broke it in the light of the door. It was a big Colt Forty-five--and loaded to the brim. He showed it to Celie, and thrust her to the door. "Watch!" he cried, sweeping his arm to the open. "Just two minutes more. That's all I want--two minutes--and then--" He was counting the cartridges in the belt as he fastened it about his waist. There were at least forty, two-thirds of them soft-nosed rifle. The caliber was .303 and the gun was a Savage. It was modern up to the minute, and as he threw down the lever enough to let him glimpse inside the breech he caught the glisten of cartridges ready for action. He wanted nothing more. The cabin might have held his weight in gold and he would not have turned toward it. With the rifle in his hands he ran past Celie out into the day. For the moment the excitement pounding in his body had got beyond his power of control. His brain was running riot with the joyous knowledge of the might that lay in his hands now and he felt an overmastering desire to shout his triumph in the face of their enemies. "Come on, you devils! Come on, come on," he cried. And then, powerless to restrain what was in him, he let out a yell. From the door Celie was staring at him. A few moments before her face had been dead white. Now a blaze of color was surging back into her cheeks and lips and her eyes shone with the glory of one who was looking on more than triumph. From her own heart welled up a cry, a revelation of that wonderful thing throbbing in her breast which must have reached Philip's ears had there not in that same instant come another sound to startle them both into listening silence. It was not far distant. And it was unmistakably an answer to Philip's challenge. CHAPTER XXI As they listened the cry came again. This time Philip caught in it a note that he had not detected before. It was not a challenge but the long-drawn ma-too-ee of an Eskimo who answers the inquiring hail of a comrade. "He thinks it is the man in the cabin," exclaimed Philip, turning to survey the fringe of forest through which their trail had come. "If the others don't warn him there's going to be one less Eskimo on earth in less than three minutes!" Another sound had drawn Celie back to the door. "When she looked in the man she had stunned with the club was moving. Her call brought Philip, and placing her in the open door to keep watch he set swiftly to work to make sure of their prisoner. With the babiche thong he had taken from his enemies he bound him hand and foot. A shaft of light fell full on the giant's face and naked chest where it had been laid bare in the struggle and Philip was about to rise when a purplish patch, of tattooing caught his eyes. He made out first the crude picture of a shark with huge gaping jaws struggling under the weight of a ship's anchor, and then, directly under this pigment colored tatu, the almost invisible letters of a name. He made them out one by one--B-l-a-k-e. Before the surname was the letter G. "Blake," he repeated, rising to his feet. "GEORGE Blake--a sailor--and a white man!" Blake, returning to consciousness, mumbled incoherently. In the same instant Celie cried out excitedly at the door. "Oo-ee, Philip--Philip! Se det! Se! Se!" She drew back with, a sudden movement and pointed out the door. Concealing himself as much as possible from outside observation Philip peered forth. Not more than a hundred and fifty yards away a dog team was approaching. There were eight dogs and instantly he recognized them as the small fox-faced Eskimo breed from the coast. They were dragging a heavily laden sledge and behind them came the driver, a furred and hooded figure squat of stature and with a voice that came now in the sharp clacking commands that Philip had heard in the company of Bram Johnson. From the floor came a groan, and for an instant Philip turned to find Blake's bloodshot eyes wide open and staring at him. The giant's bleeding lips were gathered in a snarl and he was straining at the babiche thongs that bound him. In that same moment Philip caught a glimpse of Celie. She, too, was staring--and at Blake. Her lips were parted, her eyes were big with amazement and as she looked she clutched her hands convulsively at her breast and uttered a low, strange cry. For the first time she saw Blake's face with the light full upon it. At the sound of her cry Blake's eyes went to her, and for the space of a second the imprisoned beast on the floor and the girl looking down on him made up a tableau that held Philip spellbound. Between them was recognition--an amazed and stone like horror on the girl's part, a sudden and growing glare of bestial exultation in the eyes of the man. Suddenly there came the Eskimo's voice and the yapping of dogs. It was the first Blake had heard. He swung his head toward the door with a great gasp and the babiche cut like whipcord under the strain of his muscles. Swift as a flash Philip thrust the muzzle of the big Colt against his prisoner's head. "Make a sound and you're a dead man, Blake!" he warned. "We need that team, and if you so much as whisper during the next ten seconds I'll scatter your brains over the floor!" They could hear the cold creak of the sledge-runners now, and a moment later the patter of many feet outside the door. In a single leap Philip was at the door. Another and he was outside, and an amazed Eskimo was looking into the round black eye of his revolver. It required no common language to make him understand what was required of him. He backed into the cabin with the revolver within two feet of his breast. Celie had caught up the rifle and was standing guard over Blake as though fearful that he might snap his bonds. Philip laughed joyously when he saw how quickly she understood that she was to level the rifle at the Kogmollock's breast and hold it there until he had made him a prisoner. She was wonderful. She was panting in her excitement. From the floor Blake had noticed that her little white finger was pressing gently against the trigger of the rifle. It had made him shudder. It made the Eskimo cringe a bit now as Philip tied his hands behind him. And Philip saw it, and his heart thumped. Celie was gloriously careless. It was over inside of two minutes, and with an audible sigh of relief she lowered her rifle. Then she leaned it against the wall and ran to Blake. She was tremendously excited as she pointed down into the bloodstained face and tried to explain to Philip the reason for that strange and thrilling recognition he had seen between them. From her he looked at Blake. The look in the prisoner's face sent a cold shiver through him. There was no fear in it. It was filled with a deep and undisguised exultation. Then Blake looked at Philip, and laughed outright. "Can't understand her, eh?" he chuckled. "Well, neither can I. But I know what she's trying to tell you. Damned funny, ain't it?" It was impossible for him to keep his eyes from shifting to the door. There was expectancy in that glance. Then his glance shot almost fiercely at Philip. "So you're Philip Raine, of the R. N. M. P., eh? Well, you've got me guessed out. My name is Blake, but the G don't stand for George. If you'll cut the cord off'n my legs so I can stand up or sit down I'll tell you something. I can't do very much damage with my hands hitched the way they are, and I can't talk layin' down cause of my Adam's apple chokin' me." Philip seized the rifle and placed it again in Celie's hands, stationing her once more at the door. "Watch--and listen," he said. He cut the thongs that bound his prisoner's ankles and Blake struggled to his feet. When he fronted Philip the big Colt was covering his heart. "Now--talk!" commanded Philip. "I'm going to give you half a minute to begin telling me what I want to know, Blake. You've brought the Eskimos down. There's no doubt of that. What do you want of this girl, and what have you done with her people?" He had never looked into the eyes of a cooler man than Blake, whose blood-stained lips curled in a sneering smile even as he finished. "I ain't built to be frightened," he said, taking his time about it. "I know your little games an' I've throwed a good many bluffs of my own in my time. You're lyin' when you say you'll shoot, an' you know you are. I may talk and I may not. Before I make up my mind I'm going to give you a bit of brotherly advice. Take that team out there and hit across the Barren--ALONE. Understand? ALONE. Leave the girl here. It's your one chance of missing what happened to--" He grinned and shrugged his huge shoulders. "You mean Anderson--Olaf Anderson--and the others up at Bathurst Inlet?" questioned Philip chokingly. Blake nodded. Philip wondered if the other could hear the pounding of his heart. He had discovered in this moment what the Department had been trying to learn for two years. It was this man--Blake--who was the mysterious white leader of the Kogmollocks, and responsible for the growing criminal record of the natives along Coronation Gulf. And he had just confessed himself the murderer of Olaf Anderson! His finger trembled for an instant against the trigger of his revolver. Then, staring into Blake's face, he slowly lowered the weapon until it hung at his side. Blake's eyes gleamed as he saw what he thought was his triumph. "IT'S your one chance," he urged. "And there ain't no time to lose." Philip had judged his man, and now he prayed for the precious minutes in which to play out his game. The Kogmollocks who had taken up their trail could not be far from the cabin now. "Maybe you're right, Blake," he said hesitatingly. "I think, after her experience with Bram Johnson that she is about willing to return to her father. Where is he?" Blake made no effort to disguise his eagerness. In the droop of Philip's shoulder, the laxness of the hand that held the revolver and the change in his voice Blake saw in his captor an apparent desire to get out of the mess he was in. A glimpse of Celie's frightened face turned for an instant from the door gave weight to his conviction. "He's down the Coppermine--about a hundred miles. So, Bram Johnson--" His eyes were a sudden blaze of fire. "Took care of her until your little rats waylaid him on the trail and murdered him," interrupted Philip. "See here, Blake. You be square with me and I'll be square with you. I haven't been able to understand a word of her lingo and I'm curious to know a thing or two before I go. Tell me who she is, and why you haven't killed her father, and what you're going to do with her and I won't waste another minute." Blake leaned forward until Philip felt the heat of his breath. "What do I WANT of her?" he demanded slowly. "Why, if you'd been five years without sight of a white woman, an' then you woke up one morning to meet an angel like HER on the trail two thousand miles up in nowhere what would you want of her? I was stunned, plumb stunned, or I'd had her then. And after that, if it hadn't been for that devil with his wolves--" "Bram ran away with her just as you were about to get her into your hands," supplied Philip, fighting to save time. "She didn't even know that you wanted her, Blake, so far as I can find out. It's all a mystery to her. I don't believe she's guessed the truth even now. How the devil did you do it? Playing the friend stunt, eh! And keeping yourself in the background while your Kogmollocks did the work? Was that it?" Blake nodded. His face was darkening as he looked at Philip and the light in his eyes was changing to a deep and steady glare. In that moment Philip had failed to keep the exultation out of his voice. It shone in his face. And Blake saw it. A throaty sound rose out of his thick chest and his lips parted in a snarl as there surged through him a realization that he had been tricked. In that interval Philip spoke. "If I never sent up a real prayer to God before I'm sending it now, Blake," he said. "I'm thanking Him that you didn't have time to harm Celie Armin, an' I'm thanking Him that Bram Johnson had a soul in his body in spite of his warped brain and his misshapen carcass. And now I'm going to keep my word. I'm not going to lose another minute. Come!" "You--you mean--" "No, you haven't guessed it. We're not going over the Barren. We're going back to that cabin on the Coppermine, and you're going with us. And listen to this, Blake--listen hard! There may be fighting. If there is I want you to sort of harden yourself to the fact that the first shot fired is going straight through your gizzard. Do I make myself clear? I'll shoot you deader than a salt mackerel the instant one of your little murderers shows up on the trail. So tell this owl-faced heathen here to spread the glad tidings when his brothers come in--and spread it good. Quick about it! I'm not bluffing now." CHAPTER XXII In Philip's eyes Blake saw his match now. And more. For three-quarters of a minute he talked swiftly to the Eskimo. Philip knew that he was giving the Kogmollock definite instructions as to the manner in which his rescue must be accomplished. But he knew also that Blake would emphasize the fact that it must not be in open attack, no matter how numerous his followers might be. He hurried Blake through the door to the sledge and team. The sledge was heavily laden with the meat of a fresh caribou kill and from the quantity of flesh he dragged off into the snow Philip surmised that the cabin would very soon be the rendezvous of a small army of Eskimo. There was probably a thousand pounds of it, Retaining only a single quarter of this he made Celie comfortable and turned his attention to Blake. With babiche cord he re-secured his prisoner with the "manacle-hitch," which gave him free play of one hand and arm--his left. Then he secured the Eskimo's whip and gave it to Blake. "Now--drive!" he commanded. "Straight for the Coppermine, and by the shortest cut. This is as much your race as mine now, Blake. The moment I see a sign of anything wrong you're a dead man!" "And you--are a fool!" gritted Blake. "Good God, what a fool!" "Drive--and shut up!" Blake snapped his whip and gave a short, angry command in Eskimo. The dogs sprang from their bellies to their feet and at another command were off over the trail. From the door of the cabin the Eskimo's little eyes shone with a watery eagerness as he watched them go. Celie caught a last glimpse of him as she looked back and her hands gripped more firmly the rifle which lay across her lap. Philip had given her the rifle and it had piled upon her a mighty responsibility. He had meant that she should use it if the emergency called for action, and that she was to especially watch Blake. Her eyes did not leave the outlaw's broad back as he ran on a dozen paces ahead of the dogs. She was ready for him if he tried to escape, and she would surely fire. Running close to her side Philip observed the tight grip of her hands on the weapon, and saw one little thumb pinched up against the safety ready for instant action. He laughed, and for a moment she looked up at him, flushing suddenly when she saw the adoration in his face. "Blake's right--I'm a fool," he cried down at her in a low voice that thrilled with his worship of her. "I'm a fool for risking you, sweetheart. By going the other way I'd have you forever. They wouldn't follow far into the south, if at all. Mebby you don't realize what we're doing by hitting back to that father of yours. Do you?" She smiled. "And mebby when we get there we'll find him dead," he added. "Dead or alive, everything is up to Blake now and you must help me watch him." He pantomimed this caution by pointing to Blake and the rifle. Then he dropped behind. Over the length of sledge and team he was thirty paces from Blake. At that distance he could drop him with a single shot from the Colt. They were following the trail already made by the meat-laden sledge, and the direction was northwest. It was evident that Blake was heading at least in the right direction and Philip believed that it would be but a short time before they would strike the Coppermine. Once on the frozen surface of the big stream that flowed into the Arctic and their immediate peril of an ambuscade would be over. Blake was surely aware of that. If he had in mind a plan for escaping it must of necessity take form before they reached the river. "Where the forest thinned out and the edge of the Barren crept in Philip ran at Celie's side, but when the timber thickened and possible hiding places for their enemies appeared in the trail ahead he was always close to Blake, with the big Colt held openly in his hand. At these times Celie watched the back trail. From her vantage on the sledge her alert eyes took in every bush and thicket to right and left of them, and when Philip was near or behind her she was looking at least a rifle-shot ahead of Blake. For three-quarters of an hour they had followed the single sledge trail when Blake suddenly gave a command that stopped the dogs. They had reached a crest which overlooked a narrow finger of the treeless Barren on the far side of which, possibly a third of a mile distant, was a dark fringe of spruce timber. Blake pointed toward this timber. Out of it was rising a dark column of resinous smoke. "It's up to you," he said coolly to Philip. "Our trail crosses through that timber--and you see the smoke. I imagine there are about twenty of Upi's men there feeding on caribou. The herd was close beyond when they made the kill. Now if we go on they're most likely to see us, or their dogs get wind of us--and Upi is a bloodthirsty old cutthroat. I don't want that bullet through my gizzard, so I'm tellin' you." Far back in Blake's eyes there lurked a gleam which Philip did not like. Blake was not a man easily frightened, and yet he had given what appeared to be fair warning to his enemy. He came a step nearer, and said in a lower voice: "Raine, that's just ONE of Upi's crowds. If you go on to the cabin we're heading for there'll be two hundred fighting men after you before the day is over, and they'll get you whether you kill me or not. You've still got the chance I gave you back there. Take it--if you ain't tired of life. Give me the girl--an' you hit out across the Barren with the team." "We're going on," replied Philip, meeting the other's gaze steadily. "You know your little murderers, Blake. If any one can get past them without being seen it's you. And you've got to do it. I'll kill you if you don't. The Eskimos may get us after that, but they won't harm HER in your way. Understand? We're going the limit in this game. And I figure you're putting up the biggest stake. I've got a funny sort of feeling that you're going to cash in before we reach the cabin." For barely an instant the mysterious gleam far back in Blake's eyes died out. There was the hard, low note in Philip's voice which carried conviction and Blake knew he was ready to play the hand which he held. With a grunt and a shrug of his shoulders he stirred up the dogs with a crack of his whip and struck out at their head due west. During the next half hour Philip's eyes and ears were ceaselessly on the alert. He traveled close to Blake, with the big Colt in his hand, watching every hummock and bit of cover as they came to it. He also watched Blake and in the end was convinced that in the back of the outlaw's head was a sinister scheme in which he had the utmost confidence in spite of his threats and the fact that they had successfully got around Upi's camp. Once or twice when their eyes happened to meet he caught in Blake's face a contemptuous coolness, almost a sneering exultation which the other could not quite conceal. It filled him with a scarcely definable uneasiness. He was positive that Blake realized he would carry out his threat at the least sign of treachery or the appearance of an enemy, and yet he could not free himself from the uncomfortable oppression that was beginning to take hold of him. He concealed it from Blake. He tried to fight it out of himself. Yet it persisted. It was something which seemed to hover in the air about him--the FEEL of a danger which he could not see. And then Blake suddenly pointed ahead over an open plain and said: "There is the Coppermine." CHAPTER XXIII A cry from Celie turned his gaze from the broad white trail of ice that was the Coppermine, and as he looked she pointed eagerly toward a huge pinnacle of rock that rose like an oddly placed cenotaph out of the unbroken surface of the plain. Blake grunted out a laugh in his beard and his eyes lit up with an unpleasant fire as they rested on her flushed face. "She's tellin' you that Bram Johnson brought her this way," he chuckled. "Bram was a fool--like you!" He seemed not to expect a reply from Philip, but urged the dogs down the slope into the plain. Fifteen minutes later they were on the surface of the river. Philip drew a deep breath of relief, and he found that same relief in Celie's face when he dropped back to her side. As far as they could see ahead of them there was no forest. The Coppermine itself seemed to be swallowed up in the vast white emptiness of the Barren. There could be no surprise attack here, even at night. And yet there was something in Blake's face which kept alive within him the strange premonition of a near and unseen danger. Again and again he tried to shake off the feeling. He argued with himself against the unreasonableness of the thing that had begun to oppress him. Blake was in his power. It was impossible for him to escape, and the outlaw's life depended utterly upon his success in getting them safely to the cabin. It was not conceivable to suppose that Blake would sacrifice his life merely that they might fall into the hands of the Eskimos. And yet-- He watched Blake--watched him more and more closely as they buried themselves deeper in that unending chaos of the north. And Blake, it seemed to him, was conscious of that increasing watchfulness. He increased his speed. Now and then Philip heard a curious chuckling sound smothered in his beard, and after an hour's travel on the snow-covered ice of the river he could no longer dull his vision to the fact that the farther they progressed into the open country, the more confident Blake was becoming. He did not question him. He realized the futility of attempting to force his prisoner into conversation. In that respect it was Blake who held the whip hand. He could lie or tell the truth, according to the humor of his desire. Blake must have guessed this thought in Philip's mind. They were traveling side by side when he suddenly laughed. There was an unmistakable irony in his voice when he said: "It's funny, Raine, that I should like you, ain't it? A man who's mauled you, an' threatened to kill you! I guess it's because I'm so cussed sorry for you. You're heading straight for the gates of hell, an' they're open--wide open." "And you?" This time Blake's laugh was harsher. "I don't count--now," he said. "Since you've made up your mind not to trade me the girl for your life I've sort of dropped out of the game. I guess you're thinking I can hold Upi's tribe back. Well, I can't--not when you're getting this far up in their country. If we split the difference, and you gave me HER, Upi would meet me half way. God, but you've spoiled a nice dream!" "A dream?" Blake uttered a command to the dogs. "Yes--more'n that. I've got an igloo up there even finer than Upi's--all built of whalebone and ships' timbers. Think of HER in that, Raine--with ME! That's the dream you smashed!" "And her father--and the others--" This time there was a ferocious undercurrent in Blake's guttural laugh, as though Philip had by accident reminded him of something that both amused and enraged him. "Don't you know how these Kogmollock heathen look on a father-in-law?" he asked. "He's sort of walkin' delegate over the whole bloomin' family. A god with two legs. The OTHERS? Why, we killed them. But Upi and his heathen wouldn't see anything happen to the old man when they found I was going to take the girl. That's why he's alive up there in the cabin now. Lord, what a mess you're heading into, Raine! And I'm wondering, after you kill me, and they kill you, WHO'LL HAVE THE GIRL? There's a half-breed in the tribe an' she'll probably go to him. The heathen themselves don't give a flip for women, you know. So it's certain to be the half-breed." He surged on ahead, cracking his whip, and crying out to the dogs. Philip believed that in those few moments he had spoken much that was truth. He had, without hesitation and of his own volition, confessed the murder of the companions of Celie's father, and he had explained in a reasonable way why Armin himself had been spared. These facts alone increased his apprehension. Unless Blake was utterly confident of the final outcome he would not so openly expose himself. He was even more on his guard after this. For several hours after his brief fit of talking Blake made no effort to resume the conversation nor any desire to answer Philip when the latter spoke to him. A number of times it struck Philip that he was going the pace that would tire out both man and beast before night. He knew that in Blake's shaggy head there was a brain keenly and dangerously alive, and he noted the extreme effort he was making to cover distance with a satisfaction that was not unmixed of suspicion. By three o'clock in the afternoon they were thirty-five miles from the cabin in which Blake had become a prisoner. All that distance they had traveled through a treeless barren without a sign of life. It was between three and four when they began to strike timber once more, and Philip asked himself if it had been Blake's scheme to reach this timber before dusk. In places the spruce and banskian pine thickened until they formed dark walls of forest and whenever they approached these patches Philip commanded Blake to take the middle of the river. The width of the stream was a comforting protection. It was seldom less than two hundred yards from shore to shore and frequently twice that distance. From the possible ambuscades they passed only a rifle could be used effectively, and whenever there appeared to be the possibility of that danger Philip traveled close to Blake, with the revolver in his hand. The crack of a rifle even if the bullet should find its way home, meant Blake's life. Of that fact the outlaw could no longer have a doubt. For an hour before the gray dusk of Arctic night began to gather about them Philip began to feel the effect of their strenuous pace. Hours of cramped inactivity on the sledge had brought into Celie's face lines of exhaustion. Since middle-afternoon the dogs had dragged at times in their traces. Now they were dead-tired. Blake, and Blake alone, seemed tireless. It was six o'clock when they entered a country that was mostly plain, with a thin fringe of timber along the shores. They had raced for nine hours, and had traveled fifty miles. It was here, in a wide reach of river, that Philip gave the command to halt. His first caution was to secure Blake hand and foot, with his back resting against a frozen snow-hummock a dozen paces from the sledge. The outlaw accepted the situation with an indifference which seemed to Philip more forced than philosophical. After that, while Celie was walking back and forth to produce a warmer circulation in her numbed body, he hurried to the scrub timber that grew along the shore and returned with a small armful of dry wood. The fire he built was small, and concealed as much as possible by the sledge. Ten minutes sufficed to cook the meat for their supper. Then he stamped out the fire, fed the dogs, and made a comfortable nest of bear skins for himself and Celie, facing Blake. The night had thickened until he could make out only dimly the form of the outlaw against the snow-hummock. His revolver lay ready at his side. In that darkness he drew Celie close up into his arms. Her head lay on his breast. He buried his lips in the smothering sweetness of her hair, and her arms crept gently about his neck. Even then he did not take his eyes from Blake, nor for an instant did he cease to listen for other sounds than the deep breathing of the exhausted dogs. It was only a little while before the stars began to fill the sky. The gloom lifted slowly, and out of darkness rose the white world in a cold, shimmering glory. In that starlight he could see the glisten of Celie's hair as it covered them like a golden veil, and once or twice through the space that separated them he caught the flash of a strange fire in the outlaw's eyes. Both shores were visible. He could have seen the approach of a man two hundred yards away. After a little he observed that Blake's head was drooping upon his chest, and that his breathing had become deeper. His prisoner, he believed, was asleep. And Celie, nestling on his breast, was soon in slumber. He alone was awake,--and watching. The dogs, flat on their bellies, were dead to the world. For an hour he kept his vigil. In that time he could not see that Blake moved. He heard nothing suspicious. And the night grew steadily brighter with the white glow of the stars. He held the revolver in his hand now. The starlight played on it in a steely glitter that could not fail to catch Blake's eyes should he awake. And then Philip found himself fighting--fighting desperately to keep awake. Again and again his eyes closed, and he forced them open with an effort. He had planned that they would rest for two or three hours. The two hours were gone when for the twentieth time his eyes shot open, and he looked at Blake. The outlaw had not moved. His head hung still lower on his breast, and again--slowly--irresistibly--exhaustion closed Philip's eyes. Even then Philip was conscious of fighting against the overmastering desire to sleep. It seemed to him that he was struggling for hours, and all that time his subconsciousness was crying out for him to awake, struggling to rouse him to the nearness of a great danger. It succeeded at last. His eyes opened, and he stared in a dazed and half blinded tray toward Blake. His first sensation was one of vast relief that he had awakened. The stars were brighter. The night was still. And there, a dozen paces from him was the snow-hummock. But Blake--Blake-- His heart leapt into his throat. BLAKE WAS GONE! CHAPTER XXIV The shock of the discovery that Blake had escaped brought Philip half to his knees before he thought of Celie. In an instant the girl was awake. His arm had tightened almost fiercely about her. She caught the gleam of his revolver, and in another moment she saw the empty space where their prisoner had been. Swiftly Philip's eyes traveled over the moonlit spaces about them. Blake had utterly disappeared. Then he saw the rifle, and breathed easier. For some reason the outlaw had not taken that, and it was a moment or two before the significance of the fact broke upon him. Blake must have escaped just as he was making that last tremendous fight to rouse himself. He had had no more than time to slink away into the shadows of the night, and had not paused to hazard a chance of securing the weapon that lay on the snow close to Celie. He had evidently believed that Philip was only half asleep, and in the moonlight he must have seen the gleam of the big revolver leveled over his captor's knee. Leaving Celie huddled in her furs, Philip rose to his feet and slowly approached the snow hummock against which he had left his prisoner. The girl heard the startled exclamation that fell from his lips when he saw what had happened. Blake had not escaped alone. Running straight out from behind the hummock was a furrow in the snow like the trail made by an otter. He had seen such furrows before, where Eskimos had wormed their way foot by foot within striking distance of dozing seals. Assistance had come to Blake in that manner, and he could see where--on their hands and knees--two men instead of one had stolen back through the moonlight. Celie came to his side now, gripping the rifle in her hands. Her eyes were wide and filled with frightened inquiry as she looked from the tell-tale trails in the snow into Philip's face. He was glad that she could not question him in words. He slipped the Colt into its holster and took the rifle from her hands. In the emergency which he anticipated the rifle would be more effective. That something would happen very soon he was positive. If one Eskimo had succeeded in getting ahead of his comrades to Blake's relief others of Upi's tribe must be close behind. And yet he wondered, as he thought of this, why Blake and the Kogmollock had not killed him instead of running away. The truth he told frankly to Celie, thankful that she could not understand. "It was the gun," he said. "They thought I had only closed my eyes, and wasn't asleep. If something hadn't kept that gun leveled over my knee--" He tried to smile, knowing that with every second the end might come for them from out of the gray mist of moonlight and shadow that shrouded the shore. "It was a one-man job, sneaking out like that, and there's sure a bunch of them coming up fast to take a hand in the game. It's up to us to hit the high spots, my dear--an' you might pray God to give us time for a start." If he had hoped to keep from her the full horror of their situation, he knew, as he placed her on the sledge, that he had failed. Her eyes told him that. Intuitively she had guessed at the heart of the thing, and suddenly her arms reached up about his neck as he bent over her and against his breast he heard the sobbing cry that she was trying hard to choke back. Under the cloud of her hair her warm, parted lips lay for a thrilling moment against his own, and then he sprang to the dogs. They had already roused themselves and at his command began sullenly to drag their lame and exhausted bodies into trace formation. As the sledge began to move he sent the long lash of the driving whip curling viciously over the backs of the pack and the pace increased. Straight ahead of them ran the white trail of the Coppermine, and they were soon following this with the eagerness of a team on the homeward stretch. As Philip ran behind he made a fumbling inventory of the loose rifle cartridges in the pocket of his coat, and under his breath prayed to God that the day would come before the Eskimos closed in. Only one thing did he see ahead of him now--a last tremendous fight for Celie, and he wanted the light of dawn to give him accuracy. He had thirty cartridges, and it was possible that he could put up a successful running fight until they reached Armin's cabin. After that fate would decide. He was already hatching a scheme in his brain. If he failed to get Blake early in the fight which he anticipated he would show the white flag, demand a parley with the outlaw under pretense of surrendering Celie, and shoot him dead the moment they stood face to face. With Blake out of the way there might be another way of dealing with Upi and his Kogmollocks. It was Blake who wanted Celie. In Upi's eyes there were other things more precious than a woman. The thought revived in him a new thrill of hope. It recalled to him the incident of Father Breault and the white woman nurse who, farther west, had been held for ransom by the Nanamalutes three years ago. Not a hair of the woman's head had been harmed in nine months of captivity. Olaf Anderson had told him the whole story. There had been no white man there--only the Eskimos, and with the Eskimos he believed that he could deal now if he succeeded in killing Blake. Back at the cabin he could easily have settled the matter, and he felt like cursing himself for his shortsightedness. In spite of the fact that he had missed his main chance he began now to see more than hope in a situation that five minutes before had been one of appalling gloom. If he could keep ahead of his enemies until daybreak he had a ninety percent chance of getting Blake. At some spot where he could keep the Kogmollocks at bay and scatter death among them if they attacked he would barricade himself and Celie behind the sledge and call out his acceptance of Blake's proposition to give up Celie as the price of his own safety. He would demand an interview with Blake, and it was then that his opportunity would come. But ahead of him were the leaden hours of the gray night! Out of that ghostly mist of pale moonlight through which the dogs were traveling like sinuous shadows Upi and his tribe could close in on him silently and swiftly, unseen until they were within striking distance. In that event all would be lost. He urged the dogs on, calling them by the names which he had heard Blake use, and occasionally he sent the long lash of his whip curling over their backs. The surface of the Coppermine was smooth and hard. Now and then they came to stretches of glare ice and at these intervals Philip rode behind Celie, staring back into the white mystery of the night out of which they had come. It was so still that the click, dick, click of the dogs' claws sounded like the swift beat of tiny castanets on the ice. He could hear the panting breath of the beasts. The whalebone runners of the sledge creaked with the shrill protest of steel traveling over frozen snow. Beyond these sounds there were no others, with, the exception of his own breath and the beating of his own heart. Mile after mile of the Coppermine dropped behind them. The last tree and the last fringe of bushes disappeared, and to the east, the north, and the west there was no break in the vast emptiness of the great Arctic plain. Ever afterward the memory of that night seemed like a grotesque and horrible dream to him. Looking back, he could remember how the moon sank out of the sky and utter darkness closed them in and how through that darkness he urged on the tired dogs, tugging with them at the lead-trace, and stopping now and then in his own exhaustion to put his arms about Celie and repeat over and over again that everything was all right. After an eternity the dawn came. What there was to be of day followed swiftly, like the Arctic night. The shadows faded away, the shores loomed up and the illimitable sweep of the plain lifted itself into vision as if from out of a great sea of receding fog. In the quarter hour's phenomenon between the last of darkness and wide day Philip stood straining his eyes southward over the white path of the Coppermine. It was Celie, huddled close at his side, who turned her eyes first from the trail their enemies would follow. She faced the north, and the cry that came from her lips brought Philip about like a shot. His first sensation was one of amazement that they had not yet passed beyond the last line of timber. Not more than a third of a mile distant the river ran into a dark strip of forest that reached in from the western plain like a great finger. Then he saw what Celie had seen. Close up against the timber a spiral of smoke was rising into the air. He made out in another moment the form of a cabin, and the look in Celie's staring face told him the rest. She was sobbing breathless words which he could not understand, but he knew that they had won their race, and that it was Armin's place. And Armin was not dead. He was alive, as Blake had said--and it was about breakfast time. He had held up under the tremendous strain of the night until now--and now he was filled with an uncontrollable desire to laugh. The curious thing about it was that in spite of this desire no sound came from his throat. He continued to stare until Celie turned to him and swayed into his arms. In the moment of their triumph her strength was utterly gone. And then the thing happened which brought the life back into him again with a shock. From far up the black finger of timber where it bellied over the horizon of the plain there floated down to them a chorus of sound. It was a human sound--the yapping, wolfish cry of an Eskimo horde closing in on man or beast. They had heard that same cry close on the heels of the fight in the clearing. Now it was made by many voices instead of two or three. It was accompanied almost instantly by the clear, sharp report of a rifle, and a moment later the single shot was followed by a scattering fusillade. After that there was silence. Quickly Philip bundled Celie on the sledge and drove the dogs ahead, his eyes on a wide opening in the timber three or four hundred yards above the river. Five minutes later the sledge drew up in front of the cabin. In that time they heard no further outcry or sound of gunfire, and from the cabin itself there came no sign of life, unless the smoke meant life. Scarcely had the sledge stopped before Celie was on her feet and running to the door. It was locked, and she beat against it excitedly with her little fists, calling a strange name. Standing close behind her, Philip heard a shuffling movement beyond the log walls, the scraping of a bar, and a man's voice so deep that it had in it the booming note of a drum. To it Celie replied with almost a shriek. The door swung inward, and Philip saw a man's arms open and Celie run into them. He was an old man. His hair and beard were white. This much Philip observed before he turned with a sudden, thrill toward the open in the forest. Only he had heard the cry that had come from that direction, and now, looking back, he saw a figure running swiftly over the plain toward the cabin. Instantly he knew that it was a white man. With his revolver in his hand he advanced to meet him and in a brief space they stood face to face. The stranger was a giant of a man. His long, reddish hair fell to his shoulders. He was bare-headed, and panting as if hard run, and his face was streaming with blood. His eyes seemed to bulge out of their sockets as he stared at Philip. And Philip, almost dropping his revolver in his amazement, gasped incredulously: "My God, is it you--Olaf Anderson!" CHAPTER XXV Following that first wild stare of uncertainty and disbelief in the big Swede's eyes came a look of sudden and joyous recognition. He was clutching at Philip's hand like a drowning man before he made an effort to speak, still with his eyes on the other's face as if he was not quite sure they had not betrayed him. Then he grinned. There was only one man in the world who could grin like Olaf Anderson. In spite of blood and swollen features it transformed him. Men loved the red-headed Swede because of that grin. Not a man in the service who knew him but swore that Olaf would die with the grin on his face, because the tighter the hole he was in the more surely would the grin be there. It was the grin that answered Philip's question. "Just in time--to the dot," said Olaf, still pumping Philip's hand, and grinning hard. "All dead but me--Calkins, Harris, and that little Dutchman, O'Flynn, Cold and stiff, Phil, every one of them. I knew an investigating patrol would be coming up pretty soon. Been looking for it every day. How many men you got?" He looked beyond Philip to the cabin and the sledge. The grin slowly went out of his face, and Philip heard the sudden catch in his breath. A swift glance revealed the amazing truth to Olaf. He dropped Philip's hand and stepped back, taking him in suddenly from head to foot. "Alone!" "Yes, alone," nodded Philip. "With the exception of Celie Armin. I brought her back to her father. A fellow named Blake is back there a little way with Upi's tribe. We beat them out, but I'm figuring it won't be long before they show up." The grin was fixed in Olaf's face again. "Lord bless us, but it's funny," he grunted. "They're coming on the next train, so to speak, and right over in that neck of woods is the other half of Upi's tribe chasing their short legs off to get me. And the comical part of it is you're ALONE!" His eyes were fixed suddenly on the revolver. "Ammunition?" he demanded eagerly. "And--grub?" "Thirty or forty rounds of rifle, a dozen Colt, and plenty of meat--" "Then into the cabin, and the dogs with us," almost shouted the Swede. From the edge of the forest came the report of a rifle and over their heads went the humming drone of a bullet. They were back at the cabin in a dozen seconds, tugging at the dogs. It cost an effort to get them through the door, with the sledge after them. Half a dozen shots came from the forest. A bullet spattered against the log wall, found a crevice, and something metallic jingled inside. As Olaf swung the door shut and dropped the wooden bar in place Philip turned for a moment toward Celie. She went to him, her eyes shining in the semi-gloom of the cabin, and put her arms up about his shoulders. The Swede, looking on, stood transfixed, and the white-bearded Armin stared incredulously. On her tip-toes Celie kissed Philip, and then turning with her arms still about him said something to the older man that brought an audible gasp from Olaf. In another moment she had slipped away from Philip and back to her father. The Swede was flattening his face against a two inch crevice between the logs when Philip went to his side. "What did she say, Olaf?" he entreated. "That she's going to marry you if we ever get out of this hell of a fix we're in," grunted Olaf. "Pretty lucky dog, I say, if it's true. Imagine Celie Armin marrying a dub like you! But it will never happen. If you don't believe it fill your eyes with that out there!" Philip glued his eyes to the long crevice between the logs and found the forest and the little finger of plain between straight in his vision. The edge of the timber was alive with men. There must have been half a hundred of them, and they were making no effort to conceal themselves. For the first time Olaf began to give him an understanding of the situation. "This is the fortieth day we've held them off," he said, in the quick-cut, business-like voice he might have used in rendering a report to a superior. "Eighty cartridges to begin with and a month's ration of grub for two. All but the three last cartridges went day before yesterday. Yesterday everything quiet. On the edge of starvation this morning when I went out on scout duty and to take a chance at game. Surprised a couple of them carrying meat and had a tall fight. Others hove into action and I had to use two of my cartridges. One left--and they're showing themselves because they know we don't dare to use ammunition at long range. My caliber is thirty-five. What's yours?" "The same," replied Philip quickly, his blood beginning to thrill with the anticipation of battle. "I'll give you half. I'm on duty from Fort Churchill, off on a tangent of my own." He did not take his eyes from the slit in the wall as he told Anderson in a hundred words what had happened since his meeting with Bram Johnson. "And with forty cartridges we'll give 'em a taste of hell," he added. He caught his breath, and the last word half choked itself from his lips. He knew that Anderson was staring as hard as he. Up from the river and over the level sweep of plain between it and the timber came a sledge, followed by a second, a third, and a fourth. In the trail behind the sledges trotted a score and a half of fur-clad figures. "It's Blake!" exclaimed Philip. Anderson drew himself away from the wall. In his eyes burned a curious greenish flame, and his face was set with the hardness of iron. In that iron was molded indistinctly the terrible smile with which he always went into battle or fronted "his man." Slowly he turned, pointing a long arm at each of the four walls of the cabin. "That's the lay of the fight," he said, making his words short and to the point. "They can come at us on all sides, and so I've made a six-foot gun-crevice in each wall. We can't count on Armin for anything but the use of a club if it comes to close quarters. The walls are built of saplings and they've got guns out there that get through. Outside of that we've got one big advantage. The little devils are superstitious about fighting at night, and even Blake can't force them into it. Blake is the man I was after when I ran across Armin and his people. GAD!" There was an unpleasant snap in his voice as he peered through the gun-hole again. Philip looked across the room to Celie and her father as he divided the cartridges. They were both listening, yet he knew they did not understand what he and Olaf were saying. He dropped a half of the cartridges into the right hand pocket of the Swede's service coat, and advanced then toward Armin with both his hands held out in greeting. Even in that tense moment he saw the sudden flash of pleasure in Celie's eyes. Her lips trembled, and she spoke softly and swiftly to her father, looking at Philip. Armin advanced a step, and their hands met. At first Philip had taken him for an old man. Hair and beard were white, his shoulders were bent, his hands were long and thin. But his eyes, sunken deep in their sockets, had not aged with the rest of him. They were filled with the piercing scrutiny of a hawk's as they looked into his own, measuring him in that moment so far as man can measure man. Then he spoke, and it was the light in Celie's eyes, her parted lips, and the flush that came swiftly into her face that gave him an understanding of what Armin was saying. From the end of the cabin Olaf's voice broke in. With it came the metallic working of his rifle as he filled the chamber with cartridges. He spoke first to Celie and Armin in their own language, then to Philip. "It's a pretty safe gamble we'd better get ready for them," he said. "They'll soon begin. Did you split even on the cartridges?" "Seventeen apiece." Philip examined his rifle, and looked through the gun-crevice toward the forest. He heard Olaf tugging at the dogs as he tied them to the bunk posts; he heard Armin say something in a strained voice, and the Swede's unintelligible reply, followed by a quick, low-voiced interrogation from Celie. In the same moment his heart gave a sudden jump. In the fringe of the forest he saw a long, thin line of moving figures--ADVANCING. He did not call out a warning instantly. For a space in which he might have taken a long breath or two his eyes and brain were centered on the moving figures and the significance of their drawn-out formation. Like a camera-flash his eyes ran over the battleground. Half way between the cabin and that fringe of forest four hundred yards away was a "hogback" in the snow, running a curving parallel with the plain. It formed scarcely more than a three or four foot rise in the surface, and he had given it no special significance until now. His lips formed words as the thrill of understanding leapt upon him. "They're moving!" he called to Olaf. "They're going to make a rush for the little ridge between us and the timber. Good God, Anderson, there's an army of them!" "Not more'n a hundred," replied the Swede calmly, taking his place at the gun-crevice. "Take it easy, Phil. This will be good target practice. We've got to make an eighty percent kill as they come across the open. This is mighty comfortable compared with the trick they turned on us when they got Calkins, Harris and O'Flynn. I got away in the night." The moving line had paused just within the last straggling growth of trees, as if inviting the fire of the defenders. Olaf grunted as he looked along the barrel of his rifle. "Strategy," he mumbled. "They know we're shy of ammunition." In the moments of tense waiting Philip found his first opportunity to question the man at his side. First, he said: "I guess mebby you understand, Olaf. We've gone through a hell together, and I love her. If we get out of this she's going to be my wife. She's promised me that, and yet I swear to Heaven I don't know more than a dozen words of her language. What has happened? Who is she? Why was she with Bram Johnson? You know their language, and have been with them--" "They're taking final orders," interrupted Olaf, as if he had not heard. "There's something more on foot than a rush to the ridge. It's Blake's scheming. See those little groups forming? They're going to bring battering-rams, and make a second rush from the ridge." He drew in a deep breath, and without a change in the even tone of his voice, went on: "Calkins, Harris and O'Flynn went down in a good fight. Tell you about that later. Hit seven days' west, and run on the camp of Armin, his girl, and two white men--Russians--guided by two Kogmollocks from Coronation Gulf. You can guess some of the rest. The little devils had Blake and his gang about us two days after I struck them. Bram Johnson and his wolves came along then--from nowhere--going nowhere. The Kogmollocks think Bram is a great Devil, and that each of his wolves is a Devil. If it hadn't been for that they would have murdered us in a hurry, and Blake would have taken the girl. They were queered by the way Bram would squat on his haunches, and stare at her. The second day I saw him mumbling over something, and looked sharp. He had one of Celie's long hairs, and when he saw me he snarled like an animal, as though he feared I would take it from him. I knew what was coming. I knew Blake was only waiting for Bram to get away from his Kogmollocks--so I told Celie to give Bram a strand of her hair. She did--with her own hands, and from that minute the madman watched her like a dog. I tried to talk with him, but couldn't. I didn't seem to be able to make him understand. And then--" The Swede cut himself short. "They're moving, Phil! Take the men with the battering rams--and let them get half way before you fire! ... You see, Bram and his wolves had to have meat. Blake attacked while he was gone. Russians killed--Armin and I cornered, fighting for the girl behind us, when Bram came back like a burst of thunder. He didn't fight. He grabbed the girl, and was off with her like the wind with his wolf-team. Armin and I got into this cabin, and here--forty days and nights--" His voice stopped ominously. A fraction of a second later it was followed by the roar of his rifle, and at the first shot one of Blake's Kogmollocks crumpled up with a grunt half way between the snow-ridge and the forest. CHAPTER XXVI The Eskimos were advancing at a trot now over the open space. Philip was amazed at their number. There were at least a hundred, and his heart choked with a feeling of despair even as he pulled the trigger for his first shot. He had seen the effect of Olaf's shot, and following the Swede's instructions aimed for his man in the nearest group behind the main line. He did not instantly see the result, as a puff of smoke shut out his vision, but a moment later, aiming again, he saw a dark blotch left in the snow. From his end of the crevice Olaf had seen the man go down, and he grunted his approbation. There were five of the groups bearing tree trunks for battering-rams, and on one of these Philip concentrated the six shots in his rifle. Four of the tree-bearers went down, and the two that were left dropped their burden and joined those ahead of them. Until Philip stepped back to reload his gun he had not noticed Celie. She was close at his side, peering through the gun-hole at the tragedy out on the plain. Once before he had been astounded by the look in her face when they had been confronted by great danger, and as his fingers worked swiftly in refilling the magazine of his rifle he saw it there again. It was not fear, even now. It was a more wonderful thing than that. Her wide-open eyes glowed with a strange, dark luster; in the center of each of her cheeks was a vivid spot of color, and her lips were parted slightly, so that he caught the faintest gleam of her teeth. Wonderful as a fragile flower she stood there with her eyes upon him, her splendid courage and her faith in him flaming within her like a fire. And then he heard Anderson's voice: "They're behind the ridge. We got eight of them." In half a dozen places Philip had seen where bullets had bored the way through the cabin, and leaning his gun against the wall, he sprang to Celie and almost carried her behind the bunk that was built against the logs. "You must stay here," he cried. "Do you understand! HERE!" She nodded, and smiled. It was a wonderful smile--a flash of tenderness telling him that she knew what he was saying, and that she would obey him. She made no effort to detain him with her hands, but in that moment--if life had been the forfeit--Philip would have stolen the precious time in which to take her in his arms. For a space he held her close to him, his lips crushed to hers, and faced the wall again with the throb of her soft breast still beating against his heart. He noticed Armin standing near the door, his hand resting on a huge club which, in turn, rested on the floor. Calmly he was waiting for the final rush. Olaf was peering through the gun-hole again. And then came what he had expected--a rattle of fire from the snow-ridge. The PIT-PIT-PIT of bullets rained against the cabin in a dull tattoo. Through the door came a bullet, sending a splinter close to Armin's face. Almost in the same instant a second followed it, and a third came through the crevice so close to Philip that he felt the hissing breath of it in his face. One of the dogs emitted a wailing howl and flopped among its comrades in uncanny convulsions. Olaf staggered back, and faced Philip. There was no trace of the fighting grin in his face now. It was set like an iron mask. "GET DOWN!" he shouted. "Do you hear, GET DOWN!" He dropped on his knees, crying out the warning to Armin in the other's language. "They've got enough guns to make a sieve of this kennel if their ammunition holds out--and the lower logs are heaviest. Flatten yourself out until they stop firing, with your feet toward 'em, like this," and he stretched himself out on the floor, parallel with the direction of fire. In place of following the Swede's example Philip ran to Celie. Half way a bullet almost got him, flipping the collar of his shirt. He dropped beside her and gathered her up completely in his arms, with his own body between her and the fire. A moment later he thanked God for the protection of the bunk. He heard the ripping of a bullet through the saplings and caught distinctly the thud of it as the spent lead dropped to the floor. Celie's head was close on his breast, her eyes were on his face, her soft lips so near he could feel their breath. He kissed her, unbelieving even then that the end was near for her. It was monstrous--impossible. Lead was finding its way into the cabin like raindrops. He heard the Swede's voice again, crying thickly from the floor: "Hug below the lower log. You've got eight inches. If you rise above that they'll get you." He repeated the warning to Armin. As if to emphasize his words there came a howl of agony from another of the dogs. Still closer Philip held the girl to him. Her hands had crept convulsively to his neck. He crushed his face down against hers, and waited. It came to him suddenly that Blake must be reckoning on this very protection which he was giving Celie. He was gambling on the chance that while the male defenders of the cabin would be wounded or killed Celie would be sheltered until the last moment from their fire. If that was so, the firing would soon cease until Blake learned results. Scarcely had he made this guess when the fusillade ended. Instead of rifle-fire there came a sudden strange howl of voices and Olaf sprang to his feet. Philip had risen, when the Swede's voice came to him in a choking cry. Prepared for the rush he had expected, Olaf was making an observation through the gun-crevice. Suddenly, without turning his head, he yelled back at them: "Good God--it's Bram--Bram Johnson!" Even Celie realized the thrilling import of the Swede's excited words. BRAM JOHNSON! She was only a step behind Philip when he reached the wall. With him she looked out. Out of that finger of forest they were coming--Bram and his wolves! The pack was free, spreading out fan-shape, coming like the wind! Behind them was Bram--a wild and monstrous figure against the whiteness of the plain, bearing in his hand a giant club. His yell came to them. It rose above all other sound, like the cry of a great beast. The wolves came faster, and then-- The truth fell upon those in the cabin with a suddenness that stopped the beating of their hearts. Bram Johnson and his wolves were attacking the Eskimos! From the thrilling spectacle of the giant mad-man charging over the plain behind his ravenous beasts Philip shifted his amazed gaze to the Eskimos. They were no longer concealing themselves. Palsied by a strange terror, they were staring at the onrushing horde and the shrieking wolf-man. In those first appalling moments of horror and stupefaction not a gun was raised or a shot fired. Then there rose from the ranks of the Kogmollocks a strange and terrible cry, and in another moment the plain between the forest and the snow-ridge was alive with fleeing creatures in whose heavy brains surged the monstrous thought that they were attacked not by man and beast, but by devils. And in that same moment it seemed that Bram Johnson and his wolves were among them. From man to man the beasts leapt, driven on by the shrieking voice of their master; and now Philip saw the giant mad-man overtake one after another of the running figures, and saw the crushing force of his club as it fell. Celie swayed back from the wall and stood with her hands to her face. The Swede sprang past her, flung back the bar to the door, and opened it. Philip was a step behind him. Prom the front of the cabin they began firing, and man after man crumpled down under their shots. If Bram and his wolves sensed the shooting in the ferocity of their blood-lust they paid no more attention to it than to the cries for mercy that rose chokingly out of the throats of their enemies. In another sixty seconds the visible part of it was over. The last of the Kogmollocks disappeared into the edge of the forest. After them went the wolf-man and his pack. Philip faced his companion. His gun was hot--and empty. The old grin was in Olaf's face. In spite of it he shuddered. "We won't follow," he said. "Bram and his wolves will attend to the trimmings, and he'll come back when the job is finished. Meanwhile we'll get a little start for home, eh? I'm tired of this cabin. Forty days and nights--UGH! it was HELL. Have you a spare pipeful of tobacco, Phil? If you have--let's see, where did I leave off in that story about Princess Celie and the Duke of Rugni?" "The--the--WHAT?" "Your tobaeco, Phil!" In a dazed fashion Philip handed his tobacco pouch to the Swede. "You said--Princess Celie--the Duke of Rugni--" Olaf nodded as he stuffed his pipe bowl. "That's it. Armin is the Duke of Rugni, whatever Rugni is. He was chased off to Siberia a good many years ago, when Celie was a kid, that somebody else could get hold of the Dukedom. Understand? Millions in it, I suppose. He says some of Rasputin's old friends were behind it, and that for a long time he was kept in the dungeons of the fortress of St. Peter and St. Paul, with the Neva River running over his head. The friends he had, most of them in exile or chased out of the country, thought he was dead, and some of these friends were caring for Celie. Just after Rasputin was killed, and before the Revolution broke out, they learned Armin was alive and dying by inches somewhere up on the Siberian coast. Celie's mother was Danish--died almost before Celie could remember; but some of her relatives and a bunch of Russian exiles in London framed up a scheme to get Armin back, chartered a ship, sailed with Celie on board, and--" Olaf paused to light his pipe. "And they found the Duke," he added. "They escaped with him before they learned of the Revolution, or Armin could have gone home with the rest of the Siberian exiles and claimed his rights. For a lot of reasons they put him aboard an American whaler, and the whaler missed its plans by getting stuck in the ice for the winter up in Coronation Gulf. After that they started out with dogs and sledge and guides. There's a lot more, but that's the meat of it, Phil. I'm going to leave it to you to learn Celie's language and get the details first-hand from her. But she's a right enough princess, old man. And her Dad's a duke. It's up to you to Americanize 'em. Eh, what's that?" Celie had come from the cabin and was standing at Philip's side, looking up into his face, and the light which Olaf saw unhidden in her eyes made him laugh softly: "And you've got the job half done, Phil. The Duke may go back and raise the devil with the people who put him in cold storage, but Lady Celie is going to like America. Yessir, she's going to like it better'n any other place on the face of the earth!" It was late that afternoon, traveling slowly southward over the trail of the Coppermine, when they heard far behind them the wailing cry of Bram Johnson's wolves. The sound came only once, like the swelling surge of a sudden sweep of wind, yet when they camped at the beginning of darkness Philip was confident the madman and his pack were close behind them. Utter exhaustion blotted out the hours for Celie and himself, while Olaf, buried in two heavy Eskimo coats he had foraged from the field of battle, sat on guard through the night. Twice in the stillness of his long vigil he heard strange cries. Once it was the cry of a beast. The second time it was that of a man. The second day, with dogs refreshed, they traveled faster, and it was this night that they camped in the edge of timber and built a huge fire. It was such a fire as illumined the space about them for fifty paces or more, and it was into this light that Bram Johnson stalked, so suddenly and so noiselessly that a sharp little cry sprang from Celie's lips, and Olaf and Philip and the Duke of Rugni stared in wide-eyed amazement. In his right hand the wolf-man bore a strange object. It was an Eskimo coat, tied into the form of a bag, and in the bottom of this improvision was a lump half the size of a water pail. Bram seemed oblivious of all presence but that of Celie. His eyes were on her alone as he advanced and with a weird sound in his throat deposited the bundle at her feet. In another moment he was gone. The Swede rose slowly from where he was sitting, and speaking casually to Celie, took the wolf-man's gift up in his hands. Philip observed the strange look in his face as he turned his back to Celie in the firelight and opened the bag sufficiently to get a look inside. Then he walked out into the darkness, and a moment later returned without the bundle, and with a laugh apologized to Celie for his action. "No need of telling her what it was," he said to Philip then. "I explained that it was foul meat Bram had brought in as a present. As a matter of fact it was Blake's head. You know the Kogmollocks have a pretty habit of pleasing a friend by presenting him with the head of a dead enemy. Nice little package for her to have opened, eh?" After all, there are some very strange happenings in life, and the adventurers of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police come upon their share. The case of Bram Johnson, the mad wolf-man of the Upper Country, happened to be one of them, and filed away in the archives of the Department is a big envelope filled with official and personal documents, signed and sworn to by various people. There is, for instance, the brief and straightforward deposition of Corporal Olaf Anderson, of the Fort Churchill Division, and there is the longer and more detailed testimony of Mr. and Mrs. Philip Raine and the Duke of Rugni; and attached to these depositions is a copy of an official decision pardoning Bram Johnson and making of him a ward of the great Dominion instead of a criminal. He is no longer hunted. "Let Bram Johnson alone" is the word that had gone forth to the man-hunters of the Service. It is a wise and human judgment. Bram's country is big and wild. And he and his wolves still hunt there under the light of the moon and the stars. THE END 
4702	----	THE FLAMING FOREST BY JAMES OLIVER CURWOOD AUTHOR OF THE VALLEY OF SILENT MEN, THE COUNTRY BEYOND, THE ALASKAN, ETC. THE FLAMING FOREST I An hour ago, under the marvelous canopy of the blue northern sky, David Carrigan, Sergeant in His Most Excellent Majesty's Royal Northwest Mounted Police, had hummed softly to himself, and had thanked God that he was alive. He had blessed McVane, superintendent of "N" Division at Athabasca Landing, for detailing him to the mission on which he was bent. He was glad that he was traveling alone, and in the deep forest, and that for many weeks his adventure would carry him deeper and deeper into his beloved north. Making his noonday tea over a fire at the edge of the river, with the green forest crowding like an inundation on three sides of him, he had come to the conclusion--for the hundredth time, perhaps--that it was a nice thing to be alone in the world, for he was on what his comrades at the Landing called a "bad assignment." "If anything happens to me," Carrigan had said to McVane, "there isn't anybody in particular to notify. I lost out in the matter of family a long time ago." He was not a man who talked much about himself, even to the superintendent of "N" Division, yet there were a thousand who loved Dave Carrigan, and many who placed their confidences in him. Superintendent Me Vane had one story which he might have told, but he kept it to himself, instinctively sensing the sacredness of it. Even Carrigan did not know that the one thing which never passed his lips was known to McVane. Of that, too, he had been thinking an hour ago. It was the thing which, first of all, had driven him into the north. And though it had twisted and disrupted the earth under his feet for a time, it had brought its compensation. For he had come to love the north with a passionate devotion. It was, in a way, his God. It seemed to him that the time had never been when he had lived any other life than this under the open skies. He was thirty-seven now. A bit of a philosopher, as philosophy comes to one in a sun-cleaned and unpolluted air, A good-humored brother of humanity, even when he put manacles on other men's wrists; graying a little over the temples--and a lover of life. Above all else he was that. A lover of life. A worshiper at the shrine of God's Country. So he sat, that hour ago, deep in the wilderness eighty miles north of Athabasca Landing, congratulating himself on the present conditions of his existence. A hundred and eighty miles farther on was Fort McMurray, and another two hundred beyond that was Chipewyan, and still beyond that the Mackenzie and its fifteen-hundred-mile trail to the northern sea. He was glad there was no end to this world of his. He was glad there were few people in it. But these people he loved. That hour ago he had looked out on the river as two York boats had forged up against the stream, craft like the long, slim galleys of old, brought over through the Churchill and Clearwater countries from Hudson's Bay. There were eight rowers in each boat. They were singing. Their voices rolled between the walls of the forests. Their naked arms and shoulders glistened in the sun. They rowed like Vikings, and to him they were symbols of the freedom of the world. He had watched them until they were gone up-stream, but it was a long time before the chanting of their voices had died away. And then he had risen from beside his tiny fire, and had stretched himself until his muscles cracked. It was good to feel the blood running red and strong in one's veins at the age of thirty-seven. For Carrigan felt the thrill of these days when strong men were coming out of the north--days when the glory of June hung over the land, when out of the deep wilderness threaded by the Three Rivers came romance and courage and red-blooded men and women of an almost forgotten people to laugh and sing and barter for a time with the outpost guardians of a younger and more progressive world. It was north of Fifty-Four, and the waters of a continent flowed toward the Arctic Sea. Yet soon would the strawberries be crushing red underfoot; the forest road was in bloom, scarlet fire-flowers reddened the trail, wild hyacinths and golden-freckled violets played hide-and-seek with the forget-me-nots in the meadows, and the sky was a great splash of velvety blue. It was the north triumphant--at the edge of civilization; the north triumphant, and yet paying its tribute. For at the other end were waiting the royal Upper Ten Thousand and the smart Four Hundred with all the beau monde behind them, coveting and demanding that tribute to their sex--the silken furs of a far country, the life's blood and labor of a land infinitely beyond the pale of drawing-rooms and the whims of fashion. Carrigan had thought of these things that hour ago, as he sat at the edge of the first of the Three Rivers, the great Athabasca. From down the other two, the Slave and the Mackenzie, the fur fleets of the unmapped country had been toiling since the first breakups of ice. Steadily, week after week, the north had been emptying itself of its picturesque tide of life and voice, of muscle and brawn, of laughter and song--and wealth. Through, long months of deep winter, in ten thousand shacks and tepees and cabins, the story of this June had been written as fate had written it each winter for a hundred years or more. A story of the triumph of the fittest. A story of tears, of happiness here and there, of hunger and plenty, of new life and quick death; a story of strong men and strong women, living in the faith of their forefathers, with the best blood of old England and France still surviving in their veins. Through those same months of winter, the great captains of trade in the city of Edmonton had been preparing for the coming of the river brigades. The hundred and fifty miles of trail between that last city outpost of civilization and Athabasca Landing, the door that opened into the North, were packed hard by team and dog-sledge and packer bringing up the freight that for another year was to last the forest people of the Three River country--a domain reaching from the Landing to the Arctic Ocean. In competition fought the drivers of Revillon Brothers and Hudson's Bay, of free trader and independent adventurer. Freight that grew more precious with each mile it advanced must reach the beginning of the waterway. It started with the early snows. The tide was at full by midwinter. In temperature that nipped men's lungs it did not cease. There was no let-up in the whip-hands of the masters of trade at Edmonton, Winnipeg, Montreal, and London across the sea. It was not a work of philanthropy. These men cared not whether Jean and Jacqueline and Pierre and Marie were well-fed or hungry, whether they lived or died, so far as humanity was concerned. But Paris, Vienna, London, and the great capitals of the earth must have their furs--and unless that freight went north, there would be no velvety offerings for the white shoulders of the world. Christmas windows two years hence would be bare. A feminine wail of grief would rise to the skies. For woman must have her furs, and in return for those furs Jean and Jacqueline and Pierre and Marie must have their freight. So the pendulum swung, as it had swung for a century or two, touching, on the one side, luxury, warmth, wealth, and beauty; on the other, cold and hardship, deep snows and open skies--with that precious freight the thing between. And now, in this year before rail and steamboat, the glory of early summer was at hand, and the wilderness people were coming up to meet the freight. The Three Rivers--the Athabasca, the Slave, and the Mackenzie, all joining in one great two-thousand-mile waterway to the northern sea--were athrill with the wild impulse and beat of life as the forest people lived it. The Great Father had sent in his treaty money, and Cree song and Chipewyan chant joined the age-old melodies of French and half-breed. Countless canoes drove past the slower and mightier scow brigades; huge York boats with two rows of oars heaved up and down like the ancient galleys of Rome; tightly woven cribs of timber, and giant rafts made tip of many cribs were ready for their long drift into a timberless country. On this two-thousand-mile waterway a world had gathered. It was the Nile of the northland, and each post and gathering place along its length was turned into a metropolis, half savage, archaic, splendid with the strength of red blood, clear eyes, and souls that read the word of God in wind and tree. And up and down this mighty waterway of wilderness trade ran the whispering spirit of song, like the voice of a mighty god heard under the stars and in the winds. But it was an hour ago that David Carrigan had vividly pictured these things to himself close to the big river, and many things may happen in the sixty minutes that follow any given minute in a man's life. That hour ago his one great purpose had been to bring in Black Roger Audemard, alive or dead--Black Roger, the forest fiend who had destroyed half a dozen lives in a blind passion of vengeance nearly fifteen years ago. For ten of those fifteen years it had been thought that Black Roger was dead. But mysterious rumors had lately come out of the North. He was alive. People had seen him. Fact followed rumor. His existence became certainty. The Law took up once more his hazardous trail, and David Carrigan was the messenger it sent. "Bring him back, alive or dead," were Superintendent McVane's last words. And now, thinking of that parting injunction, Carrigan grinned, even as the sweat of death dampened his face in the heat of the afternoon sun. For at the end of those sixty minutes that had passed since his midday pot of tea, the grimly, atrociously unexpected had happened, like a thunderbolt out of the azure of the sky. II Huddled behind a rock which was scarcely larger than his body, groveling in the white, soft sand like a turtle making a nest for its eggs, Carrigan told himself this without any reservation. He was, as he kept repeating to himself for the comfort of his soul, in a deuce of a fix. His head was bare--simply because a bullet had taken his hat away. His blond hair was filled with sand. His face was sweating. But his blue eyes were alight with a grim sort of humor, though he knew that unless the other fellow's ammunition ran out he was going to die. For the twentieth time in as many minutes he looked about him. He was in the center of a flat area of sand. Fifty feet from him the river murmured gently over yellow bars and a carpet of pebbles. Fifty feet on the opposite side of him was the cool, green wall of the forest. The sunshine playing in it seemed like laughter to him now, a whimsical sort of merriment roused by the sheer effrontery of the joke which fate had inflicted upon him. Between the river and the balsam and spruce was only the rock behind which he was cringing like a rabbit afraid to take to the open. And his rock was a mere up-jutting of the solid floor of shale that was under him. The wash sand that covered it like a carpet was not more than four or five inches deep. He could not dig in. There was not enough of it within reach to scrape up as a protection. And his enemy, a hundred yards or so away, was a determined wretch--and the deadliest shot he had ever known. Three times Carrigan had made experiments to prove this, for he had in mind a sudden rush to the shelter of the timber. Three times he had raised the crown of his hat slightly above the top of the rock, and three times the marksmanship of the other had perforated it with neatness and dispatch. The third bullet had carried his hat a dozen feet away. Whenever he showed a patch of his clothing, a bullet replied with unerring precision. Twice they had drawn blood. And the humor faded out of Carrigan's eyes. Not long ago he had exulted in the bigness and glory of this country of his, where strong men met hand to hand and eye to eye. There were the other kind in it, the sort that made his profession of manhunting a thing of reality and danger, but he expected these--forgot them--when the wilderness itself filled his vision. But his present situation was something unlike anything that had ever happened in his previous experience with the outlawed. He had faced dangers. He had fought. There were times when he had almost died. Fanchet, the half-breed who had robbed a dozen wilderness mail sledges, had come nearest to trapping him and putting him out of business. Fanchet was a desperate man and had few scruples. But even Fanchet--before he was caught--would not have cornered a man with such bloodthirsty unfairness as Carrigan found himself cornered now. He no longer had a doubt as to what was in the other's mind. It was not to wound and make merely helpless. It was to kill. It was not difficult to prove this. Careful not to expose a part of his arm or shoulder, he drew a white handkerchief from his pocket, fastened it to the end of his rifle, and held the flag of surrender three feet above the rock. And then, with equal caution, he slowly thrust up a flat piece of shale, which at a distance of a hundred yards might appear as his shoulder or even his head. Scarcely was it four inches above the top of the rock before there came the report of a rifle, and the shale was splintered into a hundred bits. Carrigan lowered his flag and gathered himself in tighter. The accuracy of the other's marksmanship was appalling. He knew that if he exposed himself for an instant to use his own rifle or the heavy automatic in his holster, he would be a dead man before he could press a trigger. And that time, he felt equally sure, would come sooner or later. His muscles were growing cramped. He could not forever double himself up like a four-bladed jackknife behind the altogether inefficient shelter of the rock. His executioner was hidden in the edge of the timber, not directly opposite him, but nearly a hundred yards down stream. Twenty times he had wondered why the fiend with the rifle did not creep up through that timber and take a good, open pot-shot at him from the vantage point which lay at the end of a straight line between his rock and the nearest spruce and balsam. From that angle he could not completely shelter himself. But the man a hundred yards below had not moved a foot from his ambush since he had fired his first shot. That had come when Carrigan was crossing the open space of soft, white sand. It had left a burning sensation at his temple--half an inch to the right and it would have killed him. Swift as the shot itself, he dropped behind the one protection at hand, the up-jutting shoulder of shale. For a quarter of an hour he had been making efforts to wriggle himself free from his bulky shoulder-pack without exposing himself to a coup-de-grace. At last he had the thing off. It was a tremendous relief when he thrust it out beside the rock, almost doubling the size of his shelter. Instantly there came the crash of a bullet in it, and then another. He heard the rattle of pans, and wondered if his skillet would be any good after today. For the first time he could wipe the sweat from his face and stretch himself. And also he could think. Carrigan possessed an unalterable faith in the infallibility of the mind. "You can do anything with the mind," was his code. "It is better than a good gun." Now that he was physically more at ease, he began reassembling his scattered mental faculties. Who was this stranger who was pot-shotting at him with such deadly animosity from the ambush below? Who-- Another crash of lead in tinware and steel put an unpleasant emphasis to the question. It was so close to his head that it made him wince, and now--with a wide area within reach about him--he began scraping up the sand for an added protection. There came a long silence after that third clatter of distress from his cooking utensils. To David Carrigan, even in his hour of deadly peril, there was something about it that for an instant brought back the glow of humor in his eyes. It was hot, swelteringly hot, in that packet of sand with the unclouded sun almost straight overhead. He could have tossed a pebble to where a bright-eyed sandpiper was cocking itself backward and forward, its jerky movements accompanied by friendly little tittering noises. Everything about him seemed friendly. The river rippled and murmured in cooling song just beyond the sandpiper. On the other side the still cooler forest was a paradise of shade and contentment, astir with subdued and hidden life. It was nesting season. He heard the twitter of birds. A tiny, brown wood warbler fluttered out to the end of a silvery birch limb, and it seemed to David that its throat must surely burst with the burden of its song. The little fellow's brown body, scarcely larger than a butternut, was swelling up like a round ball in his effort to vanquish all other song. "Go to it, old man," chuckled Carrigan. "Go to it!" The little warbler, that he might have crushed between thumb and forefinger, gave him a lot of courage. Then the tiny chorister stopped for breath. In that interval Carrigan listened to the wrangling of two vivid-colored Canada jays deeper in the timber. Chronic scolds they were, never without a grouch. They were like some people Carrigan had known, born pessimists, always finding something to complain about, even in their love days. And these were love days. That was the odd thought that came to Carrigan as he lay half on his face, his fingers slowly and cautiously working a loophole between his shoulder-pack and the rock. They were love days all up and down the big rivers, where men and women sang for joy, and children played, forgetful of the long, hard days of winter. And in forest, plain, and swamp was this spirit of love also triumphant over the land. It was the mating season of all feathered things. In countless nests were the peeps and twitters of new life; mothers of first-born were teaching their children to swim and fly; from end to end of the forest world the little children of the silent places, furred and feathered, clawed and hoofed, were learning the ways of life. Nature's yearly birthday was half-way gone, and the doors of nature's school wide open. And the tiny brown songster at the end of his birch twig proclaimed the joy of it again, and challenged all the world to beat him in his adulation. Carrigan found that he could peer between his pack and the rock to where the other warbler was singing--and where his enemy lay watching for the opportunity to kill. It was taking a chance. If a movement betrayed his loophole, his minutes were numbered. But he had worked cautiously, an inch at a time, and was confident that the beginning of his effort to fight back was, up to the present moment, undiscovered. He believed that he knew about where the ambushed man was concealed. In the edge of a low-hanging mass of balsam was a fallen cedar. From behind the butt of that cedar he was sure the shots had come. And now, even more cautiously than he had made the tiny opening, he began to work the muzzle of his rifle through the loophole. As he did this he was thinking of Black Roger Audemard. And yet, almost as quickly as suspicion leaped into his mind, he told himself that the thing was impossible. It could not be Black Roger, or one of Black Roger's friends, behind the cedar log. The idea was inconceivable, when he considered how carefully the secret of his mission had been kept at the Landing. He had not even said goodby to his best friends. And because Black Roger had won through all the preceding years, Carrigan was stalking his prey out of uniform. There had been nothing to betray him. Besides, Black Roger Audemard must be at least a thousand miles north, unless something had tempted him to come up the rivers with the spring brigades. If he used logic at all, there was but one conclusion for him to arrive at. The man in ambush was some rascally half-breed who coveted his outfit and whatever valuables he might have about his person. A fourth smashing eruption among his comestibles and culinary possessions came to drive home the fact that even that analysis of the situation was absurd. Whoever was behind the rifle fire had small respect for the contents of his pack, and he was surely not in grievous need of a good gun or ammunition. A sticky mess of condensed cream was running over Carrigan's hand. He doubted if there was a whole tin in his kit. For a few moments he lay quietly on his face after the fourth shot. His eyes were turned toward the river, and on the far side, a quarter of a mile away, three canoes were moving swiftly up the slow current of the stream. The sunlight flashed on their wet sides. The gleam of dripping paddles was like the flutter of silvery birds' wings, and across the water came an unintelligible shout in response to the rifle shot. It occurred to David that he might make a trumpet of his hands and shout back, but the distance was too great for his voice to carry its message for help. Besides, now that he had the added protection of the pack, he felt a certain sense of humiliation at the thought of showing the white feather. A few minutes more, if all went well, and he would settle for the man behind the log. He continued again the slow operation of worming his rifle barrel between the pack and the rock. The near-sighted little sandpiper had discovered him and seemed interested in the operation. It had come a dozen feet nearer, and was perking its head and seesawing on its long legs as it watched with inquisitive inspection the unusual manifestation of life behind the rock. Its twittering note had changed to an occasional sharp and querulous cry. Carrigan wanted to wring its neck. That cry told the other fellow that he was still alive and moving. It seemed an age before his rifle was through, and every moment he expected another shot. He flattened himself out, Indian fashion, and sighted along the barrel. He was positive that his enemy was watching, yet he could make out nothing that looked like a head anywhere along the log. At one end was a clump of deeper foliage. He was sure he saw a sudden slight movement there, and in the thrill of the moment was tempted to send a bullet into the heart of it. But he saved his cartridge. He felt the mighty importance of certainty. If he fired once--and missed--the advantage of his unsuspected loophole would be gone. It would be transformed into a deadly menace. Even as it was, if his enemy's next bullet should enter that way-- He felt the discomfort of the thought, and in spite of himself a tremor of apprehension ran up his spine. He felt an even greater desire to wring the neck of the inquisitive little sandpiper. The creature had circled round squarely in front of him and stood there tilting its tail and bobbing its head as if its one insane desire was to look down the length of his rifle barrel. The bird was giving him away. If the other fellow was only half as clever as his marksmanship was good-- Suddenly every nerve in Carrigan's body tightened. He was positive that he had caught the outline of a human head and shoulders in the foliage. His finger pressed gently against the trigger of his Winchester. Before he breathed again he would have fired. But a shot from the foliage beat him out by the fraction of a second. In that precious time lost, his enemy's bullet entered the edge of his kit--and came through. He felt the shock of it, and in the infinitesimal space between the physical impact and the mental effect of shock his brain told him the horrible thing had happened. It was his head--his face. It was as if he had plunged them suddenly into hot water, and what was left of his skull was filled with the rushing and roaring of a flood. He staggered up, clutching his face with both hands. The world about him was twisted and black, a dizzily revolving thing--yet his still fighting mental vision pictured clearly for him a monstrous, bulging-eyed sandpiper as big as a house. Then he toppled back on the white sand, his arms flung out limply, his face turned to the ambush wherein his murderer lay. His body was clear of the rock and the pack, but there came no other shot from the thick clump of balsam. Nor, for a time, was there movement. The wood warbler was cheeping inquiringly at this sudden change in the deportment of his friend behind the shoulder of shale. The sandpiper, a bit startled, had gone back to the edge of the river and was running a race with himself along the wet sand. And the two quarrelsome jays had brought their family squabble to the edge of the timber. It was their wrangling that roused Carrigan to the fact that he was not dead. It was a thrilling discovery--that and the fact that he made out clearly a patch of sunlight in the sand. He did not move, but opened his eyes wider. He could see the timber. On a straight line with his vision was the thick clump of balsam. And as he looked, the boughs parted and a figure came out. Carrigan drew a deep breath. He found that it did not hurt him. He gripped the fingers of the hand that was under his body, and they closed on the butt of his service automatic. He would win yet, if God gave him life a few minutes longer. His enemy advanced. As he drew nearer, Carrigan closed his eyes more and more. They must be shut, and he must appear as if dead, when the other came up. Then, when the scoundrel put down his gun, as he naturally would--his chance would be at hand. If a quiver of his eyes betrayed him-- He closed them tight. Dizziness began to creep over him, and the fire in his brain grew hot again. He heard footsteps, and they stopped in the sand close beside him. Then he heard a human voice. It did not speak in words, but gave utterance to a strange and unnatural cry. With a mighty effort Carrigan assembled his last strength. It seemed to him that he brought himself up quickly, but his movement was slow, painful--the effort of a man who might be dying. The automatic hung limply in his hand, its muzzle pointing to the sand. He looked up, trying to swing into action that mighty weight of his weapon. And then from his own lips, even in his utter physical impotence, fell a cry of wonder and amazement. His enemy stood there in the sunlight, staring down at him with big, dark eyes that were filled with horror. They were not the eyes of a man. David Carrigan, in this most astounding moment of his life, found himself looking up into the face of a woman. III For a matter of twenty seconds--even longer it seemed to Carrigan--the life of these two was expressed in a vivid and unforgettable tableau. One half of it David saw--the blue sky, the dazzling sun, the girl in between. The pistol dropped from his limp hand, and the weight of his body tottered on the crook of his under-elbow. Mentally and physically he was on the point of collapse, and yet in those few moments every detail of the picture was painted with a brush of fire in his brain. The girl was bareheaded. Her face was as white as any face he had ever seen, living or dead; her eyes were like pools that had caught the reflection of fire; he saw the sheen of her hair, the poise of her slender body--its shock, stupefaction, horror. He sensed these things even as his brain wobbled dizzily, and the larger part of the picture began to fade out of his vision. But her face remained to the last. It grew clearer, like a cameo framed in an iris--a beautiful, staring, horrified face with shimmering tresses of jet-black hair blowing about it like a veil. He noticed the hair, that was partly undone as if she had been in a struggle of some sort, or had been running fast against the breeze that came up the river. He fought with himself to hold that picture of her, to utter some word, make some movement. But the power to see and to live died out of him. He sank back with a queer sound in his throat. He did not hear the answering cry from the girl as she flung herself, with a quick little prayer for help, on her knees in the soft, white sand beside him. He felt no movement when she raised his head in her arm and with her bare hand brushed back his sand-littered hair, revealing where the bullet had struck him. He did not know when she ran back to the river. His first sensation was of a cool and comforting something trickling over his burning temples and his face. It was water. Subconsciously he knew that, and in the same way he began to think. But it was hard to pull his thoughts together. They persisted in hopping about, like a lot of sand-fleas in a dance, and just as he got hold of one and reached for another, the first would slip away from him. He began to get the best of them after a time, and he had an uncontrollable desire to say something. But his eyes and his lips were sealed tight, and to open them, a little army of gnomes came out of the darkness in the back of his head, each of them armed with a lever, and began prying with all their might. After that came the beginning of light and a flash of consciousness. The girl was working over him. He could feel her and hear her movement. Water was trickling over his face. Then he heard a voice, close over him, saying something in a sobbing monotone which he could not understand. With a mighty effort he opened his eyes. "Thank LE BON DIEU, you live, m'sieu," he heard the voice say, as if coming from a long distance away. "You live, you live--" "Tryin' to," he mumbled thickly, feeling suddenly a sense of great elation. "Tryin'--" He wanted to curse the gnomes for deserting him, for as soon as they were gone with their levers, his eyes and his lips shut tight again, or at least he thought they did. But he began to sense things in a curious sort of way. Some one was dragging him. He could feel the grind of sand under his body. There were intervals when the dragging operation paused. And then, after a long time, he seemed to hear more than one voice. There were two--sometimes a murmur of them. And odd visions came to him. He seemed to see the girl with shining black hair and dark eyes, and then swiftly she would change into a girl with hair like blazing gold. This was a different girl. She was not like Pretty Eyes, as his twisted mind called the other. This second vision that he saw was like a radiant bit of the sun, her hair all aflame with the fire of it and her face a different sort of face. He was always glad when she went away and Pretty Eyes came back. To David Carrigan this interesting experience in his life might have covered an hour, a day, or a month. Or a year for that matter, for he seemed to have had an indefinite association with Pretty Eyes. He had known her for a long time and very intimately, it seemed. Yet he had no memory of the long fight in the hot sun, or of the river, or of the singing warblers, or of the inquisitive sandpiper that had marked out the line which his enemy's last bullet had traveled. He had entered into a new world in which everything was vague and unreal except that vision of dark hair, dark eyes, and pale, beautiful face. Several times he saw it with marvelous clearness, and each time he drifted away into darkness again with the sound of a voice growing fainter and fainter in his ears. Then came a time of utter chaos and soundless gloom. He was in a pit, where even his subconscious self was almost dead under a crushing oppression. At last a star began to glimmer in this pit, a star pale and indistinct and a vast distance away. But it crept steadily up through the eternity of darkness, and the nearer it came, the less there was of the blackness of night. From a star it grew into a sun, and with the sun came dawn. In that dawn he heard the singing of a bird, and the bird was just over his head. When Carrigan opened his eyes, and understanding came to him, he found himself under the silver birch that belonged to the wood warbler. For a space he did not ask himself how he had come there. He was looking at the river and the white strip of sand. Out there were the rock and his dunnage pack. Also his rifle. Instinctively his eyes turned to the balsam ambush farther down. That, too, was in a blaze of sunlight now. But where he lay, or sat, or stood--he was not sure what he was doing at that moment--it was shady and deliciously cool. The green of the cedar and spruce and balsam was close about him, inset with the silver and gold of the thickly-leaved birch. He discovered that he was bolstered up partly against the trunk of this birch and partly against a spruce sapling. Between these two, where his head rested, was a pile of soft moss freshly torn from the earth. And within reach of him was his own kit pail filled with water. He moved himself cautiously and raised a hand to his head. His fingers came in contact with a bandage. For a minute or two after that he sat without moving while his amazed senses seized upon the significance of it all. In the first place he was alive. But even this fact of living was less remarkable than the other things that had happened. He remembered the final moments of the unequal duel. His enemy had got him. And that enemy was a woman! Moreover, after she had blown away a part of his head and had him helpless in the sand, she had--in place of finishing him there--dragged him to this cool nook and tied up his wound. It was hard for him to believe, but the pail of water, the moss behind his shoulders, the bandage, and certain visions that were reforming themselves in his brain convinced him. A woman had shot him. She had worked like the very devil to kill him. And afterward she had saved him! He grinned. It was final proof that his mind hadn't been playing tricks on him. No one but a woman would have been quite so unreasonable. A man would have completed the job. He began to look for her up and down the white strip of sand. And in looking he saw the gray and silver flash of the hard-working sandpiper. He chuckled, for he was exceedingly comfortable, and also exhilaratingly happy to know that the thing was over and he was not dead. If the sandpiper had been a man, he would have called him up to shake hands with him. For if it hadn't been for the bird getting squarely in front of him and giving him away, there might have been a more horrible end to it all. He shuddered as he thought of the mighty effort he had made to fire a shot into the heart of the balsam ambush--and perhaps into the heart of a woman! He reached for the pail and drank deeply of the water in it. He felt no pain. His dizziness was gone. His mind had grown suddenly clear and alert. The warmth of the water told him almost instantly that it had been taken from the river some time ago. He observed the change in sun and shadows. With the instinct of a man trained to note details, he pulled out his watch. It was almost six o'clock. More than three hours had passed since the sandpiper had got in front of his gun. He did not attempt to rise to his feet, but scanned with slower and more careful scrutiny the edge of the forest and the river. He had been mystified while cringing for his life behind the rock, but he was infinitely more so now. Greater desire he had never had than this which thrilled him in these present minutes of his readjustment--desire to look upon the woman again. And then, all at once, there came back to him a mental flash of the other. He remembered, as if something was coming back to him out of a dream, how the whimsical twistings of his sick brain had made him see two faces instead of one. Yet he knew that the first picture of his mysterious assailant, the picture painted in his brain when he had tried to raise his pistol, was the right one. He had seen her dark eyes aglow; he had seen the sunlit sheen of her black hair rippling in the wind; he had seen the white pallor in her face, the slimness of her as she stood over him in horror--he remembered even the clutch of her white hand at her throat. A moment before she had tried to kill him. And then he had looked up and had seen her like that! It must have been some unaccountable trick in his brain that had flooded her hair with golden fire at times. His eyes followed a furrow in the white sand which led from where he sat bolstered against the tree down to his pack and the rock. It was the trail made by his body when she had dragged him up to the shelter and coolness of the timber. One of his laws of physical care was to keep himself trained down to a hundred and sixty, but he wondered how she had dragged up even so much as that of dead weight. It had taken a great deal of effort. He could see distinctly three different places in the sand where she had stopped to rest. Carrigan had earned a reputation as the expert analyst of "N" Division. In delicate matters it was seldom that McVane did not take him into consultation. He possessed an almost uncanny grip on the working processes of a criminal mind, and the first rule he had set down for himself was to regard the acts of omission rather than the one outstanding act of commission. But when he proved to himself that the chief actor in a drama possessed a normal rather than a criminal mind, he found himself in the position of checkmate. It was a thrilling game. And he was frankly puzzled now, until--one after another--he added up the sum total of what had been omitted in this instance of his own personal adventure. Hidden in her ambush, the woman who had shot him had been in both purpose and act an assassin. Her determination had been to kill him. She had disregarded the white flag with which he had pleaded for mercy. Her marksmanship was of fiendish cleverness. Up to her last shot she had been, to all intent and purpose, a murderess. The change had come when she looked down upon him, bleeding and helpless, in the sand. Undoubtedly she had thought he was dying. But why, when she saw his eyes open a little later, had she cried out her gratitude to God? What had worked the sudden transformation in her? Why had she labored to save the life she had so atrociously coveted a minute before? If his assailant had been a man, Carrigan would have found an answer. For he was not robbed, and therefore robbery was not a motif. "A case of mistaken identity," he would have told himself. "An error in visual judgment." But the fact that in his analysis he was dealing with a woman made his answer only partly satisfying. He could not disassociate himself from her eyes--their beauty, their horror, the way they had looked at him. It was as if a sudden revulsion had come over her; as if, looking down upon her bleeding handiwork, the woman's soul in her had revolted, and with that revulsion had come repentance--repentance and pity. "That," thought Carrigan, "would be just like a woman--and especially a woman with eyes like hers." This left him but two conclusions to choose from. Either there had been a mistake, and the woman had shown both horror and desire to amend when she discovered it, or a too tender-hearted agent of Black Roger Audemard had waylaid him in the heart of the white strip of sand. The sun was another hour lower in the sky when Carrigan assured himself in a series of cautious experiments that he was not in a condition to stand upon his feet. In his pack were a number of things he wanted--his blankets, for instance, a steel mirror, and the thermometer in his medical kit. He was beginning to feel a bit anxious about himself. There were sharp pains back of his eyes. His face was hot, and he was developing an unhealthy appetite for water. It was fever and he knew what fever meant in this sort of thing, when one was alone. He had given up hope of the woman's return. It was not reasonable to expect her to come back after her furious attempt to kill him. She had bandaged him, bolstered him up, placed water beside him, and had then left him to work out the rest of his salvation alone. But why the deuce hadn't she brought up his pack? On his hands and knees he began to work himself toward it slowly. He found that the movement caused him pain, and that with this pain, if he persisted in movement, there was a synchronous rise of nausea. The two seemed to work in a sort of unity. But his medicine case was important now, and his blankets, and his rifle if he hoped to signal help that might chance to pass on the river. A foot at a time, a yard at a time, he made his way down into the sand. His fingers dug into the footprints of the mysterious gun-woman. He approved of their size. They were small and narrow, scarcely longer than the palm and fingers of his hand--and they were made by shoes instead of moccasins. It seemed an interminable time to him before he reached his pack. When he got there, a pendulum seemed swinging back and forth inside his head, beating against his skull. He lay down with his pack for a pillow, intending to rest for a spell. But the minutes added themselves one on top of another. The sun slipped behind clouds banking in the west. It grew cooler, while within him he was consumed by a burning thirst. He could hear the ripple of running water, the laughter of it among pebbles a few yards away. And the river itself became even more desirable than his medicine case, or his blankets, or his rifle. The song of it, inviting and tempting him, blotted thought of the other things out of his mind. And he continued his journey, the swing of the pendulum in his head becoming harder, but the sound of the river growing nearer. At last he came to the wet sand, and fell on his face, and drank. After this he had no great desire to go back. He rolled himself over, so that his face was turned up to the sky. Under him the wet sand was soft, and it was comfortingly cool. The fire in his head died out. He could hear new sounds in the edge of the forest evening sounds. Only weak little twitters came from the wood warblers, driven to silence by thickening gloom in the densely canopied balsams and cedars, and frightened by the first low hoots of the owls. There was a crash not far distant, probably a porcupine waddling through brush on his way for a drink; or perhaps it was a thirsty deer, or a bear coming out in the hope of finding a dead fish. Carrigan loved that sort of sound, even when a pendulum was beating back and forth in his head. It was like medicine to him, and he lay with wide-open eyes, his ears picking up one after another the voices that marked the change from day to night. He heard the cry of a loon, its softer, chuckling note of honeymoon days. From across the river came a cry that was half howl, half bark. Carrigan knew that it was coyote, and not wolf, a coyote whose breed had wandered hundreds of miles north of the prairie country. The gloom gathered in, and yet it was not darkness as the darkness of night is known a thousand miles south. It was the dusky twilight of day where the sun rises at three o'clock in the morning and still throws its ruddy light in the western sky at nine o'clock at night; where the poplar buds unfold themselves into leaf before one's very eyes; where strawberries are green in the morning and red in the afternoon; where, a little later, one could read newspaper print until midnight by the glow of the sun--and between the rising and the setting of that sun there would be from eighteen to twenty hours of day. It was evening time in the wonderland of the north, a wonderland hard and frozen and ridden by pain and death in winter, but a paradise upon earth in this month of June. The beauty of it filled Carrigan's soul, even as he lay on his back in the damp sand. Far south of him steam and steel were coming, and the world would soon know that it was easy to grow wheat at the Arctic Circle, that cucumbers grew to half the size of a man's arm, that flowers smothered the land and berries turned it scarlet and black. He had dreaded these days--days of what he called "the great discovery"--the time when a crowded civilization would at last understand how the fruits of the earth leaped up to the call of twenty hours of sun each day, even though that earth itself was eternally frozen if one went down under its surface four feet with a pick and shovel. Tonight the gloom came earlier because of the clouds in the west. It was very still. Even the breeze had ceased to come from up the river. And as Carrigan listened, exulting in the thought that the coolness of the wet sand was drawing the fever from him, he heard another sound. At first he thought it was the splashing of a fish. But after that it came again, and still again, and he knew that it was the steady and rhythmic dip of paddles. A thrill shot through him, and he raised himself to his elbow. Dusk covered the river, and he could not see. But he heard low voices as the paddles dipped. And after a little he knew that one of these was the voice of a woman. His heart gave a big jump. "She is coming back," he whispered to himself. "She is coming back!" IV Carrigan's first impulse, sudden as the thrill that leaped through him, was to cry out to the occupants of the unseen canoe. Words were on his lips, but he forced them back. They could not miss him, could not get beyond the reach of his voice--and he waited. After all, there might be profit in a reasonable degree of caution. He crept back toward his rifle, sensing the fact that movement no longer gave him very great distress. At the same time he lost no sound from the river. The voices were silent, and the dip, dip, dip of paddles was approaching softly and with extreme caution. At last he could barely hear the trickle of them, yet he knew the canoe was coming steadily nearer. There was a suspicious secretiveness in its approach. Perhaps the lady with the beautiful eyes and the glistening hair had changed her mind again and was returning to put an end to him. The thought sharpened his vision. He saw a thin shadow a little darker than the gloom of the river; it grew into shape; something grated lightly upon sand and pebbles, and then he heard the guarded plash of feet in shallow water and saw some one pulling the canoe up higher. A second figure joined the first. They advanced a few paces and stopped. In a moment a voice called softly, "M'sieu! M'sieu Carrigan!" There was an anxious note in the voice, but Carrigan held his tongue. And then he heard the woman say, "It was here, Bateese! I am sure of it!" There was more than anxiety in her voice now. Her words trembled with distress. "Bateese--if he is dead--he is up there close to the trees." "But he isn't dead," said Carrigan, raising himself a little. "He is here, behind the rock again!" In a moment she had run to where he was lying, his hand clutching the cold barrel of the pistol which he had found in the sand, his white face looking up at her. Again he found himself staring into the glow of her eyes, and in that pale light which precedes the coming of stars and moon the fancy struck him that she was lovelier than in the full radiance of the sun. He heard a throbbing note in her throat. And then she was down on her knees at his side, leaning close over him, her hands groping at his shoulders, her quick breath betraying how swiftly her heart was beating. "You are not hurt--badly?" she cried. "I don't know," replied David. "You made a perfect shot. I think a part of my head is gone. At least you've shot away my balance, because I can't stand on my feet!" Her hand touched his face, remaining there for an instant, and the palm of it pressed his forehead. It was like the touch of cool velvet, he thought. Then she called to the man named Bateese. He made Carrigan think of a huge chimpanzee as he came near, because of the shortness of his body and the length of his arms. In the half light he might have been a huge animal, a hulking creature of some sort walking upright. Carrigan's fingers closed more tightly on the butt of his automatic. The woman began to talk swiftly in a patois of French and Cree. David caught the gist of it. She was telling Bateese to carry him to the canoe, and to be very careful, because m'sieu was badly hurt. It was his head, she emphasized. Bateese must be careful of his head. David slipped his pistol into its holster as Bateese bent over him. He tried to smile at the woman to thank her for her solicitude--after having nearly killed him. There was an increasing glow in the night, and he began to see her more plainly. Out on the middle of the river was a silvery bar of light. The moon was coming up, a little pale as yet, but triumphant in the fact that clouds had blotted out the sun an hour before his time. Between this bar of light and himself he saw the head of Bateese. It was a wild, savage-looking head, bound pirate-fashion round the forehead with a huge Hudson's Bay kerchief. Bateese might have been old Jack Ketch himself bending over to give the final twist to a victim's neck. His long arms slipped under David. Gently and without effort he raised him to his feet. And then, as easily as he might have lifted a child, he trundled him up in his arms and walked off with him over the sand. Carrigan had not expected this. He was a little shocked and felt also the impropriety of the thing. The idea of being lugged off like a baby was embarrassing, even in the presence of the one who had deliberately put him in his present condition. Bateese did the thing with such beastly ease. It was as if he was no more than a small boy, a runt with no weight whatever, and Bateese was a man. He would have preferred to stagger along on his own feet or creep on his hands and knees, and he grunted as much to Bateese on the way to the canoe. He felt, at the same time, that the situation owed him something more of discussion and explanation. Even now, after half killing him, the woman was taking a rather high-handed advantage of him. She might at least have assured him that she had made a mistake and was sorry. But she did not speak to him again. She said nothing more to Bateese, and when the half-breed deposited him in the midship part of the canoe, facing the bow, she stood back in silence. Then Bateese brought his pack and rifle, and wedged the pack in behind him so that he could sit upright. After that, without pausing to ask permission, he picked up the woman and carried her through the shallow water to the bow, saving her the wetting of her feet. As she turned to find her paddle her face was toward David, and for a moment she was looking at him. "Do you mind telling me who you are, and where we are going?" he asked. "I am Jeanne Marie-Anne Boulain," she said. "My brigade is down the river, M'sieu Carrigan." He was amazed at the promptness of her confession, for as one of the working factors of the long arm of the police he accepted it as that. He had scarcely expected her to divulge her name after the cold-blooded way in which she had attempted to kill him. And she had spoken quite calmly of "my brigade." He had heard of the Boulain Brigade. It was a name associated with Chipewyan, as he remembered it--or Fort McMurray. He was not sure just where the Boulain scows had traded freight with the upper-river craft. Until this year he was positive they had not come as far south as Athabasca Landing. Boulain--Boulain--The name repeated itself over and over in his mind. Bateese shoved off the canoe, and the woman's paddle dipped in and out of the water beginning to shimmer in moonlight. But he could not, for a time, get himself beyond the pounding of that name in his brain. It was not merely that he had heard the name before. There was something significant about it. Something that made him grope back in his memory of things. Boulain! He whispered it to himself, his eyes on the slender figure of the woman ahead of him, swaying gently to the steady sweep of the paddle in her hands. Yet he could think of nothing. A feeling of irritation swept over him, disgust at his own mental impotency. And the dizzying sickness was brewing in his head again. "I have heard that name--somewhere--before," he said. There was a space of only five or six feet between them, and he spoke with studied distinctness. "Possibly you have, m'sieu." Her voice was exquisite, clear as the note of a bird, yet so soft and low that she seemed scarcely to have spoken. And it was, Carrigan thought, criminally evasive--under the circumstances. He wanted her to turn round and say something. He wanted, first of all, to ask her why she had tried to kill him. It was his right to demand an explanation. And it was his duty to get her back to the Landing, where the law would ask an accounting of her. She must know that. There was only one way in which she could have learned his name, and that was by prying into his identification papers while he was unconscious. Therefore she not only knew his name, but also that he was Sergeant Carrigan of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police. In spite of all this she was apparently not very deeply concerned. She was not frightened, and she did not appear to be even slightly excited. He leaned nearer to her, the movement sending a sharp pain between his eyes. It almost drew a cry from him, but he forced himself to speak without betraying it. "You tried to murder me--and almost succeeded. Haven't you anything to say?" "Not now, m'sieu--except that it was a mistake, and I am sorry. But you must not talk. You must remain quiet. I am afraid your skull is fractured." Afraid his skull was fractured! And she expressed her fear in the casual way she might have spoken of a toothache. He leaned back against his dunnage sack and closed his eyes. Probably she was right. These fits of dizziness and nausea were suspicious. They made him top-heavy and filled him with a desire to crumple up somewhere. He was clear-mindedly conscious of this and of his fight against the weakness. But in those moments when he felt better and his head was clear of pain, he had not seriously thought of a fractured skull. If she believed it, why did she not treat him a bit more considerately? Bateese, with that strength of an ox in his arms, had no use for her assistance with the paddle. She might at least have sat facing him, even if she refused to explain matters more definitely. A mistake, she called it. And she was sorry for him! She had made those statements in a matter-of-fact way, but with a voice that was like music. She had spoken perfect English, but in her words were the inflection and velvety softness of the French blood which must be running red in her veins. And her name was Jeanne Marie-Anne Boulain! With eyes closed, Carrigan called himself an idiot for thinking of these things at the present time. Primarily he was a man-hunter out on important duty, and here was duty right at hand, a thousand miles south of Black Roger Audemard, the wholesale murderer he was after. He would have sworn on his life that Black Roger had never gone at a killing more deliberately than this same Jeanne Marie-Anne Boulain had gone after him behind the rock! Now that it was all over, and he was alive, she was taking him somewhere as coolly and as unexcitedly as though they were returning from a picnic. Carrigan shut his eyes tighter and wondered if he was thinking straight. He believed he was badly hurt, but he was as strongly convinced that his mind was clear. And he lay quietly with his head against the pack, his eyes closed, waiting for the coolness of the river to drive his nausea away again. He sensed rather than felt the swift movement of the canoe. There was no perceptible tremor to its progress. The current and a perfect craftsmanship with the paddles were carrying it along at six or seven miles an hour. He heard the rippling of water that at times was almost like the tinkling of tiny bells, and more and more bell-like became that sound as he listened to it. It struck a certain note for him. And to that note another added itself, until in the purling rhythm of the river he caught the murmuring monotone of a name Boulain--Boulain--Boulain. The name became an obsession. It meant something. And he knew what it meant--if he could only whip his memory back into harness again. But that was impossible now. When he tried to concentrate his mental faculties, his head ached terrifically. He dipped his hand into the water and held it over his eyes. For half an hour after that he did not raise his head. In that time not a word was spoken by Bateese or Jeanne Marie-Anne Boulain. For the forest people it was not an hour in which to talk. The moon had risen swiftly, and the stars were out. Where there had been gloom, the world was now a flood of gold and silver light. At first Carrigan allowed this to filter between his fingers; then he opened his eyes. He felt more evenly balanced again. Straight in front of him was Jeanne Marie-Anne Boulain. The curtain of dusk had risen from between them, and she was full in the radiance of the moon. She was no longer paddling, but was looking straight ahead. To Cardigan her figure was exquisitely girlish as he saw it now. She was bareheaded, as he had seen tier first, and her hair hung down her back like a shimmering mass of velvety sable in the star-and-moon glow. Something told Carrigan she was going to turn her face in his direction, and he dropped his hand over his eyes again, leaving a space between the fingers. He was right in his guess. She fronted the moon, looking at him closely--rather anxiously, he thought. She even leaned a little toward him that she might see more clearly. Then she turned and resumed her paddling. Carrigan was a bit elated. Probably she had looked at him a number of times like that during the past half-hour. And she was disturbed. She was worrying about him. The thought of being a murderess was beginning to frighten her. In spite of the beauty of her eyes and hair and the slim witchery of her body he had no sympathy for her. He told himself that he would give a year of his life to have her down at Barracks this minute. He would never forget that three-quarters of an hour behind the rock, not if he lived to be a hundred. And if he did live, she was going to pay, even if she was lovelier than Venus and all the Graces combined. He felt irritated with himself that he should have observed in such a silly way the sable glow of her hair in the moonlight. And her eyes. What the deuce did prettiness matter in the present situation? The sister of Fanchet, the mail robber, was beautiful, but her beauty had failed to save Fanchet. The Law had taken him in spite of the tears in Carmin Fanchet's big black eyes, and in that particular instance he was the Law. And Carmin Fanchet was pretty--deucedly pretty. Even the Old Man's heart had been stirred by her loveliness. "A shame!" he had said to Carrigan. "A shame!" But the rascally Fanchet was hung by the neck until he was dead. Carrigan drew himself up slowly until he was sitting erect. He wondered what Jeanne Marie-Anne Boulain would say if he told her about Carmin. But there was a big gulf between the names Fanchet and Boulain. The Fanchets had come from the dance halls of Alaska. They were bad, both of them. At least, so they had judged Carmin Fanchet--along with her brother. And Boulain-- His hand, in dropping to his side, fell upon the butt of his pistol. Neither Bateese nor the girl had thought of disarming him. It was careless of them, unless Bateese was keeping a good eye on him from behind. A new sort of thrill crept into Carrigan's blood. He began to see where he had made a huge error in not playing his part more cleverly. It was this girl Jeanne who had shot him. It was Jeanne who had stood over him in that last moment when he had made an effort to use his pistol. It was she who had tried to murder him and who had turned faint-hearted when it came to finishing the job. But his knowledge of these things he should have kept from her. Then, when the proper moment came, he would have been in a position to act. Even now it might be possible to cover his blunder. He leaned toward her again, determined to make the effort. "I want to ask your pardon," he said. "May I?" His voice startled her. It was as if the stinging tip of a whip-lash had touched her bare neck. He was smiling when she turned. In her face and eyes was a relief which she made no effort to repress. "You thought I might be dead," he laughed softly. "I'm not, Miss Jeanne. I'm very much alive again. It was that accursed fever--and I want to ask your pardon! I think--I know--that I accused you of shooting me. It's impossible. I couldn't think of it--In my clear mind. I am quite sure that I know the rascally half-breed who pot-shotted me like that. And it was you who came in time, and frightened him away, and saved my life. Will you forgive me--and accept my gratitude?" There came into the glowing eyes of the girl a reflection of his own smile. It seemed to him that he saw the corners of her mouth tremble a little before she answered him. "I am glad you are feeling better, m'sieu." "And you will forgive me for--for saying such beastly things to you?" She was lovely when she smiled, and she was smiling at him now. "If you want to be forgiven for lying, yes," she said. "I forgive you that, because it is sometimes your business to lie. It was I who tried to kill you, m'sieu. And you know it." "But--" "You must not talk, m'sieu. It is not good for you: Bateese, will you tell m'sieu not to talk?" Carrigan heard a movement behind him. "M'sieu, you will stop ze talk or I brak hees head wit' ze paddle in my han'!" came the voice of Bateese close to his shoulder. "Do I mak' ze word plain so m'sieu compren'?" "I get you, old man," grunted Carrigan. "I get you--both!" And he leaned back against his dunnage-sack, staring again at the witching slimness of the lovely Jeanne Marie-Anne Boulain as she calmly resumed her paddling in the bow of the canoe. V In the few minutes following the efficient and unexpected warning of Bateese an entirely new element of interest entered into the situation for David Carrigan. He had more than once assured himself that he had made a success of his profession of man-hunting not because he was brighter than the other fellow, but largely because he possessed a sense of humor and no vanities to prick. He was in the game because he loved the adventure of it. He was loyal to his duty, but he was not a worshipper of the law, nor did he covet the small monthly stipend of dollars and cents that came of his allegiance to it. As a member of the Scarlet Police, and especially of "N" Division, he felt the pulse and thrill of life as he loved to live it. And the greatest of all thrills came when he was after a man as clever as himself, or cleverer. This time it was a woman--or a girl! He had not yet made up his mind which she was. Her voice, low and musical, her poise, and the tranquil and unexcitable loveliness of her face had made him, at first, register her as a woman. Yet as he looked at the slim girlishness of her figure in the bow of the canoe, accentuated by the soft sheen of her partly unbraided hair, he wondered if she were eighteen or thirty. It would take the clear light of day to tell him. But whether a girl or a woman, she had handled him so cleverly that the unpleasantness of his earlier experience began to give way slowly to an admiration for her capability. He wondered what the superintendent of "N" Division would say if he could see Black Roger Audemard's latest trailer propped up here in the center of the canoe, the prisoner of a velvety-haired but dangerously efficient bit of feminine loveliness--and a bull-necked, chimpanzee-armed half-breed! Bateese had confirmed the suspicion that he was a prisoner, even though this mysterious pair were bent on saving his life. Why it was their desire to keep life in him when only a few hours ago one of them had tried to kill him was a. question which only the future could answer. He did not bother himself with that problem now. The present was altogether too interesting, and there was but little doubt that other developments equally important were close at hand. The attitude of both Jeanne Marie-Anne Boulain and her piratical-looking henchman was sufficient evidence of that. Bateese had threatened to knock his head off, and he could have sworn that the girl--or woman--had smiled her approbation of the threat. Yet he held no grudge against Bateese. An odd sort of liking for the man began to possess him, just as he found himself powerless to resist an ingrowing admiration for Marie-Anne. The existence of Black Roger Audemard became with him a sort of indefinite reality. Black Roger was a long way off. Marie-Anne and Bateese were very near. He began thinking of her as Marie-Anne. He liked the name. It was the Boulain part of it that worked in him with an irritating insistence. For the first time since the canoe journey had begun, he looked beyond the darkly glowing head and the slender figure in the bow. It was a splendid night. Ahead of him the river was like a rippling sheet of molten silver. On both sides, a quarter of a mile apart, rose the walls of the forest, like low-hung, oriental tapestries. The sky seemed near, loaded with stars, and the moon, rising with almost perceptible movement toward the zenith, had changed from red to a mellow gold. Carrigan's soul always rose to this glory of the northern light. Youth and vigor, he told himself, must always exist under those unpolluted lights of the upper worlds, the unspeaking things which had told him more than he had ever learned from the mouths of other men. They stood for his religion, his faith, his belief in the existence of things greater than the insignificant spark which animated his own body. He appreciated them most when there was stillness. And tonight it was still. It was so quiet that the trickling of the paddles was like subdued music. From the forest there came no sound. Yet he knew there was life there, wide-eyed, questing life, life that moved on velvety wing and padded foot, just as he and Marie-Anne and the half-breed Bateese were moving in the canoe. To have called out in this hour would have taken an effort, for a supreme and invisible Hand seemed to have commanded stillness upon the earth. And then there came droning upon his ears a break in the stillness, and as he listened, the shores closed slowly in, narrowing the channel until he saw giant masses of gray rock replacing the thick verdure of balsam, spruce, and cedar. The moaning grew louder, and the rocks climbed skyward until they hung in great cliffs. There could be but one meaning to this sudden change. They were close to LE SAINT-ESPRIT RAPIDE--the Holy Ghost Rapids. Carrigan was astonished. That day at noon he had believed the Holy Ghost to be twenty or thirty miles below him. Now they were at its mouth, and he saw that Bateese and Jeanne Marie-Anne Boulain were quietly and unexcitedly preparing to run that vicious stretch of water. Unconsciously he gripped the gunwales of the canoe with both hands as the sound of the rapids grew into low and sullen thunder. In the moonlight ahead he could see the rock walls closing in until the channel was crushed between two precipitous ramparts, and the moon and stars, sending their glow between those walls, lighted up a frothing path of water that made Carrigan hold his breath. He would have portaged this place even in broad day. He looked at the girl in the bow. The slender figure Was a little more erect, the glowing head held a little higher. In those moments he would have liked to see her face, the wonderful something that must be in her eyes as she rode fearlessly into the teeth of the menace ahead. For he could see that she was not afraid, that she was facing this thing with a sort of exultation, that there was something about it which thrilled her until every drop of blood in her body was racing with the impetus of the stream itself. Eddies of wind puffing out from between the chasm walls tossed her loose hair about her back in a glistening veil. He saw a long strand of it trailing over the edge of the canoe into the water. It made him shiver, and he wanted to cry out to Bateese that he was a fool for risking her life like this. He forgot that he was the one helpless individual in the canoe, and that an upset would mean the end for him, while Bateese and his companion might still fight on. His thought and his vision were focused on the girl--and what lay straight ahead. A mass of froth, like a windrow of snow, rose up before them, and the canoe plunged into it with the swiftness of a shot. It spattered in his face, and blinded him for an instant. Then they were out of it, and he fancied he heard a note of laughter from the girl in the bow. In the next breath he called himself a fool for imagining that. For the run was dead ahead, and the girl became vibrant with life, her paddle flashing in and out, while from her lips came sharp, clear cries which brought from Eateese frog-like bellows of response. The walls shot past; inundations rose and plunged under them; black rocks whipped with caps of foam raced up-stream with the speed of living things; the roar became a drowning voice, and then--as if outreached by the wings of a swifter thing--dropped suddenly behind them. Smoother water lay ahead. The channel broadened. Moonlight filled it with a clearer radiance, and Carrigan saw the girl's hair glistening wet, and her arms dripping. For the first time he turned about and faced Bateese. The half-breed was grinning like a Cheshire cat! "You're a confoundedly queer pair!" grunted Carrigan, and he turned about again to find Jeanne Marie-Anne Boulain as unconcerned as though running the Holy Ghost Rapids in the glow of the moon was nothing more than a matter of play. It was impossible for him to keep his heart from beating a little faster as he watched her, even though he was trying to regard her in a most professional sort of way. He reminded himself that she was an iniquitous little Jezebel who had almost murdered him. Carmin Fanchet had been like her, an AME DAMNEE--a fallen angel--but his business was not sympathy in such matters as these. At the same time he could not resist the lure of both her audacity and her courage, and he found himself all at once asking himself the amazing question as to what her relationship might be to Bateese. It occurred to him rather unpleasantly that there had been something distinctly proprietary in the way the half-breed had picked her up on the sand, and that Bateese had shown no hesitation a little later in threatening to knock his head off unless he stopped talking to her. He wondered if Bateese was a Boulain. The two or three minutes of excitement in the boiling waters of the Holy Ghost had acted like medicine on Carrigan. It seemed to him that something had given way in his head, relieving him of an oppression that had been like an iron hoop drawn tightly about his skull. He did not want Bateese to suspect this change in him, and he slouched lower against the dunnage-pack with his eyes still on the girl. He was finding it increasingly difficult to keep from looking at her. She had resumed her paddling, and Bateese was putting mighty efforts in his strokes now, so that the narrow, birchbark canoe shot like an arrow with the down-sweeping current of the river. A few hundred yards below was a twist in the channel, and as the canoe rounded this, taking the shoreward curve with dizzying swiftness, a wide, still straight-water lay ahead. And far down this Carrigan saw the glow of fires. The forest had drawn back from the river, leaving in its place a broken tundra of rock and shale and a wide strip of black sand along the edge of the stream itself. Carrigan knew what it was--an upheaval of the tar-sand country so common still farther north, the beginning of that treasure of the earth which would some day make the top of the American continent one of the Eldorados of the world. The fires drew nearer, and suddenly the still night was broken by the wild chanting of men. David heard behind him a choking note in the throat of Bateese. A soft word came from the lips of the girl, and it seemed to Carrigan that her head was held higher in the moon glow. The chant increased in volume, a rhythmic, throbbing, savage music that for a hundred and fifty years had come from the throats of men along the Three Rivers. It thrilled Carrigan as they bore down upon it. It was not song as civilization would have counted song. It was like an explosion, an exultation of human voice unchained, ebullient with the love of life, savage in its good-humor. It was LE GAITE DE COEUR of the rivermen, who thought and sang as their forefathers did in the days of Radisson and good Prince Rupert; it was their merriment, their exhilaration, their freedom and optimism, reaching up to the farthest stars. In that song men were straining their vocal muscles, shouting to beat out their nearest neighbor, bellowing like bulls in a frenzy of sudden fun. And then, as suddenly as it had risen in the night, the clamor of voices died away. A single shout came up the river. Carrigan thought he heard a low rumble of laughter. A tin pan banged against another. A dog howled. The flat of an oar played a tattoo for a moment on the bottom of a boat. Then one last yell from a single throat--and the night was silent again. And that was the Boulain Brigade--singing at this hour of the night, when men should have been sleeping if they expected to be up with the sun. Carrigan stared ahead. Shortly his adventure would take a new twist. Something was bound to happen when they got ashore. The peculiar glow of the fires had puzzled him. Now he began to understand. Jeanne Marie-Anne Boulain's men were camped in the edge of the tar-sands and had lighted a number of natural gas-jets that came up out of the earth. Many times he had seen fires like these burning up and down the Three Rivers. He had lighted fires of his own; he had cooked over them and had afterward had the fun and excitement of extinguishing them with pails of water. But he had never seen anything quite like this that was unfolding itself before his eyes now. There were seven of the fires over an area of half an acre--spouts of yellowish flame burning like giant torches ten or fifteen feet in the air. And between them he very soon made out great bustle and activity. Many figures were moving about. They looked like dwarfs at first, gnomes at play in a little world made out of witchcraft. But Bateese was sending the canoe nearer with powerful strokes, and the figures grew taller, and the spouts of flame higher. Then he knew what was happening. The Boulain men were taking advantage of the cool hours of the night and were tarring up. He could smell the tar, and he could see the big York boats drawn up in the circle of yellowish light. There were half a dozen of them, and men stripped to the waist were smearing the bottoms of the boats with boiling tar and pitch. In the center was a big, black cauldron steaming over a gas-jet, and between this cauldron and the boats men were running back and forth with pails. Still nearer to the huge kettle other men were filling a row of kegs with the precious black GOUDRON that oozed up from the bowels of the earth, forming here and there jet-black pools that Carrigan could see glistening in the flare of the gas-lamps. He figured there were thirty men at work. Six big York boats were turned keel up in the black sand. Close inshore, just outside the circle of light, was a single scow. Toward this scow Bateese sent the canoe. And as they drew nearer, until the laboring men ashore were scarcely a stone's throw away, the weirdness of the scene impressed itself more upon Carrigan. Never had he seen such a crew. There were no Indians among them. Lithe, quick-moving, bare-headed, their naked arms and shoulders gleaming in the ghostly illumination, they were racing against time with the boiling tar and pitch in the cauldron. They did not see the approach of the canoe, and Bateese did not draw their attention to it. Quietly he drove the birchbark under the shadow of the big bateau. Hands were waiting to seize and steady it. Carrigan caught but a glimpse of the faces. In another instant the girl was aboard the scow, and Bateese was bending over him. A second time he was picked up like a child in the chimpanzee-like arms of the half-breed. The moonlight showed him a scow bigger than he had ever seen on the upper river, and two-thirds of it seemed to be cabin. Into this cabin Bateese carried him, and in darkness laid him upon what Carrigan thought must be a cot built against the wall. He made no sound, but let himself fall limply upon it. He listened to Bateese as he moved about, and closed his eyes when Bateese struck a match. A moment later he heard the door of the cabin close behind the half-breed. Not until then did he open his eyes and sit up. He was alone. And what he saw in the next few moments drew an exclamation of amazement from him. Never had he seen a cabin like this on the Three Rivers. It was thirty feet long if an inch, and at least eight feet wide. The walls and ceiling were of polished cedar; the floor was of cedar closely matched. It was the exquisite finish and craftsmanship of the woodwork that caught his eyes first. Then his astonished senses seized upon the other things. Under his feet was a soft rug of dark green velvet. Two magnificent white bearskins lay between him and the end of the room. The walls were hung with pictures, and at the four windows were curtains of ivory lace draped with damask. The lamp which Bateese had lighted was fastened to the wall close to him. It was of polished silver and threw a brilliant light softened by a shade of old gold. There were three other lamps like this, unlighted. The far end of the room was in deep shadow, but Carrigan made out the thing he was staring at--a piano. He rose to his feet, disbelieving his eyes, and made his way toward it. He passed between chairs. Near the piano was another door, and a wide divan of the same soft, green upholstery. Looking back, he saw that what he had been lying upon was another divan. And dose to this were book-shelves, and a table on which were magazines and papers and a woman's workbasket, and in the workbasket--sound asleep--a cat! And then, over the table and the sleeping cat, his eyes rested upon a triangular banner fastened to the wall. In white against a background of black was a mighty polar bear holding at bay a horde of Arctic wolves. And suddenly the thing he had been fighting to recall came to Carrigan--the great bear--the fighting wolves--the crest of St. Pierre Boulain! He took a quick step toward the table--then caught at the back of a chair. Confound his head! Or was it the big bateau rocking under his feet? The cat seemed to be turning round in its basket. There were half a dozen banners instead of one; the lamp was shaking in its bracket; the floor was tilting, everything was becoming hideously contorted and out of place. A shroud of darkness gathered about him, and through that darkness Carrigan staggered blindly toward the divan. He reached it just in time to fall upon it like a dead man. VI For what seemed to be an interminable time after the final breakdown of his physical strength David Carrigan lived in a black world where a horde of unseen little devils were shooting red-hot arrows into his brain. He did not sense the fact of human presence; nor that the divan had been changed into a bed and the four lamps lighted, and that wrinkled, brown hands with talon-like fingers were performing a miracle of wilderness surgery upon him. He did not see the age-old face of Nepapinas--"The Wandering Bolt of Lightning"--as the bent and tottering Cree called upon all his eighty years of experience to bring him back to life. And he did not see Bateese, stolid-faced, silent, nor the dead-white face and wide-open, staring eyes of Jeanne Marie-Anne Boulain as her slim, white fingers worked with the old medicine man's. He was in a gulf of blackness that writhed with the spirits of torment. He fought them and cried out against them, and his fighting and his cries brought the look of death itself into the eyes of the girl who was over him. He did not hear her voice nor feel the soothing of her hands, nor the powerful grip of Bateese as he held him when the critical moments came. And Nepapinas, like a machine that had looked upon death a thousand times, gave no rest to his claw-like fingers until the work was done--and it was then that something came to drive the arrow-shooting devils out of the darkness that was smothering Carrigan. After that Carrigan lived through an eternity of unrest, a life in which he seemed powerless and yet was always struggling for supremacy over things that were holding him down. There were lapses in it, like the hours of oblivion that come with sleep, and there were other times when he seemed keenly alive, yet unable to move or act. The darkness gave way to flashes of light, and in these flashes he began to see things, curiously twisted, fleeting, and yet fighting themselves insistently upon his senses. He was back in the hot sand again, and this time he heard the voices of Jeanne Marie-Anne and Golden-Hair, and Golden-Hair flaunted a banner in his face, a triangular pennon of black on which a huge bear was fighting white Arctic wolves, and then she would run away from him, crying out--"St. Pierre Boulain--St. Pierre Boulain--" and the last he could see of her was her hair flaming like fire in the sun. But it was always the other--the dark hair and dark eyes--that came to him when the little devils returned to assault him with their arrows. From somewhere she would come out of darkness and frighten them away. He could hear her voice like a whisper in his ears, and the touch of her hands comforted him and quieted his pain. After a time he grew to be afraid when the darkness swallowed her up, and in that darkness he would call for her, and always he heard her voice in answer. Then came a long oblivion. He floated through cool space away from the imps of torment; his bed was of downy clouds, and on these clouds he drifted with a great shining river under him; and at last the cloud he was in began to shape itself into walls and on these walls were pictures, and a window through which the sun was shining, and a black pennon--and he heard a soft, wonderful music that seemed to come to him faintly from another world. Other creatures were at work in his brain now. They were building up and putting together the loose ends of things. Carrigan became one of them, working so hard that frequently a pair of dark eyes came out of the dawning of things to stop him, and quieting hands and a voice soothed him to rest. The hands and the voice became very intimate. He missed them when they were not near, especially the hands, and he was always groping for them to make sure they had not gone away. Only once after the floating cloud transformed itself into the walls of the bateau cabin did the chaotic darkness of the sands fully possess him again. In that darkness he heard a voice. It was not the voice of Golden-Hair, or of Bateese, or of Jeanne Marie-Anne. It was close to his ears. And in that darkness that smothered him there was something terrible about it as it droned slowly the words--"HAS-ANY-ONE-SEEN-BLACK-ROGER-AUDEMARD?" He tried to answer, to call back to it, and the voice came again, repeating the words, emotionless, hollow, as if echoing up out of a grave. And still harder he struggled to reply to it, to say that he was David Carrigan, and that he was out on the trail of Black Roger Audemard, and that Black Roger was far north. And suddenly it seemed to him that the voice changed into the flesh and blood of Black Roger himself, though he could not see in the darkness--and he reached out, gripping fiercely at the warm substance of flesh, until he heard another voice, the voice of Jeanne Marie-Anne Boulain, entreating him to let his victim go. It was this time that his eyes shot open, wide and seeing, and straight over him was the face of Jeanne Marie-Anne, nearer him than it had been even in the visionings of his feverish mind. His fingers were clutching her shoulders, gripping like steel hooks. "M'sieu--M'sieu David!" she was crying. For a moment he stared; then his hands and fingers relaxed, and his arms dropped limply. "Pardon--I--I was dreaming," he struggled weakly. "I thought--" He had seen the pain in her face. Now, changing swiftly, it lighted up with relief and gladness. His vision, cleared by long darkness, saw the change come in an instant like a flash of sunshine. And then--so near that he could have touched her--she was smiling down into his eyes. He smiled back. It took an effort, for his face felt stiff and unnatural. "I was dreaming--of a man--named Roger Audemard," he continued to apologize. "Did I--hurt you?" The smile on her lips was gone as swiftly as it had come. "A little, m'sieu. I am glad you are better. You have been very sick." He raised a hand to his face. The bandage was there, and also a stubble of beard on his cheeks. He was puzzled. This morning he had fastened his steel mirror to the side of a tree and shaved. "It was three days ago you were hurt," she said quietly. "This is the afternoon of the third day. You have been in a great fever. Nepapinas, my Indian doctor, saved your life. You must lie quietly now. You have been talking a great deal." "About--Black Roger?" he said. She nodded. "And--Golden--Hair?" "Yes, of Golden--Hair." "And--some one else--with dark hair--and dark eyes--" "It may be, m'sieu." "And of little devils with bows and arrows, and of polar bears, and white wolves, and of a great lord of the north who calls himself St. Pierre Boulain?" "Yes, of all those." "Then I haven't anything more to tell you," grunted David. "I guess I've told you all I know. You shot me, back there. And here I am. What are you going to do next?" "Call Bateese," she answered promptly, and she rose swiftly from beside him and moved toward the door. He made no effort to call her back. His wits were working slowly, readjusting themselves after a carnival in chaos, and he scarcely sensed that she was gone until the cabin door closed behind her. Then again he raised a hand to his face and felt his beard. Three days! He turned his head so that he could take in the length of the cabin. It was filled with subdued sunlight now, a western sun that glowed softly, giving depth and richness to the colors on the floor and walls, lighting up the piano keys, suffusing the pictures with a warmth of life. David's eyes traveled slowly to his own feet. The divan had been opened and transformed into a bed. He was undressed. He had on somebody's white nightgown. And there was a big bunch of wild roses on the table where three days ago the cat had been sleeping in the work-basket. His head cleared swiftly, and he raised himself a little on one elbow, with extreme caution, and listened. The big bateau was not moving. It was still tied up, but he could hear no voices out where the tar-sands were. He dropped back on his pillow, and his eyes rested on the black pennon. His blood stirred again as he looked at the white bear and the fighting wolves. Wherever men rode the waters of the Three Rivers that pennon was known. Yet it was not common. Seldom was it seen, and never had it come south of Chipewyan. Many things came to Carrigan now, things that he had heard at the Landing and up and down the rivers. Once he had read the tail-end of a report the Superintendent of "N" Division had sent in to headquarters. "We do not know this St. Pierre. Few men have seen him out of his own country, the far headwaters of the Yellowknife, where he rules like a great overlord. Both the Yellowknives and the Dog Ribs call him KICHEOO KIMOW, or King, and the same rumors say there is never starvation or plague in his regions; and it is fact that neither the Hudson's Bay nor Revillon Brothers in their cleverest generalship and trade have been able to uproot his almost dynastic jurisdiction. The Police have had no reason to investigate or interfere." At least that was the gist of what Carrigan had read in McVane's report. But he had never associated it with the name of Boulain. It was of St. Pierre that he had heard stories, St. Pierre and his black pennon with its white bear and fighting wolves. And so--it was St. Pierre BOULAIN! He closed his eyes and thought of the long winter weeks he had passed at Hay River Post, watching for Fanchet, the mail robber. It was there he had heard most about this St. Pierre, and yet no one he had talked with had ever seen him; no one knew whether he was old or young, a pigmy or a giant. Some stories said that he was strong, that he could twist a gun-barrel double in his hands; others said that he was old, very old, so that he never set forth with his brigades that brought down each year a treasure of furs to be exchanged for freight. And never did a Dog Rib or a Yellowknife open his mouth about KICHEOO KIMOW St. Pierre, the master of their unmapped domains. In that great country north and west of the Great Slave he remained an enigma and a sphinx. If he ever came out with his brigades, he did not disclose his identity, so that if one saw a fleet of boats or canoes with the St. Pierre pennon, one had to make his own guess whether St. Pierre himself was there or not. But these things were known--that the keenest, quickest, and strongest men in the northland ran the St. Pierre brigades, that they brought out the richest cargoes of furs, and that they carried back with them into the secret fastnesses of their wilderness the greatest cargoes of freight that treasure could buy. So much the name St. Pierre dragged out of Carrigan's memory. It came to him now why the name "Boulain" had pounded so insistently in his brain. He had seen this pennon with its white bear and fighting wolves only once before, and that had been over a Boulain scow at Chipewyan. But his memory had lost its grip on that incident while retaining vividly its hold on the stories and rumors of the mystery-man, St. Pierre. Carrigan pulled himself a little higher on his pillow and with a new interest scanned the cabin. He had never heard of Boulain women. Yet here was the proof of their existence and of the greatness that ran in the red blood of their veins. The history of the great northland, hidden in the dust-dry tomes and guarded documents of the great company, had always been of absorbing interest to him. He wondered why it was that the outside world knew so little about it and believed so little of what it heard. A long time ago he had penned an article telling briefly the story of this half of a great continent in which for two hundred years romance and tragedy and strife for mastery had gone on in a way to thrill the hearts of men. He had told of huge forts with thirty-foot stone bastions, of fierce wars, of great warships that had fired their broadsides in battle in the ice-filled waters of Hudson's Bay. He had described the coming into this northern world of thousands and tens of thousands of the bravest and best-blooded men of England and France, and how these thousands had continued to come, bringing with them the names of kings, of princes, and of great lords, until out of the savagery of the north rose an aristocracy of race built up of the strongest men of the earth. And these men of later days he had called Lords of the North--men who had held power of life and death in the hollow of their hands until the great company yielded up its suzerainty to the Government of the Dominion in 1870; men who were kings in their domains, whose word was law, who were more powerful in their wilderness castles than their mistress over the sea, the Queen of Britain. And Carrigan, after writing of these things, had stuffed his manuscript away in the bottom of his chest at barracks, for he believed that it was not in his power to do justice to the people of this wilderness world that he loved. The powerful old lords were gone. Like dethroned monarchs, stripped to the level of other men, they lived in the memories of what had been. Their might now lay in trade. No more could they set out to wage war upon their rivals with powder and ball. Keen wit, swift dogs, and the politics of barter had taken the place of deadlier things. LE FACTEUR could no longer slay or command that others be slain. A mightier hand than his now ruled the destinies of the northern people--the hand of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police. It was this thought, the thought that Law and one of the powerful forces of the wilderness had met in this cabin of the big bateau, that came to Carrigan as he drew himself still higher against his pillow. A greater thrill possessed him than the thrill of his hunt for Black Roger Audemard. Black Roger was a murderer, a wholesale murderer and a fiend, a Moloch for whom there could be no pity. Of all men the Law wanted Black Roger most, and he, David Carrigan, was the chosen one to consummate its desire. Yet in spite of that he felt upon him the strange unrest of a greater adventure than the quest for Black Roger. It was like an impending thing that could not be seen, urging him, rousing his faculties from the slough into which they had fallen because of his wound and sickness. It was, after all, the most vital of all things, a matter of his own life. Jeanne Marie-Anne Boulain had tried to kill him deliberately, with malice and intent. That she had saved him afterward only added to the necessity of an explanation, and he was determined that he would have that explanation and settle the present matter before he allowed another thought of Black Roger to enter his head. This resolution reiterated itself in his mind as the machine-like voice of duty. He was not thinking of the Law, and yet the consciousness of his accountability to that Law kept repeating itself. In the very face of it Carrigan knew that something besides the moral obligation of the thing was urging him, something that was becoming deeply and dangerously personal. At least--he tried to think of it as dangerous. And that danger was his unbecoming interest in the girl herself. It was an interest distinctly removed from any ethical code that might have governed him in his experience with Carmin Fanchet, for instance. Comparatively, if they had stood together, Carmin would have been the lovelier. But he would have looked longer at Jeanne Marie-Anne Boulain. He conceded the point, smiling a bit grimly as he continued to study that part of the cabin which he could see from his pillow. He had lost interest--temporarily at least--in Black Roger Audemard. Not long ago the one question to which, above all others, he had desired an answer was, why had Jeanne Marie-Anne Boulain worked so desperately to kill him and so hard to save him afterward? Now, as he looked about him, the question which repeated itself insistently was, what relationship did she bear to this mysterious lord of the north, St. Pierre? Undoubtedly she was his daughter, for whom St. Pierre had built this luxurious barge of state. A fierce-blooded offspring, he thought, one like Cleopatra herself, not afraid to kill--and equally quick to make amends when there was a mistake. There came the quiet opening of the cabin door to break in upon his thought. He hoped it was Jeanne Marie-Anne returning to him. It was Nepapinas. The old Indian stood over him for a moment and put a cold, claw-like hand to his forehead. He grunted and nodded his head, his little sunken eyes gleaming with satisfaction. Then he put his hands under David's arms and lifted him until he was sitting upright, with three or four pillows at his back. "Thanks," said Carrigan. "That makes me feel better. And--if you don't mind--my last lunch was three days ago, boiled prunes and a piece of bannock--" "I have brought you something to eat, M'sieu David," broke in a soft voice behind him. Nepapinas slipped away, and Jeanne Marie-Anne stood in his place. David stared up at her, speechless. He heard the door close behind the old Indian. Then Jeanne Marie-Anne drew up a chair, so that for the first time he could see her clear eyes with the light of day full upon her. He forgot that a few days ago she had been his deadliest enemy. He forgot the existence of a man named Black Roger Audemard. Her slimness was as it had pictured itself to him in the hot sands. Her hair was as he had seen it there. It was coiled upon her head like ropes of spun silk, jet-black, glowing softly. But it was her eyes he stared at, and so fixed was his look that the red lips trembled a bit on the verge of a smile. She was not embarrassed. There was no color in the clear whiteness of her skin, except that redness of her lips. "I thought you had black eyes," he said bluntly. "I'm glad you haven't. I don't like them. Yours are as brown as--as--" "Please, m'sieu," she interrupted him, sitting down close beside him. "Will you eat--now?" A spoon was at his mouth, and he was forced to take it in or have its contents spilled over him. The spoon continued to move quickly between the bowl and his mouth. He was robbed of speech. And the girl's eyes, as surely as he was alive, were beginning to laugh at him. They were a wonderful brown, with little, golden specks in them, like the freckles he had seen in wood-violets. Her lips parted. Between their bewitching redness he saw the gleam of her white teeth. In a crowd, with her glorious hair covered and her eyes looking straight ahead, one would not have picked her out. But close, like this, with her eyes smiling at him, she was adorable. Something of Carrigan's thoughts must have shown in his face, for suddenly the girl's lips tightened a little, and the warmth went out of her eyes, leaving them cold and distant. He finished the soup, and she rose again to her feet. "Please don't go," he said. "If you do, I think I shall get up and follow. I am quite sure I am entitled to a little something more than soup." "Nepapinas says that you may have a bit of boiled fish for supper," she assured him. "You know I don't mean that. I want to know why you shot me, and what you think you are going to do with me." "I shot you by mistake--and--I don't know just what to do with you," she said, looking at him tranquilly, but with what he thought was a growing shadow of perplexity in her eyes. "Bateese says to fasten a big stone to your neck and throw you in the river. But Bateese doesn't always mean what he says. I don't think he is quite as bloodthirsty--" "--As the young lady who tried to murder me behind the rock," Carrigan interjected. "Exactly, m'sieu. I don't think he would throw you into the river--unless I told him to. And I don't believe I am going to ask him to do that," she added, the soft glow flashing back into her eyes for an instant. "Not after the splendid work Nepapinas has done on your head. St. Pierre must see that. And then, if St. Pierre wishes to finish you, why--" She shrugged her slim shoulders and made a little gesture with her hands. In that same moment there came over her a change as sudden as the passing of light itself. It was as if a thing she was hiding had broken beyond her control for an instant and had betrayed her. The gesture died. The glow went out of her eyes, and in its place came a light that was almost fear--or pain. She came nearer to Carrigan again, and somehow, looking up at her, he thought of the little brush warbler singing at the end of its birch twig to give him courage. It must have been because of her throat, white and soft, which he saw pulsing like a beating heart before she spoke to him. "I have made a terrible mistake, m'sieu David," she said, her voice barely rising above a whisper. "I'm sorry I hurt you. I thought it was some one else behind the rock. But I can not tell you more than that--ever. And I know it is impossible for us to be friends." She paused, one of her hands creeping to her bare throat, as if to cover the throbbing he had seen there. "Why is it impossible?" he demanded, leaning away from his pillows so that he might bring himself nearer to her. "Because--you are of the police, m'sieu." "The police, yes," he said, his heart thrumming inside his breast. "I am Sergeant Carrigan. I am out after Roger Audemard, a murderer. But my commission has nothing to do with the daughter of St. Pierre Boulain. Please--let's be friends--" He held out his hand; and in that moment David Carrigan placed another thing higher than duty--and in his eyes was the confession of it, like the glow of a subdued fire. The girl's fingers drew more closely at her throat, and she made no movement to accept his hand. "Friends," he repeated. "Friends--in spite of the police." Slowly the girl's eyes had widened, as if she saw that new-born thing riding over all other things in his swiftly beating heart. And afraid of it, she drew a step away from him. "I am not St. Pierre Boulain's daughter," she said, forcing the words out one by one. "I am--his wife." VII Afterward Carrigan wondered to what depths he had fallen in the first moments of his disillusionment. Something like shock, perhaps even more than that, must have betrayed itself in his face. He did not speak. Slowly his outstretched arm dropped to the white counterpane. Later he called himself a fool for allowing it to happen, for it was as if he had measured his proffered friendship by what its future might hold for him. In a low, quiet voice Jeanne Marie-Anne Boulain was saying again that she was St. Pierre's wife. She was not excited, yet he understood now why it was he had thought her eyes were very dark. They had changed swiftly. The violet freckles in them were like little flecks of gold. They were almost liquid in their glow, neither brown nor black now, and with that threat of gathering lightning in them. For the first time he saw the slightest flush of color in her cheeks. It deepened even as he held out his hand again. He knew that it was not embarrassment. It was the heat of the fire back of her eyes. "It's--funny," he said, making an effort to redeem himself with a lie and smiling. "You rather amaze me. You see, I have been told this St. Pierre is an old, old man--so old that he can't stand on his feet or go with his brigades, and if that is the truth, it is hard for me to picture you as his wife. But that isn't a reason why we should not be friends. Is it?" He felt that he was himself again, except for the three days' growth of beard on his face. He tried to laugh, but it was rather a poor attempt. And St. Pierre's wife did not seem to hear him. She was looking at him, looking into and through him with those wide-open glowing eyes. Then she sat down, out of reach of the hand which he had held toward her. "You are a sergeant of the police," she said, the softness gone suddenly out of her voice. "You are an honorable man, m'sieu. Your hand is against all wrong. Is it not so?" It was the voice of an inquisitor. She was demanding an answer of him. He nodded. "Yes, it is so." The fire in her eyes deepened. "And yet you say you want to be the friend of a stranger who has tried to kill you. WHY, m'sieu?" He was cornered. He sensed the humiliation of it, the impossibility of confessing to her the wild impulse that had moved him before he knew she was St. Pierre's wife. And she did not wait for him to answer. "This--this Roger Audemard--if you catch him--what will you do with him?" she asked. "He will be hanged," said David. "He is a murderer." "And one who tries to kill--who almost succeeds--what is the penalty for that?" She leaned toward him, waiting. Her hands were clasped tightly in her lap, the spots were brighter in her cheeks. "From ten to twenty years," he acknowledged. "But, of course, there may be circumstances--" "If so, you do not know them," she interrupted him. "You say Roger Audemard is a murderer. You know I tried to kill you. Then why is it you would be my friend and Roger Audemard's enemy? Why, m'sieu?" Carrigan shrugged his shoulders hopelessly. "I shouldn't," he confessed. "I guess you are proving I was wrong in what I said. I ought to arrest you and take you back to the Landing as soon as I can. But, you see, it strikes me there is a big personal element in this. I was the man almost killed. There was a mistake,--must have been, for as soon as you put me out of business you began nursing me back to life again. And--" "But that doesn't change it," insisted St. Pierre's wife. "If there had been no mistake, there would have been a murder. Do you understand, m'sieu? If it had been some one else behind that rock, I am quite certain he would have died. The Law, at least, would have called it murder. If Roger Audemard is a criminal, then I also am a criminal. And an honorable man would not make a distinction because one of them is a woman!" "But--Black Roger was a fiend. He deserves no mercy. He--" "Perhaps, m'sieu!" She was on her feet, her eyes flaming down upon him. In that moment her beauty was like the beauty of Carmin Fanchet. The poise of her slender body, her glowing cheeks, her lustrous hair, her gold-flecked eyes with the light of diamonds in them, held him speechless. "I was sorry and went back for you," she said. "I wanted you to live, after I saw you like that on the sand. Bateese says I was indiscreet, that I should have left you there to die. Perhaps he is right. And yet--even Roger Audemard might have had that pity for you." She turned quickly, and he heard her moving away from him. Then, from the door, she said, "Bateese will make you comfortable, m'sieu." The door opened and closed. She was gone. And he was alone in the cabin again. The swiftness of the change in her amazed him. It was as if he had suddenly touched fire to an explosive. There had been the flare, but no violence. She had not raised her voice, yet he heard in it the tremble of an emotion that was consuming her. He had seen the flame of it in her face and eyes. Something he had said, or had done, had tremendously upset her, changing in an instant her attitude toward him. The thought that came to him made his face burn under its scrub of beard. Did she think he was a scoundrel? The dropping of his hand, the shock that must have betrayed itself in his face when she said she was St. Pierre's wife--had those things warned her against him? The heat went slowly out of his face. It was impossible. She could not think that of him. It must have been a sudden giving way under terrific strain. She had compared herself to Roger Audemard, and she was beginning to realize her peril--that Bateese was right--that she should have left him to die in the sand! The thought pressed itself heavily upon Carrigan. It brought him suddenly back to a realization of how small a part he had played in this last half hour in the cabin. He had offered to Pierre's wife a friendship which he had no right to offer and which she knew he had no right to offer. He was the Law. And she, like Roger Audemard, was a criminal. Her quick woman's instinct had told her there could be no distinction between them, unless there was a reason. And now Carrigan confessed to himself that there had been a reason. That reason had come to him with the first glimpse of her as he lay in the hot sand. He had fought against it in the canoe; it had mastered him in those thrilling moments when he had beheld this slim, beautiful creature riding fearlessly into the boiling waters of the Holy Ghost. Her eyes, her hair, the sweet, low voice that had been with him in his fever, had become a definite and unalterable part of him. And this must have shown in his eyes and face when he dropped his hand--when she told him she was St. Pierre's wife. And now she was afraid of him! She was regretting that she had not left him to die. She had misunderstood what she had seen betraying itself during those few seconds of his proffered friendship. She saw only a man whom she had nearly killed, a man who represented the Law, a man whose power held her in the hollow of his hand. And she had stepped back from him, startled, and had told him that she was not St. Pierre's daughter, but his wife! In the science of criminal analysis Carrigan always placed himself in the position of the other man. And he was beginning to see the present situation from the view-point of Jeanne Marie-Anne Boulain. He was satisfied that she had made a desperate mistake and that until the last moment she had believed it was another man behind the rock. Yet she had shown no inclination to explain away her error. She had definitely refused to make an explanation. And it was simply a matter of common sense to concede that there must be a powerful motive for her refusal. There was but one conclusion for him to arrive at--the error which St. Pierre's wife had made in shooting the wrong man was less important to her than keeping the secret of why she had wanted to kill some other man. David was not unconscious of the breach in his own armor. He had weakened, just as the Superintendent of "N" Division had weakened that day four years ago when they had almost quarreled over Carmin Fanchet. "I'll swear to Heaven she isn't bad, no matter what her brother has been," McVane had said. "I'll gamble my life on that, Carrigan!" And because the Chief of Division with sixty years of experience behind him, had believed that, Carmin Fanchet had not been held as an accomplice in her brother's evildoing, but had gone back into her wilderness uncrucified by the law that had demanded the life of her brother. He would never forget the last time he had seen Carmin Fanchet's eyes--great, black, glorious pools of gratitude as they looked at grizzled old McVane; blazing fires of venomous hatred when they turned on him. And he had said to McVane, "The man pays, the woman goes--justice indeed is blind!" McVane, not being a stickler on regulations when it came to Carrigan, had made no answer. The incident came back vividly to David as he waited for the promised coming of Bateese. He began to appreciate McVane's point of view, and it was comforting, because he realized that his own logic was assailable. If McVane had been comparing the two women now, he knew what his argument would be. There had been no absolute proof of crime against Carmin Fanchet, unless to fight desperately for the life of her brother was a crime. In the case of Jeanne Marie-Anne Boulain there was proof. She had tried to kill. Therefore, of the two, Carmin Fanchet would have been the better woman in the eyes of McVane. In spite of the legal force of the argument which he was bringing against himself, David felt unconvinced. Carmin Fanchet, had she been in the place of St. Pierre's wife, would have finished him there in the sand. She would have realized the menace of letting him live and would probably have commanded Bateese to dump him in the river. St. Pierre's wife had gone to the other extreme. She was not only repentant, but was making restitution, for her mistake, and in making that restitution had crossed far beyond the dead-line of caution. She had frankly told him who she was; she had brought him into the privacy of what was undeniably her own home; in her desire to undo what she had done she had hopelessly enmeshed herself in the net of the Law--if that Law saw fit to act. She had done these things with courage and conviction. And of such a woman, Carrigan thought, St. Pierre must be very proud. He looked slowly about the cabin again and each thing that he saw was a living voice breaking up a dream for him. These voices told him that he was in a temple built because of a man's worship for a woman--and that man was St. Pierre. Through the two western windows came the last glow of the western sun, like a golden benediction finding its way into a sacred place. Here there was--or had been--a great happiness, for only a great pride and a great happiness could have made it as it was. Nothing that wealth and toil could drag up out of a civilization a thousand miles away had been too good for St. Pierre's wife. And about him, looking more closely, David saw the undisturbed evidences of a woman's contentment. On the table were embroidery materials with which she had been working, and a lamp-shade half finished. A woman's magazine printed in a city four thousand miles away lay open at the fashion plates. There were other magazines, and many books, and open music above the white keyboard of the piano, and vases glowing red and yellow with wild-flowers and silver birch leaves. He could smell the faint perfume of the fireglow blossoms, red as blood. In a pool of sunlight on one of the big white bear rugs lay the sleeping cat. And then, at the far end of the cabin, an ivory-white Cross of Christ glowed for a few moments in a last homage of the sinking sun. Uneasiness stole upon him. This was the woman's holy ground, her sanctuary and her home, and for three days his presence had driven her from it. There was no other room. In making restitution she had given up to him her most sacred of all things. And again there rose up in him that new-born thing which had set strange fires stirring in his heart, and which from this hour on he knew he must fight until it was dead. For an hour after the last of the sun was obliterated by the western mountains he lay in the gloom of coming darkness. Only the lapping of water under the bateau broke the strange stillness of the evening. He heard no sound of life, no voice, no tread of feet, and he wondered where the woman and her men had gone and if the scow was still tied up at the edge of the tar-sands. And for the first time he asked himself another question, Where was the man, St. Pierre? VIII It was utterly dark in the cabin, when the stillness was broken by low voices outside. The door opened, and some one came in. A moment later a match flared up, and in the shifting glow of it Carrigan saw the dark face of Bateese, the half-breed. One after another he lighted the four lamps. Not until he had finished did he turn toward the bed. It was then that David had his first good impression of the man. He was not tall, but built with the strength of a giant. His arms were long. His shoulders were stooped. His head was like the head of a stone gargoyle come to life. Wide-eyed, heavy-lipped, with the high cheek-bones of an Indian and uncut black hair bound with the knotted red MOUCHOIR, he looked more than ever like a pirate and a cutthroat to David. Such a man, he thought, might make play out of the business of murder. And yet, in spite of his ugliness, David felt again the mysterious inclination to like the man. Bateese grinned. It was a huge grin, for his mouth was big. "You ver' lucky fellow," he announced. "You sleep lak that in nice sof' bed an' not back on san'-bar, dead lak ze feesh I bring you, m'sieu. That ees wan beeg mistake. Bateese say, 'Tie ze stone roun' hees neck an' mak' heem wan ANGE DE MER. Chuck heem in ze river, MA BELLE Jeanne!' An' she say no, mak heem well, an' feed heem feesh. So I bring ze feesh which she promise, an' when you have eat, I tell you somet'ing!" He returned to the door and brought back with him a wicker basket. Then he drew up the table beside Carrigan and proceeded to lay out before him the boiled fish which St. Pierre's wife had promised him. With it was bread and an earthen pot of hot tea. "She say that ees all you have because of ze fever. Bateese say, 'Stuff heem wit' much so that he die queek!'" "You want to see me dead. Is that it, Bateese?" "OUI. You mak' wan ver' good dead man, m'sieu!" Bateese was no longer grinning. He stood back and pointed at the food. "You eat--queek. An' when you have finish' I tell you somet'ing!" Now that he saw the luscious bit of whitefish before him, Carrigan was possessed of the hungering emptiness of three days and nights. As he ate, he observed that Bateese was performing curious duties. He straightened a couple of rugs, ran fresh water into the flower vases, picked up half a dozen scattered magazines, and then, to David's increasing interest, produced a dust-cloth from somewhere and began to dust. David finished his fish, the one slice of bread, and his cup of tea. He felt tremendously good. The hot tea was like a trickle of new life through every vein in his body, and he had the desire to get up and try out his legs. Suddenly Bateese discovered that his patient was laughing at him. "QUE DIABLE!" he demanded, coming up ferociously with the cloth in his great hand. "You see somet'ing ver' fonny, m'sieu?" "No, nothing funny, Bateese," grinned Carrigan. "I was just thinking what a handsome chambermaid you make. You are so gentle, so nice to look at, so--" "DIABLE!" exploded Bateese, dropping his dust cloth and bringing his huge hands down upon the table with a smash that almost wrecked the dishes. "You have eat, an' now you lissen. You have never hear' before of Concombre Bateese. An' zat ees me. See! Wit' these two hands I have choke' ze polar bear to deat'. I am strongest man w'at ees in all nort' countree. I pack four hundre' pound ovair portage. I crack ze caribou bones wit' my teeth, lak a dog. I run sixt' or hundre' miles wit'out stop for rest. I pull down trees w'at oder man cut wit' axe. I am not 'fraid of not'ing. You lissen? You hear w'at I say?" "I hear you." "BIEN! Then I tell you w'at Concombre Bateese ees goin' do wit' you, M'sieu Sergent de Police! MA BELLE Jeanne she mak' wan gran' meestake. She too much leetle bird heart, too much pity for want you to die. Bateese say, 'Keel him, so no wan know w'at happen t'ree day ago behin' ze rock.' But MA BELLE Jeanne, she say, 'No, Bateese, he ees meestake for oder man, an' we mus' let heem live.' An' then she tell me to come an' bring you feesh, an' tell you w'at is goin' happen if you try go away from thees bateau. You COMPREN'? If you try run away, Bateese ees goin' keel you! See--wit' thees han's I br'ak your neck an' t'row you in river. MA BELLE Jeanne say do zat, an' she tell oder mans-twent', thirt', almos' hundre' GARCONS--to keel you if you try run away. She tell me bring zat word to you wit' ze feesh. You listen hard w'at I say?" If ever a worker of iniquity lived on earth, Carrigan might have judged Bateese as that man in these moments. The half-breed had worked himself up to a ferocious pitch. His eyes rolled. His wide mouth snarled in the virulence of its speech. His thick neck grew corded, and his huge hands clenched menacingly upon the table. Yet David had no fear. He wanted to laugh, but he knew laughter would be the deadliest of insults to Bateese just now. He remembered that the half-breed, fierce as a pirate, had a touch as gentle as a woman's. This man, who could choke an ox with his monstrous hands, had a moment before petted a cat, straightened out rugs, watered the woman's flowers, and had dusted. He was harmless--now. And yet in the same breath David sensed the fact that a single word from St. Pierre's wife would be sufficient to fire his brute strength into a blazing volcano of action. Such a henchman was priceless--under certain conditions! And he had brought a warning straight from the woman. "I think I understand what you mean, Bateese," he said. "She says that I am to make no effort to leave this bateau--that I am to be killed if I try to escape? Are you sure she said that?" "PAR LES MILLE CORNES DU DIABLE, you t'ink Bateese lie, m'sieu? Concombre Bateese, who choke ze w'ite bear wit' hees two ban', who pull down ze tree--" "No, no, I don't think you lie. But I am wondering why she didn't tell me that when she was here." "Becaus' she have too much leetle bird heart, zat ees w'y. She say: 'Bateese, you tell heem he mus' wait for St. Pierre. An' you tell heem good an' hard, lak you choke ze w'ite bear an' lak you pull down ze tree, so he mak' no meestake an' try get away.' An' she tell zat before all ze BATELIERS--all ze St. Pierre mans gathered 'bout a beeg fire--an' they shout up lak wan gargon that they watch an' keel you if you try get away." Carrigan reached out a hand. "Let's shake, Bateese. I'll give you my word that I won't try to escape--not until you and I have a good stand-up fight with the earth under our feet, and I've whipped you. Is it a go?" Bateese stared for a moment, and then his face broke into a wide grin. "You lak ze fight, m'sieu?" "Yes. I love a scrap with a good man like you." One of Bateese's huge hands crawled slowly over the table and engulfed David's. Joy shone on his face. "An' you promise give me zat fight, w'en you are strong?" "If I don't, I'll let you tie a stone around my neck and drop me into the river." "You are brave GARCON," cried the delighted Bateese. "Up an' down ze rivers ees no man w'at can whip Concombre Bateese!" Suddenly his face grew clouded. "But ze head, m'sieu?" he added anxiously. "It will get well quickly if you will help me, Bateese. Right now I want to get up. I want to stretch my legs. Was my head bad?" "NON. Ze bullet scrape ze ha'r off--so--so--an' turn ze brain seek. I t'ink you be good fighting man in week!" "And you will help me up?" Bateese was a changed man. Again David felt that mighty but gentle strength of his arms as he helped him to his feet. He was a trifle unsteady for a moment. Then, with the half-breed close at his side, ready to catch him if his legs gave way, he walked to one of the windows and looked out. Across the river, fully half a mile away, he saw the glow of fires. "Her camp?" he asked. "OUI, m'sieu." "We have moved from the tar-sands?" "Yes, two days down ze river." "Why are they not camping over here with us?" Bateese gave a disgusted grunt. "Becaus' MA BELLE Jeanne have such leetle bird heart, m'sieu. She say you mus' not have noise near, lak ze talk an' laugh an' ZE CHANSONS. She say it disturb, an' zat it mak you worse wit' ze fever. She ees mak you lak de baby, Bateese say to her. But she on'y laugh at zat an' snap her leetle w'ite finger. Wait St. Pierre come! He brak yo'r head wit' hees two fists. I hope we have ze fight before then, m'sieu!" "We'll have it anyway, Bateese. Where is St. Pierre, and when shall we see him?" Bateese shrugged his shoulders. "Mebby week, mebby more. He long way off." "Is he an old man?" Slowly Bateese turned David about until he was facing him. "You ask not'ing more about St. Pierre," he warned. "No mans talk 'bout St. Pierre. Only wan--MA BELLE Jeanne. You ask her, an' she tell you shut up. W'en you don't shut up she call Bateese to brak your head." "You're a--a sort of all-round head-breaker, as I understand it," grunted David, walking slowly back to his bed. "Will you bring me my pack and clothes in the morning? I want to shave and dress." Bateese was ahead of him, smoothing the pillows and straightening out the rumpled bed-clothes. His huge hands were quick and capable as a woman's, and David could not keep himself from chuckling at this feminine ingeniousness of the powerful half-breed. Once in the crush of those gorilla-like arms that were working over his bed now, he thought, and it would be all over with the strongest man in "N" Division. Bateese heard the chuckle and looked up. "Somet'ing ver' funny once more, is eet--w'at?" he demanded. "I was thinking, Bateese--what will happen to me if you get me in those arms when we fight? But it isn't going to happen. I fight with my fists, and I'm going to batter you up so badly that nobody will recognize you for a long time." "You wait!" exploded Bateese, making a horrible grimace. "I choke you lak w'ite bear, I t'row you ovair my should'r, I mash you lak leetle strawberr', I--" He paused in his task to advance with a formidable gesture. "Not now," warned Carrigan. "I'm still a bit groggy, Bateese." He pointed down at the bed. "I'm driving HER from that," he said. "I don't like it. Is she sleepin' over there--in the camp?" "Mebby--an' mebby not, m'sieu," growled Bateese. "You mak' guess, eh?" He began extinguishing the lights, until only the one nearest the door was left burning. He did not turn toward Carrigan or speak to him again. When he Went out, David heard the click of a lock in the door. Bateese had not exaggerated. It was the intention of St. Pierre's wife that he should consider himself a prisoner--at least for tonight. He had no desire to lie down again. There was an unsteadiness in his legs, but outside of that the evil of his sickness no longer oppressed him. The staff doctor at the Landing would probably have called him a fool for not convalescing in the usual prescribed way, but Carrigan was already beginning to feel the demand for action. In spite of what physical effort he had made, his head did not hurt him, and his mind was keenly alive. He returned to the window through which he could see the fires on the western shore, and found no difficulty in opening it. A strong screen netting kept him from thrusting out his head and shoulders. Through it came the cool night breeze of the river. It seemed good to fill his lungs with it again and smell the fresh aroma of the forest. It was very dark, and the fires across the river were brighter because of the deep gloom. There was no promise of the moon in the sky. He could not see a star. From far in the west he caught the low intonation of thunder. Carrigan turned from the window to the end of the cabin in which the piano stood. Here, too, was the second divan, and he saw the meaning now of two close-tied curtains, one at each side of the cabin. Drawn together on a taut wire stretched two inches under the ceiling, they shut off this end of the bateau and turned at least a third of the cabin into the privacy of the woman's bedroom. With growing uneasiness David saw the evidences that this had been her sleeping apartment. At each side of the piano was a small door, and he opened one of these just enough to discover that it was a wardrobe closet. A third door opened on the shore side of the bateau, but this was locked. Shut out from the view of the lower end of the cabin by a Japanese screen were a small dresser and a mirror. In the dim illumination that came from the distant lamp David bent over the open sheet of music on the piano. It was Mascagni's AVE MARIA. His blood tingled. His brain was stirred by a new emotion, a growing thing that made him uneasy and filled him with a strange restlessness. He felt as though he had come suddenly to the edge of a great danger; somewhere within him an intelligence seized upon it and understood. Yet it was not physical enough for him to fight. It was a danger which crept up and about him, something which he could not see or touch and yet which made his heart beat faster and the blood come into his face. It drew him, triumphed over him, dragged his hand forth until his fingers closed upon a lacy, crumpled bit of a handkerchief that lay on the edge of the piano keys. It was the woman's handkerchief, and like a thief he raised it slowly. It smelled faintly of crushed violets; it was as if she were bending over him in his sickness again, and it was her breath that came to him. He was not thinking of her as St. Pierre's wife. And then sharply he caught himself and placed the handkerchief back on the piano keys. He tried to laugh at himself, but there was an emptiness where a moment before there had been that thrill of which he was now ashamed. He turned back to the window. The thunder had come nearer. It was coming up fast out of the west, and with it a darkness that was like the blackness of a pit. A dead stillness was preceding it now, and in that stillness it seemed to Carrigan that he could hear the soapy, slitting sound of the streaming flashes of electrical fire that blazoned the advance of the storm. The camp-fires across the river were dying down. One of them went out as he looked at it, and he stared into the darkness as if trying to pierce distance and gloom to see what sort of a shelter it was that St. Pierre's wife had over there. And there came over him in these moments a desire that was almost cowardly. It was the desire to escape, to leave behind him the memory of the rock and of St. Pierre's wife, and to pursue once more his own great adventure, the quest of Black Roger Audemard. He heard the rain coming. At first the sound of it was like the pattering of ten million tiny feet in dry leaves; then, suddenly, it was like the roar of an avalanche. It was an inundation, and with it came crash after crash of thunder, and the black skies were illumined by an almost uninterrupted glare of lightning. It had been a long time since Carrigan had felt the shock of such a storm. He closed the window to keep the rain out, and after that stood with his face flattened against the glass, staring over the river. The camp-fires were all gone now, blotted out like so many candles snuffed between thumb and forefinger, and he shuddered. No canvas ever made would keep that deluge out. And now there was growing up a wind with it. The tents on the other side would be beaten down like pegged sheets of paper, ripped up and torn to pieces. He imagined St. Pierre's wife in that tumult and distress--the breath blown out of her, half drowned, blinded by deluge and lightning, broken and beaten because of him. Thought of her companions did not ease his mind. Human hands were entirely inadequate to cope with a storm like this that was rocking the earth about him. Suddenly he went to the door, determined that if Bateese was outside he would get some satisfaction out of him or challenge him to a fight right there. He beat against it, first with one fist and then with both. He shouted. There was no response. Then he exerted his strength and his weight against the door. It was solid. He was half turned when his eyes discovered, in a corner where the lamplight struck dimly, his pack and clothes. In thirty seconds he had his pipe and tobacco. After that for half an hour he paced up and down the cabin, while the storm crashed and thundered as if bent upon destroying all life off the face of the earth. Comforted by the company of his pipe, Carrigan did not beat at the door again. He waited, and at the end of another half-hour the storm had softened down into a steady patter of rain. The thunder had traveled east, and the lightning had gone with it. David opened the window again. The air that came in was rain-sweet, soft, and warm. He puffed out a cloud of smoke and smiled. His pipe always brought his good humor to the surface, even in the worst places. St. Pierre's wife had certainly had a good soaking. And in a way the whole thing was a bit funny. He was thinking now of a poor little golden-plumaged partridge, soaked to the skin, with its tail-feathers dragging pathetically. Grinning, he told himself that it was an insult to think of her and a half-drowned partridge in the same breath. But the simile still remained, and he chuckled. Probably she was wringing out her clothes now, and the men were cursing under their breath while trying to light a fire. He watched for the fire. It failed to appear. Probably she was hating him for bringing all this discomfort and humiliation upon her. It was not impossible that tomorrow she would give Bateese permission to brain him. And St. Pierre? What would this man, her husband, think and do if he knew that his wife had given up her bedroom to this stranger? What complications might arise IF HE KNEW! It was late--past midnight--when Carrigan went to bed. Even then he did not sleep for a long time. The patter of the rain grew less and less on the roof of the bateau, and as the sound of it droned itself off into nothingness, slumber came. David was conscious of the moment when the rain ceased entirely. Then he slept. At least he must have been very close to sleep, or had been asleep and was returning for a moment close to consciousness, when he heard a voice. It came several times before he was roused enough to realize that it was a voice. And then, suddenly, piercing his slowly wakening brain almost with the shock of one of the thunder crashes, it came to him so distinctly that he found himself sitting up straight, his hands clenched, eyes staring in the darkness, waiting for it to come again. Somewhere very near him, in his room, within the reach of his hands, a strange and indescribable voice had cried out in the darkness the words which twice before had beat themselves mysteriously into David Carrigan's brain--"HAS ANY ONE SEEN BLACK ROGER AUDEMARD? HAS ANY ONE SEEN BLACK ROGER AUDEMARD?" And David, holding his breath, listened for the sound of another breath which he knew was in that room. IX For perhaps a minute Carrigan made no sound that could have been heard three feet away from him. It was not fear that held him quiet. It was something which he could not explain afterward, the sensation, perhaps, of one who feels himself confronted for a moment by a presence more potent than that of flesh and blood. BLACK ROGER AUDEMARD! Three times, twice in his sickness, some one had cried out that name in his ears since the hour when St. Pierre's wife had ambushed him on the white carpet of sand. And the voice was now in his room! Was it Bateese, inspired by some sort of malformed humor? Carrigan listened. Another minute passed. He reached out a hand and groped about him, very careful not to make a sound, urged by the feeling that some one was almost within reach of him. He flung back his blanket and stood out in the middle of the floor. Still he heard no movement, no soft footfalls of retreat or advance. He lighted a match and held it high above his head. In its yellow illumination he could see nothing alive. He lighted a lamp. The cabin was empty. He drew a deep breath and went to the window. It was still open. The voice had undoubtedly come to him through that window, and he fancied he could see where the screen netting was crushed a bit inward, as though a face had pressed heavily against it. Outside the night was beautifully calm. The sky, washed by storm, was bright with stars. But there was not a ripple of movement that he could hear. After that he looked at his watch. He must have been sleeping for some time when the voice roused him, for it was nearly three o'clock. In spite of the stars, dawn was close at hand. When he looked out of the window again they were paler and more distant. He had no intention of going back to bed. He was restless and felt himself surrendering more and more to the grip of presentiment. It was still early, not later than six o'clock, when Bateese came in with his breakfast. He was surprised, as he had heard no movement or sound of voices to give evidence of life anywhere near the bateau. Instantly he made up his mind that it was not Bateese who had uttered the mysterious words of a few hours ago, for the half-breed had evidently experienced a most uncomfortable night. He was like a rat recently pulled out of water. His clothes hung upon him sodden and heavy, his head kerchief dripped, and his lank hair was wet. He slammed the breakfast things down on the table and went out again without so much as nodding at his prisoner. Again a sense of discomfort and shame swept over David, as he sat down to breakfast. Here he was comfortably, even luxuriously, housed, while out there somewhere St. Pierre's lovely wife was drenched and even more miserable than Bateese. And the breakfast amazed him. It was not so much the caribou tenderloin, rich in its own red juice, or the potato, or the pot of coffee that was filling the cabin with its aroma, that roused his wonder, but the hot, brown muffins that accompanied the other things. Muffins! And after a deluge that had drowned every square inch of the earth! How had Bateese turned the trick? Bateese did not return immediately for the dishes, and for half an hour after he had finished breakfast Carrigan smoked his pipe and watched the blue haze of fires on the far side of the river. The world was a blaze of sunlit glory. His imagination carried him across the river. Somewhere over there, in an open spot where the sun was blazing, Jeanne Marie-Anne was probably drying herself after the night of storm. There was but little doubt in his mind that she was already heaping the ignominy of blame upon him. That was the woman of it. A knock at his door drew him about. It was a light, quick TAP, TAP, TAP--not like the fist of either Bateese or Nepapinas. In another moment the door swung open, and in the flood of sunlight that poured into the cabin stood St. Pierre's wife! It was not her presence, but the beauty of her, that held him spellbound. It was a sort of shock after the vivid imaginings of his mind in which he had seen her beaten and tortured by storm. Her hair, glowing in the sun and piled up in shining coils on the crown of her head, was not wet. She was not the rain-beaten little partridge that had passed in tragic bedragglement through his mind. Storm had not touched her. Her cheeks were soft with the warm flush of long hours of sleep. When she came in, her lips greeting him with a little smile, all that he had built up for himself in the hours of the night crumbled away in dust. Again he forgot for a moment that she was St. Pierre's wife. She was woman, and as he looked upon her now, the most adorable woman in all the world. "You are better this morning," she said. Real pleasure shone in her eyes. She had left the door open, so that the sun filled the room. "I think the storm helped you. Wasn't it splendid?" David swallowed hard. "Quite splendid," he managed to say. "Have you seen Bateese this morning?" A little note of laughter came into her throat. "Yes. I don't think he liked it. He doesn't understand why I love storms. Did you sleep well, M'sieu Carrigan?" "An hour or two, I think. I was worrying about you. I didn't like the thought that I had turned you out into the storm. But it doesn't seem to have touched you." "No. I was there--quite comfortable." She nodded to the forward bulkhead of the cabin, beyond the wardrobe closets and the piano. "There is a little dining-room and kitchenette ahead," she explained. "Didn't Bateese tell you that?" "No, he didn't. I asked him where you were, and I think he told me to shut up." "Bateese is very odd," said St. Pierre's wife. "He is exceedingly jealous of me, M'sieu David. Even when I was a baby and he carried me about in his arms, he was just that way. Bateese, you know, is older than he appears. He is fifty-one." She was moving about, quite as if his presence was in no way going to disturb her usual duties of the day. She rearranged the damask curtains which he had crumpled with his hands, placed two or three chairs in their usual places, and moved from this to that with the air of a housewife who is in the habit of brushing up a bit in the morning. She seemed not at all embarrassed because he was her prisoner, nor uncomfortably restrained because of the message she had sent to him by Bateese. She was warmly and gloriously human. In her apparent unconcern at his presence he found himself sweating inwardly. A bit nervously he struck a match to light his pipe, then extinguished it. She noticed what he had done. "You may smoke," she said, with that little note in her throat which he loved to hear, like the faintest melody of laughter that did not quite reach her lips. "St. Pierre smokes a great deal, and I like it." She opened a drawer in the dressing-table and came to him with a box half filled with cigars. "St. Pierre prefers these--on occasions," she said, "Do you?" His fingers seemed all thumbs as he took a cigar from the proffered box. He cursed himself because his tongue felt thick. Perhaps it was his silence, betraying something of his mental clumsiness, that brought a faint flush of color into her cheeks. He noted that; and also that the top of her shining head came just about to his chin, and that her mouth and throat, looking down on them, were bewitchingly soft and sweet. And what she said, when her eyes opened wide and beautiful on him again, was like a knife cutting suddenly into the heart of his thoughts. "In the evening I love to sit at St. Pierre's feet and watch him smoke," she said. "I am glad it doesn't annoy you, because--I like to smoke," he replied lamely. She placed the box on the little reading table and looked at his breakfast things. "You like muffins, too. I was up early this morning, making them for you!" "You made them?" he demanded, as if her words were a most amazing revelation to him. "Surely, M'sieu David. I make them every morning for St. Pierre. He is very fond of them. He says the third nicest thing about me is my muffins!" "And the other two?" asked David. "Are St. Pierre's little secrets, m'sieu," she laughed softly, the color deepening in her cheeks. "It wouldn't be fair to tell you, would it?" "Perhaps it wouldn't," he said slowly. "But there are one or two other things, Mrs.--Mrs. Boulain--" "You may call me Jeanne, or Marie-Anne, if you care to," she interrupted him. "It will be quite all right." She was picking up the breakfast dishes, not at all perturbed by the fact that she was offering him a privilege which had the effect of quickening his pulse for a moment or two. "Thank you," he said. "I don't mind telling you it is going to be difficult for me to do that--because--well, this is a most unusual situation, isn't it? In spite of all your kindness, including what was probably your good-intentioned endeavor to put an end to my earthly miseries behind the rock, I believe it is necessary for you to give me some kind of explanation. Don't you?" "Didn't Bateese explain to you last night?" she asked, facing him. "He brought a message from you to the effect that I was a prisoner, that I must make no attempt to escape, and that if I did try to escape, you had given your men instructions to kill me." She nodded, quite seriously. "That is right, M'sieu David." His face flamed. "Then I am a prisoner? You threaten me with death?" "I shall treat you very nicely if you make no attempt to escape, M'sieu David. Isn't that fair?" "Fair!" he cried, choking back an explosion that would have vented itself on a man. "Don't you realize what has happened? Don't you know that according to every law of God and man I should arrest you and give you over to the Law? Is it possible that you don't comprehend my own duty? What I must do?" If he had noticed, he would have seen that there was no longer the flush of color in her cheeks. But her eyes, looking straight at him, were tranquil and unexcited. She nodded. "That is why you must remain a prisoner, M'sieu David, It is because I do realize, I shall not tell you why that happened behind the rock, and if you ask me, I shall refuse to talk to you. If I let you go now, you would probably have me arrested and put in jail. So I must keep you until St. Pierre comes. I don't know what to do--except to keep you, and not let you escape until then. What would you do?" The question was so honest, so like a question that might have been asked by a puzzled child, that his argument for the Law was struck dead. He stared into the pale face, the beautiful, waiting eyes, saw the pathetic intertwining of her slim fingers, and suddenly he was grinning in that big, honest way which made people love Dave Carrigan. "You're--doing--absolutely--right," he said. A swift change came in her face. Her cheeks flushed. Her eyes filled with a sudden glow that made the little violet-freckles in them dance like tiny flecks of gold. "From your point of view you are right," he repeated, "and I shall make no attempt to escape until I have talked with St. Pierre. But I can't quite see--just now--how he is going to help the situation." "He will," she assured him confidently. "You seem to have an unlimited faith in St. Pierre," he replied a little grimly. "Yes, M'sieu David. He is the most wonderful man in the world. And he will know what to do." David shrugged his shoulders. "Perhaps, in some nice, quiet place, he will follow the advice Bateese gave you--tie a stone round my neck and sink me to the bottom of the river." "Perhaps. But I don't think he will do that I should object to it." "Oh, you would!" "Yes. St. Pierre is big and strong, afraid of nothing in the world, but he will do anything for me. I don't think he would kill you if I asked him not to." She turned to resume her task of cleaning up the breakfast things. With a sudden movement David swung one of the' big chairs close to her. "Please sit down," he commanded. "I can talk to you better that way. As an officer of the law it is my duty to ask you a few questions. It rests in your power to answer all of them or none of them. I have given you my word not to act until I have seen St. Pierre, and I shall keep that promise. But when we do meet I shall act largely on the strength of what you tell me during the next tea minutes. Please sit down!" X In that big, deep chair which must have been St. Pierre's own, Marie-Anne sat facing Carrigan. Between its great arms her slim little figure seemed diminutive and out of place. Her brown eyes were level and clear, waiting. They were not warm or nervous, but so coolly and calmly beautiful that they disturbed Carrigan. She raised her hands, her slim fingers crumpling for a moment in the soft, thick coils of her hair. That little movement, the unconscious feminism of it, the way she folded her hands in her lap afterward, disturbed Carrigan even more. What a glory on earth it must be to possess a woman like that! The thought made him uneasy. And she sat waiting, a vivid, softly-breathing question-mark against the warm coloring of the upholstered chair. "When you shot me," he began, "I saw you, first, standing over me. I thought you had come to finish me. It was then that I saw something in your face--horror, amazement, as though you had done something you did not know you were doing. You see, I want to be charitable. I want to understand. I want to excuse you if I can. Won't you tell me why you shot me, and why that change came over you when you saw me lying there?" "No, M'sieu David, I shall not tell." She was not antagonistic or defiant. Her voice was not raised, nor did it betray an unusual emotion. It was simply decisive, and the unflinching steadiness of her eyes and the way in which she sat with her hands folded gave to it an unqualified definiteness. "You mean that I must make my own guess?" She nodded. "Or get it out of St. Pierre?" "If St. Pierre wishes to tell you, yes." "Well--" He leaned a little toward her. "After that you dragged me up into the shade, dressed my wound and made me comfortable. In a hazy sort of way I knew what was going on. And a curious thing happened. At times--" he leaned still a little nearer to her--"at times--there seemed to be two of you!" He was not looking at her hands, or he would have seen her fingers slowly tighten in her lap. "You were badly hurt," she said. "It is not strange that you should have imagined things, M'sieu David." "And I seemed to hear two voices," he went on. She made no answer, but continued to look at him steadily. "And the other had hair that was like copper and gold fire in the sun. I would see your face and then hers, again and again--and--since then--I have thought I was a heavy load for your hands to drag up through that sand to the shade alone." She held up her two hands, looking at them. "They are strong," she said. "They are small," he insisted, "and I doubt if they could drag me across this floor." For the first time the quiet of her eyes gave way to a warm fire. "It was hard work," she said, and the note in her voice gave him warning that he was approaching the dead-line again. "Bateese says I was a fool for doing it. And if you saw two of me, or three or four, it doesn't matter. Are you through questioning me, M'sieu David? If so, I have a number of things to do." He made a gesture of despair. "No, I am not through. But why ask you questions if you won't answer them?" "I simply can not. You must wait." "For your husband?" "Yes, for St. Pierre." He was silent for a moment, then said, "I raved about a number of things when I was sick, didn't I?" "You did, and especially about what you thought happened in the sand. You called this--this other person--the Fire Goddess. You were so near dying that of course it wasn't amusing. Otherwise it would have been. You see MY hair is black, almost!" Again, in a quick movement, her fingers were crumpling the lustrous coils on the crown of her head. "Why do you say 'almost'?" he asked. "Because St. Pierre has often told me that when I am in the sun there are red fires in it. And the sun was very bright that afternoon in the sand, M'sieu David." "I think I understand," he nodded. "And I'm rather glad, too. I like to know that it was you who dragged me up into the shade after trying to kill me. It proves you aren't quite so savage as--" "Carmin Fanchet," she interrupted him softly. "You talked about her in your sickness, M'sieu David. It made me terribly afraid of you--so much so that at times I almost wondered if Bateese wasn't right. It made me understand what would happen to me if I should let you go. What terrible thing did she do to you? What could she have done more terrible than I have done?" "Is that why you have given your men orders to kill me if I try to escape?" he asked. "Because I talked about this woman, Carmin Fanchet?" "Yes, it is because of Carmin Fanchet that I am keeping you for St. Pierre," she acknowledged. "If you had no mercy for her, you could have none for me. What terrible thing did she do to you, M'sieu?" "Nothing--to me," he said, feeling that she was putting him where the earth was unsteady under his feet again. "But her brother was a criminal of the worst sort. And I was convinced then, and am convinced now, that his sister was a partner in his crimes. She was very beautiful. And that, I think, was what saved her." He was fingering his unlighted cigar as he spoke. When he looked up, he was surprised at the swift change that had come into the face of St. Pierre's wife. Her cheeks were flaming, and there were burning fires screened behind the long lashes of her eyes. But her voice was unchanged. It was without a quiver that betrayed the emotion which had sent the hot flush into her face. "Then--you judged her without absolute knowledge of fact? You judged her--as you hinted in your fever--because she fought so desperately to save a brother who had gone wrong?" "I believe she was bad." The long lashes fell lower, like fringes of velvet closing over the fires in her eyes. "But you didn't know!" "Not absolutely," he conceded. "But investigations--" "Might have shown her to be one of the most wonderful women that ever lived, M'sieu David. It is not hard to fight for a good brother--but if he is bad, it may take an angel to do it!" He stared, thoughts tangling themselves in his head. A slow shame crept over him. She had cornered him. She had convicted him of unfairness to the one creature on earth his strength and his manhood were bound to protect--a woman. She had convicted him of judging without fact. And in his head a voice seemed to cry out to him, "What did Carmin Fanchet ever do to you?" He rose suddenly to his feet and stood at the back of his chair, his hands gripping the top of it. "Maybe you are right," he said. "Maybe I was wrong. I remember now that when I got Fanchet I manacled him, and she sat beside him all through that first night. I didn't intend to sleep, but I was tired--and did. I must have slept for an hour, and SHE roused me--trying to get the key to the handcuffs. She had the opportunity then--to kill me." Triumph swept over the face that was looking up at him. "Yes, she could have killed you--while you slept. But she didn't. WHY?" "I don't know. Perhaps she had the idea of getting the key and letting her brother do the job. Two or three days later I am convinced she would not have hesitated. I caught her twice trying to steal my gun. And a third time, late at night, when we were within a day or two of Athabasca Landing, she almost got me with a club. So I concede that she never did anything very terrible to me. But I am sure that she tried, especially toward the last." "And because she failed, she hated you; and because she hated you, something was warped inside you, and you made up your mind she should be punished along with her brother. You didn't look at it from a woman's viewpoint. A woman will fight, and kill, to save one she loves. She tried, perhaps, and failed. The result was that her brother was killed by the Law. Was not that enough? Was it fair or honest to destroy her simply because you thought she might be a partner in her brother's crimes?" "It is rather strange," he replied, a moment of indecision in his voice. "McVane, the superintendent, asked me that same question. I thought he was touched by her beauty. And I'm sorry--very sorry--that I talked about her when I was sick. I don't want you to think I am a bad sort--that way. I'm going to think about it. I'm going over the whole thing again, from the time I manacled Fanchet, and if I find that I was wrong--and I ever meet Carmin Fanchet again--I shall not be ashamed to get down on my knees and ask her pardon, Marie-Anne!" For the first time he spoke the name which she had given him permission to use. And she noticed it. He could not help seeing that--a flashing instant in which the indefinable confession of it was in her face, as though his use of it had surprised her, or pleased her, or both. Then it was gone. She did not answer, but rose from the big chair, and went to the window, and stood with her back toward him, looking out over the river. And then, suddenly, they heard a voice. It was the voice he had heard twice in his sickness, the voice that had roused him from his sleep last night, crying out in his room for Black Roger Audemard. It came to him distinctly through the open door in a low and moaning monotone. He had not taken his eyes from the slim figure of St. Pierre's wife, and he saw a little tremor pass through her now. "I heard that voice--again--last night," said David. "It was in this cabin, asking for Black Roger Audemard." She did not seem to hear him, and he also turned so that he was looking at the open door of the cabin. The sun, pouring through in a golden flood, was all at once darkened, and in the doorway--framed vividly against the day--was the figure of a man. A tense breath came to Carrigan's lips. At first he felt a shock, then an overwhelming sense of curiosity and of pity. The man was terribly deformed. His back and massive shoulders were so twisted and bent that he stood no higher than a twelve-year-old boy; yet standing straight, he would have been six feet tall if an inch, and splendidly proportioned. And in that same breath with which shock and pity came to him, David knew that it was accident and not birth that had malformed the great body that stood like a crouching animal in the open door. At first he saw only the grotesqueness of it--the long arms that almost touched the floor, the broken back, the twisted shoulders--and then, with a deeper thrill, he saw nothing of these things but only the face and the head of the man. There was something god-like about them, fastened there between the crippled shoulders. It was not beauty, but strength--the strength of rock, of carven granite, as if each feature had been chiseled out of something imperishable and everlasting, yet lacking strangely and mysteriously the warm illumination that comes from a living soul. The man was not old, nor was he young. And he did not seem to see Carrigan, who stood nearest to him. He was looking at St. Pierre's wife. The look which David saw in her face was infinitely tender. She was smiling at the misshapen hulk in the door as she might have smiled at a little child. And David, looking back at the wide, deep-set eyes of the man, saw the slumbering fire of a dog-like worship in them. They shifted slowly, taking in the cabin, questing, seeking, searching for something which they could not find. The lips moved, and again he heard that weird and mysterious monotone, as if the plaintive voice of a child were coming out of the huge frame of the man, crying out as it had cried last night, "HAS-ANY-ONE-SEEN-BLACK-ROGER-AUDEMARD?" In another moment St. Pierre's wife was at the deformed giant's side. She seemed tall beside him. She put her hands to his head and brushed back the grizzled black hair, laughing softly into his upturned face, her eyes shining and a strange glow in her cheeks. Carrigan, looking at them, felt his heart stand still. WAS THIS MAN ST. PIERRE? The thought came like a lightning flash--and went as quickly; it was impossible and inconceivable. And yet there was something more than pity in the voice of the woman who was speaking now. "No, no, we have not seen him, Andre--we have not seen Black Roger Audemard. If he comes, I will call you. I promise, Michiwan. I will call you!" She was stroking his bearded cheek, and then she put an arm about his twisted shoulders, and slowly she turned so that in a moment or two they were facing the sun--and it seemed to Carrigan that she was talking and sobbing and laughing in the same breath, as that great, broken hulk of a man moved out slowly from under the caress of her arm and went on his way. For a space she looked after him. Then in a swift movement she closed the door and faced Carrigan. She did not speak, but waited. Her head was high. She was breathing quickly. The tenderness that a moment before had filled her face was gone, and in her eyes was the blaze of fighting fires as she waited for him to speak--to give voice to what she knew was passing in his mind. XI For a space there was silence between Carrigan and St. Pierre's wife. He knew what she was thinking as she stood with her back to the door, waiting half defiantly, her cheeks still flushed, her eyes bright with the anticipation of battle. She was ready to fight for the broken creature on the other side of the door. She expected him to give no quarter in his questioning of her, to corner her if he could, to demand of her why the deformed giant had spoken the name of the man he was after, Black Roger Audemard. The truth hammered in David's brain. It had not been a delusion of his fevered mind after all; it was not a possible deception of the half-breed's, as he had thought last night. Chance had brought him face to face with the mystery of Black Roger. St. Pierre's wife, waiting for him to speak, was in some way associated with that mystery, and the cripple was asking for the man McVane had told him to bring in dead or alive! Yet he did not question her. He turned to the window and looked out from where Marie-Anne had stood a few moments before. The day was glorious. On the far shore he saw life where last night's camp had been. Men were moving about close to the water, and a York boat was putting out slowly into the stream. Close under the window moved a canoe with a single occupant. It was Andre, the Broken Man. With powerful strokes he was paddling across the river. His deformity was scarcely noticeable in the canoe. His bare head and black beard shone in the sun, and between his great shoulders his head looked more than ever to Carrigan like the head of a carven god. And this man, like a mighty tree stricken by lightning, his mind gone, was yet a thing that was more than mere flesh and blood to Marie-Anne Boulain! David turned toward her. Her attitude was changed. It was no longer one of proud defiance. She had expected to defend herself from something, and he had given her no occasion for defense. She did not try to hide the fact from him, and he nodded toward the window. "He is going away in a canoe. I am afraid you didn't want me to see him, and I am sorry I happened to be here when he came." "I made no effort to keep him away, M'sieu David. Perhaps I wanted you to see him. And I thought, when you did--" She hesitated. "You expected me to crucify you, if necessary, to learn the truth of what he knows about Roger Audemard," he said. "And you were ready to fight back. But I am not going to question you unless you give me permission." "I am glad," she said in a low voice. "I am beginning to have faith in you, M'sieu David. You have promised not to try to escape, and I believe you. Will you also promise not to ask me questions, which I can not answer--until St. Pierre comes?" "I will try." She came up to him slowly and stood facing him, so near that she could have reached out and put her hands on his shoulders. "St. Pierre has told me a great deal about the Scarlet Police," she said, looking at him quietly and steadily. "He says that the men who wear the red jackets never play low tricks, and that they come after a man squarely and openly. He says they are men, and many times he has told me wonderful stories of the things they have done. He calls it 'playing the game.' And I'm going to ask you, M'sieu David, will you play square with me? If I give you the freedom of the bateau, of the boats, even of the shore, will you wait for St. Pierre and play the rest of the game out with him, man to man?" Carrigan bowed his head slightly. "Yes, I will wait and finish the game with St. Pierre." He saw a quick throb come and go in her white throat, and with a sudden, impulsive movement she held out her hand to him. For a moment he held it close. Her little fingers tightened about his own, and the warm thrill of them set his blood leaping with the thing he was fighting down. She was so near that he could feel the throb of her body. For an instant she bowed her head, and the sweet perfume of her hair was in his nostrils, the lustrous beauty of it close under his lips. Gently she withdrew her hand and stood back from him. To Carrigan she was like a young girl now. It was the loveliness of girlhood he saw in the flush of her face and in the gladness that was flaming unashamed in her eyes. "I am not frightened any more," she exclaimed, her voice trembling a bit. "When St. Pierre comes, I shall tell him everything. And then you may ask the questions, and he will answer. And he will not cheat! He will play square. You will love St. Pierre, and you will forgive me for what happened behind the rock!" She made a little gesture toward the door. "Everything is free to you out there now," she added. "I shall tell Bateese and the others. When we are tied up, you may go ashore. And we will forget all that has happened, M'sieu David. We will forget until St. Pierre comes." "St. Pierre!" he groaned. "If there were no St. Pierre!" "I should be lost," she broke in quickly. "I should want to die!" Through the open window came the sound of a voice. It was the weird monotone of Andre, the Broken Man. Marie-Anne went to the window. And David, following her, looked over her head, again so near that his lips almost touched her hair. Andre had come back. He was watching two York boats that were heading for the bateau. "You heard him asking for Black Roger Audemard," she said. "It is strange. I know how it must have shocked you when he stood like that in the door. His mind, like his body, is a wreck, M'sieu David. Years ago, after a great storm, St. Pierre found him in the forest. A tree had fallen on him. St. Pierre carried him in on his shoulders. He lived, but he has always been like that. St. Pierre loves him, and poor Andre worships St. Pierre and follows him about like a dog. His brain is gone. He does not know what his name is, and we call him Andre. And always, day and night, he is asking that same question, 'Has any one seen Black Roger Audemard?' Sometime--if you will, M'sieu David--I should like to have you tell me what it is so terrible that you know about Roger Audemard." The York boats were half-way across the river, and from them came a sudden burst of wild song. David could make out six men in each boat, their oars flashing in the morning sun to the rhythm of their chant. Marie-Anne looked up at him suddenly, and in her face and eyes he saw what the starry gloom of evening had half hidden from him in those thrilling moments when they shot through the rapids of the Holy Ghost. She was girl now. He did not think of her as woman. He did not think of her as St. Pierre's wife. In that upward glance of her eyes was something that thrilled him to the depth of his soul. She seemed, for a moment, to have dropped a curtain from between herself and him. Her red lips trembled, she smiled at him, and then she faced the river again, and he leaned a little forward, so that a breath of wind floated a shimmering tress of her hair against his cheek. An irresistible impulse seized upon him. He leaned still nearer to her, holding his breath, until his lips softly touched one of the velvety coils of her hair. And then he stepped back. Shame swept over him. His heart rose and choked him, and his fists were clenched at his side. She had not noticed what he had done, and she seemed to him like a bird yearning to fly out through the window, throbbing with the desire to answer the chanting song that came over the water. And then she was smiling up again into his face hardened with the struggle which he was making with himself. "My people are happy," she cried. "Even in storm they laugh and sing. Listen, m'sieu. They are singing La Derniere Domaine. That is our song. It is what we call our home, away up there in the lost wilderness where people never come--the Last Domain. Their wives and sweethearts and families are up there, and they are happy in knowing that today we shall travel a few miles nearer to them. They are not like your people in Montreal and Ottawa and Quebec, M'sieu David. They are like children. And yet they are glorious children!" She ran to the wall and took down the banner of St. Pierre Boulain. "St. Pierre is behind us," she explained. "He is coming down with a raft of timber such as we can not get in our country, and we are waiting for him. But each day we must float down with the stream a few miles nearer the homes of my people. It makes them happier, even though it is but a few miles. They are coming now for my bateau. We shall travel slowly, and it will be wonderful on a day like this. It will do you good to come outside, M'sieu David--with me. Would you care for that? Or would you rather be alone?" In her face there was no longer the old restraint. On her lips was the witchery of a half-smile; in her eyes a glow that flamed the blood in his veins. It was not a flash of coquetry. It was something deeper and warmer than that, something real--a new Marie-Anne Boulain telling him plainly that she wanted him to come. He did not know that his hands were still clenched at his side. Perhaps she knew. But her eyes did not leave his face, eyes that were repeating the invitation of her lips, openly asking him not to refuse. "I shall be happy to come," he said. The words fell out of him numbly. He scarcely heard them or knew what he was saying, yet he was conscious of the unnatural note in his voice. He did not know he was betraying himself beyond that, did not see the deepening of the wild-rose flush in the cheeks of St. Pierre's wife. He picked up his pipe from the table and moved to accompany her. "You must wait a little while," she said, and her hand rested for an instant upon his arm. Its touch was as light as the touch of his lips had been against her shining hair, but he felt it in every nerve of his body. "Nepapinas is making a special lotion for your hurt. I will send him in, and then you may come." The wild chant of the rivermen was near as she turned to the door. From it she looked back at him swiftly. "They are happy, M'sieu David," she repeated softly. "And I, too, am happy. I am no longer afraid. And the world is beautiful again. Can you guess why? It is because you have given me your promise, M'sieu David, and because I believe you!" And then she was gone. For many minutes he did not move. The chanting of the rivermen, a sudden wilder shout, the voices of men, and after that the grating of something alongside the bateau came to him like sounds from another world. Within himself there was a crash greater than that of physical things. It was the truth breaking upon him, truth surging over him like the waves of a sea, breaking down the barriers he had set up, inundating him with a force that was mightier than his own will. A voice in his soul was crying out the truth--that above all else in the world he wanted to reach out his arms to this glorious creature who was the wife of St. Pierre, this woman who had tried to kill him and was sorry. He knew that it was not desire for beauty. It was the worship which St. Pierre himself must have for this woman who was his wife. And the shock of it was like a conflagration sweeping through him, leaving him dead and shriven, like the crucified trees standing in the wake of a fire. A breath that was almost a cry came from him, and his fists knotted until they were purple. She was St. Pierre's wife! And he, David Carrigan, proud of his honor, proud of the strength that made him man, had dared covet her in this hour when her husband was gone! He stared at the closed door, beginning to cry out against himself, and over him there swept slowly and terribly another thing--the shame of his weakness, the hopelessness of the thing that for a space had eaten into him and consumed him. And as he stared, the door opened, and Nepapinas came in. XII During the next quarter of an hour David was as silent as the old Indian doctor. He was conscious of no pain when Nepapinas took off his bandage and bathed his head in the lotion he had brought. Before a fresh bandage was put on, he looked at himself for a moment in the mirror. It was the first time he had seen his wound, and he expected to find himself marked with a disfiguring scar. To his surprise there was no sign of his hurt except a slightly inflamed spot above his temple. He stared at Nepapinas, and there was no need of the question that was in his mind. The old Indian understood, and his dried-up face cracked and crinkled in a grin. "Bullet hit a piece of rock, an' rock, not bullet, hit um head," he explained. "Make skull almost break--bend um in--but Nepapinas straighten again with fingers, so-so." He shrugged his thin shoulders with a cackling laugh of pride as he worked his claw-like fingers to show how the operation had been done. David shook hands with him in silence; then Nepapinas put on the fresh bandage, and after that went out, chuckling again in his weird way, as though he had played a great joke on the white man whom his wizardry had snatched out of the jaws of death. For some time there had been a subdued activity outside. The singing of the boatmen had ceased, a low voice was giving commands, and looking through the window, David saw that the bateau was slowly swinging away from the shore. He turned from the window to the table and lighted the cigar St. Pierre's wife had given him. In spite of the mental struggle he had made during the presence of Nepapinas, he had failed to get a grip on himself. For a time he had ceased to be David Carrigan, the man-hunter. A few days ago his blood had run to that almost savage thrill of the great game of one against one, the game in which Law sat on one side of the board and Lawlessness on the other, with the cards between. It was the great gamble. The cards meant life or death; there was never a checkmate--one or the other had to lose. Had some one told him then that soon he would meet the broken and twisted hulk of a man who had known Black Roger Audemard, every nerve in him would have thrilled in anticipation of that hour. He realized this as he paced back and forth over the thick rugs of the bateau floor. And he knew, even as he struggled to bring them back, that the old thrill and the old desire were gone. It was impossible to lie to himself. St. Pierre, in this moment, was of more importance to him than Roger Audemard. And St. Pierre's wife, Marie-Anne-- His eyes fell on the crumpled handkerchief on the piano keys. Again he was crushing it in the palm of his hand, and again the flood of humiliation and shame swept over him. He dropped the handkerchief, and the great law of his own life seemed to rise up in his face and taunt him. He was clean. That had been his greatest pride. He hated the man who was unclean. It was his instinct to kill the man who desecrated another man's home. And here, in the sacredness of St. Pierre's paradise, he found himself at last face to face with that greatest fight of all the ages. He faced the door. He threw back his shoulders until they snapped, and he laughed, as if at the thing that had risen up to point its finger at him. After all, it did not hurt a man to go through a bit of fire--if he came out of it unburned. And deep in his heart he knew it was not a sin to love, even as he loved, if he kept that love to himself. What he had done when Marie-Anne stood at the window he could not undo. St. Pierre would probably have killed him for touching her hair with his lips, and he would not have blamed St. Pierre. But she had not felt that stolen caress. No one knew--but himself. And he was happier because of it. It was a sort of sacred thing, even though it brought the heat of shame into his face. He went to the door, opened it, and stood out in the sunshine. It was good to feel the warmth of the sun in his face again and the sweet air of the open day in his lungs. The bateau was free of the shore and drifting steadily towards midstream. Bateese was at the great birchwood rudder sweep, and to David's surprise he nodded in a friendly way, and his wide mouth broke into a grin. "Ah, it is coming soon, that fight of ours, little coq de bruyere!" he chuckled gloatingly. "An' ze fight will be jus' lak that, m'sieu--you ze little fool-hen's rooster, ze partridge, an' I, Concombre Bateese, ze eagle!" The anticipation in the half-breed's eyes reflected itself for an instant in David's. He turned back into the cabin, bent over his pack, and found among his clothes two pairs of boxing gloves. He fondled them with the loving touch of a brother and comrade, and their velvety smoothness was more soothing to his nerves than the cigar he was smoking. His one passion above all others was boxing, and wherever he went, either on pleasure or adventure, the gloves went with him. In many a cabin and shack of the far hinterland he had taught white men and Indians how to use them, so that he might have the pleasure of feeling the thrill of them on his hands. And now here was Concombre Bateese inviting him on, waiting for him to get well! He went out and dangled the clumsy-looking mittens under the half-breed's nose. Bateese looked at them curiously. "Mitaines," he nodded. "Does ze little partridge rooster keep his claws warm in those in ze winter? They are clumsy, m'sieu. I can make a better mitten of caribou skin." Putting on one of the gloves, David doubled up his fist. "Do you see that, Concombre Bateese?" he asked. "Well, I will tell you this, that they are not mittens to keep your hands warm. I am going to fight you in them when our time comes. With these mittens I will fight you and your naked fists. Why? Because I do not want to hurt you too badly, friend Bateese! I do not want to break your face all to pieces, which I would surely do if I did not put on these soft mittens. Then, when you have really learned to fight--" The bull neck of Concombre Bateese looked as if it were about to burst. His eyes seemed ready to pop out of their sockets, and suddenly he let out a roar. "What!--You dare talk lak that to Concombre Bateese, w'at is great'st fightin' man on all T'ree River? You talk lak that to me, Concombre Bateese, who will kill ze bear wit' hees ban's, who pull down ze tree, who--who--" The word-flood of his outraged dignity sprang to his lips; emotion choked him, and then, looking suddenly over Carrigan's shoulder--he stopped. Something in his look made David turn. Three paces behind him stood Marie-Anne, and he knew that from the corner of the cabin she had heard what had passed between them. She was biting her lips, and behind the flash of her eyes he saw laughter. "You must not quarrel, children," she said. "Bateese, you are steering badly." She reached out her hands, and without a word David gave her the gloves. With her palm and fingers she caressed them softly, yet David saw little lines of doubt come into her white forehead. "They are pretty--and soft, M'sieu David. Surely they can not hurt much! Some day when St. Pierre comes, will you teach me how to use them?" "Always it is 'When St. Pierre comes,'" he replied. "Shall we be waiting long?" "Two or three days, perhaps a little longer. Are you coming with me to the proue, m'sieu?" She did not wait for his answer, but went ahead of him, dangling the two pairs of gloves at her side. David caught a last glimpse of the half-breed's face as he followed Marie-Anne around the end of the cabin. Bateese was making a frightful grimace and shaking his huge fist, but scarcely were they out of sight on the narrow footway that ran between the cabin and the outer timbers of the scow when a huge roar of laughter followed them. Bateese had not done laughing when they reached the proue, or bow-nest, a deck fully ten feet in length by eight in width, sheltered above by an awning, and comfortably arranged with chairs, several rugs, a small table, and, to David's amazement, a hammock. He had never seen anything like this on the Three Rivers, nor had he ever heard of a scow so large or so luxuriously appointed. Over his head, at the tip of a flagstaff attached to the forward end of the cabin, floated the black and white pennant of St. Pierre Boulain. And under this staff was a screened door which undoubtedly opened into the kitchenette which Marie-Anne had told him about. He made no effort to hide his surprise. But St. Pierre's wife seemed not to notice it. The puckery little lines were still in her forehead, and the laughter had faded out of her eyes. The tiny lines deepened as there came another wild roar of laughter from Bateese in the stern. "Is it true that you have given your word to fight Bateese?" she asked. "It is true, Marie-Anne. And I feel that Bateese is looking ahead joyously to the occasion." "He is," she affirmed. "Last night he spread the news among all my people. Those who left to join St. Pierre this morning have taken the news with them, and there is a great deal of excitement and much betting. I am afraid you have made a bad promise. No man has offered to fight Bateese in three years--not even my great St. Pierre, who says that Concombre is more than a match for him." "And yet they must have a little doubt, as there is betting, and it takes two to make a bet," chuckled David. The lines went out of Marie-Anne's forehead, and a half-smile trembled on her red lips. "Yes, there is betting. But those who are for you are offering next autumn's muskrat skins and frozen fish against lynx and fisher and marten. The odds are about thirty to one against you, M'sieu David!" The look of pity which was clearly in her eyes brought a rush of blood to David's face. "If only I had something to wager!" he groaned. "You must not fight. I shall forbid it!" "Then Bateese and I will steal off into the forest and have it out by ourselves." "He will hurt you badly. He is terrible, like a great beast, when he fights. He loves to fight and is always asking if there is not some one who will stand up to him. I think he would desert even me for a good fight. But you, M'sieu David--" "I also love a fight," he admitted, unashamed. St. Pierre's wife studied him thoughtfully for a moment. "With these?" she asked then, holding up the gloves. "Yes, with those. Bateese may use his fists, but I shall use those, so that I shall not disfigure him permanently. His face is none too handsome as it is." For another flash her lips trembled on the edge of a smile. Then she gave him the gloves, a bit troubled, and nodded to a chair with a deep, cushioned seat and wide arms. "Please make yourself comfortable, M'sieu David. I have something to do in the cabin and will return in a little while." He wondered if she had gone back to settle the matter with Bateese at once, for it was clear that she did not regard with favor the promised bout between himself and the half-breed. It was on the spur of a careless moment that he had promised to fight Bateese, and with little thought that it was likely to be carried out or that it would become a matter of importance with all of St. Pierre's brigade. He was evidently in for it, he told himself, and as a fighting man it looked as though Concombre Bateese was at least the equal of his braggadocio. He was glad of that. He grinned as he watched the bending backs of St. Pierre's men. So they were betting thirty to one against him! Even St. Pierre might be induced to bet--with HIM. And if he did-- The hot blood leaped for a moment in Carrigan's veins. The thrill went to the tips of his fingers. He stared out over the river, unseeing, as the possibilities of the thing that had come into his mind made him for a moment oblivious of the world. He possessed one thing against which St. Pierre and St. Pierre's wife would wager a half of all they owned in the world! And if he should gamble that one thing, which had come to him like an inspiration, and should whip Bateese-- He began to pace back and forth over the narrow deck, no longer watching the rowers or the shore. The thought grew, and his mind was consumed by it. Thus far, from the moment the first shot was fired at him from the ambush, he had been playing with adventure in the dark. But fate had at last dealt him a trump card. That something which he possessed was more precious than furs or gold to St. Pierre, and St. Pierre would not refuse the wager when it was offered. He would not dare refuse. More than that, he would accept eagerly, strong in the faith that Bateese would whip him as he had whipped all other fighters who had come up against him along the Three Rivers. And when Marie-Anne knew what that wager was to be, she, too, would pray for the gods of chance to be with Concombre Bateese! He did not hear the light footsteps behind him, and when he turned suddenly in his pacing, he found himself facing Marie-Anne, who carried in her hands the little basket he had seen on the cabin table. She seated herself in the hammock and took from the basket a bit of lace work. For a moment he watched her fingers flashing in and out with the needles. Perhaps his thought went to her. He was almost frightened as he saw her cheeks coloring under the long, dark lashes. He faced the rivermen again, and while he gripped at his own weakness, he tried to count the flashings of their oars. And behind him, the beautiful eyes of St. Pierre's wife were looking at him with a strange glow in their depths. "Do you know," he said, speaking slowly and still looking toward the flashing of the oars, "something tells me that unexpected things are going to happen when St. Pierre returns. I am going to make a bet with him that I can whip Bateese. He will not refuse. He will accept. And St. Pierre will lose, because I shall whip Bateese. It is then that these unexpected things will begin to happen. And I am wondering--after they do happen--if you will care so very much?" There was a moment of silence. And then, "I don't want you to fight Bateese," she said. The needles were working swiftly when he turned toward her again, and a second time the long lashes shadowed what a moment before he might have seen in her eyes. XIII The morning passed like a dream to Carrigan. He permitted himself to live and breathe it as one who finds himself for a space in the heart of a golden mirage. He was sitting so near Marie-Anne that now and then the faint perfume of her came to him like the delicate scent of a flower. It was a breath of crushed violets, sweet as the air he was breathing, violets gathered in the deep cool of the forest, a whisper of sweetness about her, as if on her bosom she wore always the living flowers. He fancied her gathering them last bloom-time, a year ago, alone, her feet seeking out the damp mosses, her little fingers plucking the smiling and laughing faces of the violet flowers to be treasured away in fragrant sachets, as gentle as the wood-thrush's note, compared with the bottled aromas fifteen hundred miles south. It seemed to be a physical part of her, a thing born of the glow in her cheeks, a living exhalation of her soft red lips--and yet only when he was near, very near, did the life of it reach him. She did not know he was thinking these things. There was nothing in his voice, he thought, to betray him. He was sure she was unconscious of the fight he was making. Her eyes smiled and laughed with him, she counted her stitches, her fingers worked, and she talked to him as she might have talked to a friend of St. Pierre's. She told him how St. Pierre had made the barge, the largest that had ever been on the river, and that he had built it entirely of dry cedar, so that it floated like a feather wherever there was water enough to run a York boat. She told him how St. Pierre had brought the piano down from Edmonton, and how he had saved it from pitching in the river by carrying the full weight of it on his shoulders when they met with an accident in running through a dangerous rapids bringing it down. St. Pierre was a very strong man, she said, a note of pride in her voice. And then she added, "Sometimes, when he picks me up in his arms, I feel that he is going to squeeze the life out of me!" Her words were like a sharp thrust into his heart. For an instant they painted a vision for him, a picture of that slim and adorable creature crushed close in the great arms of St. Pierre, so close that she could not breathe. In that mad moment of his hurt it was almost a living, breathing reality for him there on the golden fore-deck of the scow. He turned his face toward the far shore, where the wilderness seemed to reach off into eternity. What a glory it was--the green seas of spruce and cedar and balsam, the ridges of poplar and birch rising like silvery spume above the darker billows, and afar off, mellowed in the sun-mists, the guardian crests of Trout Mountains sentineling the country beyond! Into that mystery-land on the farther side of the Wabiskaw waterways Carrigan would have loved to set his foot four days ago. It was that mystery of the unpeopled places that he most desired, their silence, the comradeship of spaces untrod by the feet of man. And now, what a fool he was! Through vast distances the forests he loved seemed to whisper it to him, and ahead of him the river seemed to look back, nodding over its shoulder, beckoning to him, telling him the word of the forests was true. It streamed on lazily, half a mile wide, as if resting for the splashing and roaring rush it would make among the rocks of the next rapids, and in its indolence it sang the low and everlasting song of deep and slowly passing water. In that song David heard the same whisper, that he was a fool! And the lure of the wilderness shores crept in on him and gripped him as of old. He looked at the rowers in the two York boats, and then his eyes came back to the end of the barge and to St. Pierre's wife. Her little toes were tapping the floor of the deck. She, too, was looking out over the wilderness. And again it seemed to him that she was like a bird that wanted to fly. "I should like to go into those hills," she said, without looking at him. "Away off yonder!" "And I--I should like to go with you." "You love all that, m'sieu?" she asked. "Yes, madame!" "Why 'madame,' when I have given you permission to call me 'Marie-Anne'?" she demanded. "Because you call me 'm'sieu'." "But you--you have not given me permission--" "Then I do now," he interrupted quickly. "Merci! I have wondered why you did not return the courtesy," she laughed softly. "I do not like the m'sieu. I shall call you 'David'!" She rose out of the hammock suddenly and dropped her needles and lace work into the little basket. "I have forgotten something. It is for you to eat when it comes dinner-time, m'sieu--I mean David. So I must turn fille de cuisine for a little while. That is what St. Pierre sometimes calls me, because I love to play at cooking. I am going to bake a pie!" The dark-screened door of the kitchenette closed behind her, and Carrigan walked out from under the awning, so that the sun beat down upon him. There was no longer a doubt in his mind. He was more than fool. He envied St. Pierre, and he coveted that which St. Pierre possessed. And yet, before he would take what did not belong to him, he knew he would put a pistol to his head and blow his life out. He was confident of himself there. Yet he had fallen, and out of the mire into which he had sunk he knew also that he must drag himself, and quickly, or be everlastingly lowered in his own esteem. He stripped himself naked and did not lie to that other and greater thing of life that was in him. He was not only a fool, but a coward. Only a coward would have touched the hair of St. Pierre's wife with his lips; only a coward would have let live the thoughts that burned in his brain. She was St. Pierre's wife--and he was anxious now for the quick homecoming of the chief of the Boulains. After that everything would happen quickly. He thanked God that the inspiration of the wager had come to him. After the fight, after he had won, then once more would he be the old Dave Carrigan, holding the trump hand in a thrilling game. Loud voices from the York boats ahead and answering cries from Bateese in the stern drew him to the open deck. The bateau was close to shore, and the half-breed was working the long stern sweep as if the power of a steam-engine was in his mighty arms. The York boats had shortened their towline and were pulling at right angles within a few yards of a gravelly beach. A few strokes more, and men who were bare to the knees jumped out into shallow water and began tugging at the tow rope with their hands. David looked at his watch. It was ten o'clock. Never in his life had time passed so swiftly as that morning on the forward deck of the barge. And now they were tying up, after a drop of six or eight miles down the river, and he wondered how swiftly St. Pierre was overtaking them with his raft. He was filled with the desire to feel the soft crush of the earth under his feet again, and not waiting for the long plank that Bateese was already swinging from the scow to the shore, he made a leap that put him on the sandy beach, St. Pierre's wife had given him this permission, and he looked to see what effect his act had on the half-breed. The face of Concombre Bateese was like sullen stone. Not a sound came from his thick lips, but in his eyes was a deep and dangerous fire as he looked at Carrigan. There was no need for words. In them were suspicion, warning, the deadly threat of what would happen if he did not come back when it was time to return. David nodded. He understood. Even though St. Pierre's wife had faith in him, Bateese had not. He passed between the men, and to a man their faces turned on him, and in their quiet and watchful eyes he saw again that warning and suspicion, the unspoken threat of what would happen if he forgot his promise to Marie-Anne Boulain. Never, in a single outfit, had he seen such splendid men. They were not a mongrel assortment of the lower country. Slim, tall, clean-cut, sinewy--they were stock of the old voyageurs of a hundred years ago, and all of them were young. The older men had gone to St. Pierre. The reason for this dawned upon Carrigan. Not one of these twelve but could beat him in a race through the forest; not one that could not outrun him and cut him off though he had hours the start! Passing beyond them, he paused and looked back at the bateau. On the forward deck stood Marie-Anne, and she, too, was looking at him now. Even at that distance he saw that her face was quiet and troubled with anxiety. She did not smile when he lifted his hat to her, but gave only a little nod. Then he turned and buried himself in the green balsams that grew within fifty paces of the river. The old joy of life leaped into him as his feet crushed in the soft moss of the shaded places where the sun did not break through. He went on, passing through a vast and silent cathedral of spruce and cedar so dense that the sky was hidden, and came then to higher ground, where the evergreen was sprinkled with birch and poplar. About him was an invisible choir of voices, the low twittering of timid little gray-backs, the song of hidden--warblers, the scolding of distant jays. Big-eyed moose-birds stared at him as he passed, fluttering so close to his face that they almost touched his shoulders in their foolish inquisitiveness. A porcupine crashed within a dozen feet of his trail. And then he came to a beaten path, and other paths worn deep in the cool, damp earth by the hoofs of moose and caribou. Half a mile from the bateau he sat down on a rotting log and filled his pipe with fresh tobacco, while he listened to catch the subdued voice of the life in this land that he loved. It was then that the curious feeling came over him that he was not alone, that other eyes than those of beast and bird were watching him. It was an impression that grew on him. He seemed to feel their stare, seeking him out from the darkest coverts, waiting for him to shove on, dogging him like a ghost. Within him the hound-like instincts of the man-hunter rose swiftly to the suspicion of invisible presence. He began to note the changes in the cries of certain birds. A hundred yards on his right a jay, most talkative of all the forest things, was screeching with a new note in its voice. On the other side of him, in a dense pocket of poplar and spruce, a warbler suddenly brought its song to a jerky end. He heard the excited Pe-wee--Pe-wee--Pe-wee of a startled little gray-back giving warning of an unwelcome intruder near its nest. And he rose to his feet, laughing softly as he thumbed down the tobacco in his pipe. Jeanne Marie-Anne Boulain might believe in him, but Bateese and her wary henchmen had ways of their own of strengthening their faith. It was close to noon when he turned back, and he did not return by the moose path. Deliberately he struck out a hundred yards on either side of it, traveling where the moss grew thick and the earth was damp and soft. And five times he found the moccasin-prints of men. Bateese, with his sleeves up, was scrubbing the deck of the bateau when David came over the plank. "There are moose and caribou in there, but I fear I disturbed your hunters," said Carrigan, grinning at the half-breed. "They are too clumsy to hunt well, so clumsy that even the birds give them away. I am afraid we shall go without fresh meat tomorrow!" Concombre Bateese stared as if some one had stunned him with a blow, and he spoke no word as David went on to the forward deck. Marie-Anne had come out under the awning. She gave a little cry of relief and pleasure. "I am glad you have come back, M'sieu David!" "So am I, madame," he replied. "I think the woods are unhealthful to travel in!" Out of the earth he felt that a part of the old strength had returned to him. Alone they sat at dinner, and Marie-Anne waited on him and called him David again--and he found it easier now to call her Marie-Anne and look into her eyes without fear that he was betraying himself. A part of the afternoon he spent in her company, and it was not difficult for him to tell her something of his adventuring in the north, and how, body and soul, the northland had claimed him, and that he hoped to die in it when his time came. Her eyes glowed at that. She told him of two years she had spent in Montreal and Quebec, of her homesickness, her joy when she returned to her forests. It seemed, for a time, that they had forgotten St. Pierre. They did not speak of him. Twice they saw Andre, the Broken Man, but the name of Roger Audemard was not spoken. And a little at a time she told him of the hidden paradise of the Boulains away up in the unmapped wildernesses of the Yellowknife beyond the Great Bear, and of the great log chateau that was her home. A part of the afternoon he spent on shore. He filled a moosehide bag full of sand and suspended it from the limb of a tree, and for three-quarters of an hour pommeled it with his fists, much to the curiosity and amusement of St. Pierre's men, who could see nothing of man-fighting in these antics. But the exercise assured David that he had lost but little of his strength and that he would be in form to meet Bateese when the time came. Toward evening Marie-Anne joined him, and they walked for half an hour up and down the beach. It was Bateese who got supper. And after that Carrigan sat with Marie-Anne on the foredeck of the barge and smoked another of St. Pierre's cigars. The camp of the rivermen was two hundred yards below the bateau, screened between by a finger of hardwood, so that except when they broke into a chorus of laughter or strengthened their throats with snatches of song, there was no sound of their voices. But Bateese was in the stern, and Nepapinas was forever flitting in and out among the shadows on the shore, like a shadow himself, and Andre, the Broken Man, hovered near as night came on. At last he sat down in the edge of the white sand of the beach, and there he remained, a silent and lonely figure, as the twilight deepened. Over the world hovered a sleepy quiet. Out of the forest came the droning of the wood-crickets, the last twitterings of the day birds, and the beginning of night sounds. A great shadow floated out over the river close to the bateau, the first of the questing, blood-seeking owls adventuring out like pirates from their hiding-places of the day. One after another, as the darkness thickened, the different tribes of the people of the night answered the summons of the first stars. A mile down the river a loon gave its harsh love-cry; far out of the west came the faint trail-song of a wolf; in the river the night-feeding trout splashed like the tails of beaver; over the roof of the wilderness came the coughing, moaning challenge of a bull moose that yearned for battle. And over these same forest tops rose the moon, the stars grew thicker and brighter, and through the finger of hardwood glowed the fire of St. Pierre Boulain's men--while close beside him, silent in these hours of silence, David felt growing nearer and still nearer to him the presence of St. Pierre's wife. On the strip of sand Andre, the Broken Man, rose and stood like the stub of a misshapen tree. And then slowly he moved on and was swallowed up in the mellow glow of the night. "It is at night that he seeks," said St. Pierre's wife, for it was as if David had spoken the thought that was in his mind. David, for a moment, was silent. And then he said, "You asked me to tell you about Black Roger Audemard. I will, if you care to have me. Do you?" He saw the nodding of her head, though the moon and star-mist veiled her face. "Yes. What do the Police say about Roger Audemard?" He told her. And not once in the telling of the story did she speak or move. It was a terrible story at best, he thought, but he did not weaken it by smoothing over the details. This was his opportunity. He wanted her to know why he must possess the body of Roger Audemard, if not alive, then dead, and he wanted her to understand how important it was that he learn more about Andre, the Broken Man. "He was a fiend, this Roger Audemard," he began. "A devil in man shape, afterward called 'Black Roger' because of the color of his soul." Then he went on. He described Hatchet River Post, where the tragedy had happened; then told of the fight that came about one day between Roger Audemard and the factor of the post and his two sons. It was an unfair fight; he conceded that--three to one was cowardly in a fight. But it could not excuse what happened afterward. Audemard was beaten. He crept off into the forest, almost dead. Then he came back one stormy night in the winter with three strange friends. Who the friends were the Police never learned. There was a fight, but all through the fight Black Roger Audemard cried out not to kill the factor and his sons. In spite of that one of the sons was killed. Then the terrible thing happened. The father and his remaining son were bound hand and foot and fastened in the ancient dungeon room under the Post building. Then Black Roger set the building on fire, and stood outside in the storm and laughed like a madman at the dying shrieks of his victims. It was the season when the trappers were on their lines, and there were but few people at the post. The company clerk and one other attempted to interfere, and Black Roger killed them with his own hands. Five deaths that night--two of them horrible beyond description! Resting for a moment, Carrigan went on to tell of the long years of unavailing search made by the Police after that; how Black Roger was caught once and killed his captor. Then came the rumor that he was dead, and rumor grew into official belief, and the Police no longer hunted for his trails. Then, not long ago, came the discovery that Black Roger was still living, and he, Dave Carrigan, was after him. For a time there was silence after he had finished. Then St. Pierre's wife rose to her feet. "I wonder," she said in a low voice, "what Roger Audemard's own story might be if he were here to tell it?" She stepped out from under the awning, and in the full radiance of the moon he saw the pale beauty of her face and the crowning luster of her hair. "Good night!" she whispered. "Good night!" said David. He listened until her retreating footsteps died away, and for hours after that he had no thought of sleep. He had insisted that she take possession of her cabin again, and Bateese had brought out a bundle of blankets. These he spread under the awning, and when he drowsed off, it was to dream of the lovely face he had seen last in the glow of the moon. It was in the afternoon of the fourth day that two things happened--one that he had prepared himself for, and another so unexpected that for a space it sent his world crashing out of its orbit. With St. Pierre's wife he had gone again to the ridge-line for flowers, half a mile back from the river. Returning a new way, they came to a shallow stream, and Marie-Anne stood at the edge of it, and there was laughter in her shining eyes as she looked to the other side of it. She had twined flowers into her hair. Her cheeks were rich with color. Her slim figure was exquisite in its wild pulse of life. Suddenly she turned on him, her red lips smiling their witchery in his face. "You must carry me across," she said. He did not answer. He was a-tremble as he drew near her. She raised her arms a little, waiting. And then he picked her up. She was against his breast. Her two hands went to his shoulders as he waded into the stream; he slipped, and they clung a little tighter. The soft note of laughter was in her throat when the current came to his knees out in the middle of the stream. He held her tighter; and then stupidly, he slipped again, and the movement brought her lower in his arms, so that for a space her head was against his breast and his face was crushed in the soft masses of her hair. He came with her that way to the opposite shore and stood her on her feet again, standing back quickly so that she would not hear the pounding of his heart. Her face was radiantly beautiful, and she did not look at David, but away from him. "Thank you," she said. And then, suddenly, they heard running feet behind them, and in another moment one of the brigade men came dashing through the stream. At the same time there came from the river a quarter of a mile away a thunderous burst of voice. It was not the voice of a dozen men, but of half a hundred, and Marie-Anne grew tense, listening, her eyes on fire even before the messenger could get the words out of his mouth. "It is St. Pierre!" he cried then. "He has come with the great raft, and you must hurry if you would reach the bateau before he lands!" In that moment it seemed to David that Marie-Anne forgot he was alive. A little cry came to her lips, and then she left him, running swiftly, saying no word to him, flying with the speed of a fawn to St. Pierre Boulain! And when David turned to the man who had come up behind them, there was a strange smile on the lips of the lithe-limbed forest-runner as his eyes followed the hurrying figure of St. Pierre's wife. Until she was out of sight he stood in silence and then he said: "Come, m'sieu. We, also, must meet St. Pierre!" XIV David moved slowly behind the brigade man. He had no desire to hurry. He did not wish to see what happened when Marie-Anne met St. Pierre Boulain. Only a moment ago she had been in his arms; her hair had smothered his face; her hands had clung to his shoulders; her flushed cheeks and long lashes had for an instant lain close against his breast. And now, swiftly, without a word of apology, she was running away from him to meet her husband. He almost spoke that word aloud as he saw the last of her slim figure among the silver birches. She was going to the man to whom she belonged, and there was no hesitation in the manner of her going. She was glad. And she was entirely forgetful of him, Dave Carrigan, in that gladness. He quickened his steps, narrowing the distance between him and the hurrying brigade man. Only the diseased thoughts in his brain had made the happening in the creek anything but an accident. It was all an accident, he told himself. Marie-Anne had asked him to carry her across just as she would have asked any one of her rivermen. It was his fault, and not hers, that he had slipped in mid-stream, and that his arms had closed tighter about her, and that her hair had brushed his face. He remembered she had laughed, when it seemed for a moment that they were going to fall into the stream together. Probably she would tell St. Pierre all about it. Surely she would never guess it had been nearer tragedy than comedy for him. Once more he was convinced he had proved himself a weakling and a fool. His business now was with St. Pierre, and the hour was at hand when the game had ceased to be a woman's game. He had looked ahead to this hour. He had prepared himself for it and had promised himself action that would be both quick and decisive. And yet, as he went on, his heart was still thumping unsteadily, and in his arms and against his face remained still the sweet, warm thrill of his contact with Marie-Anne. He could not drive that from him. It would never completely go. As long as he lived, what had happened in the creek would live with him. He did not deny that crying voice inside him. It was easy for his mouth to make words. He could call himself a fool and a weakling, but those words were purely mechanical, hollow, meaningless. The truth remained. It was a blazing fire in his breast, a conflagration that might easily get the best of him, a thing which he must fight and triumph over for his own salvation. He did not think of danger for Marie-Anne, for such a thought was inconceivable. The tragedy was one-sided. It was his own folly, his own danger. For just as he loved Marie-Anne, so did she love her husband, St. Pierre. He came to the low ridge close to the river and climbed up through the thick birches and poplars. At the top was a bald knob of sandstone, over which the riverman had already passed. David paused there and looked down on the broad sweep of the Athabasca. What he saw was like a picture spread out on the great breast of the river and the white strip of shoreline. Still a quarter of a mile upstream, floating down slowly with the current, was a mighty raft, and for a space his eyes took in nothing else. On the Mackenzie, the Athabasca, the Saskatchewan, and the Peace he had seen many rafts, but never a raft like this of St. Pierre Boulain. It was a hundred feet in width and twice and a half times as long, and with the sun blazing down upon it from out of a cloudless sky it looked to him like a little city swept up from out of some archaic and savage desert land to be transplanted to the river. It was dotted with tents and canvas shelters. Some of these were gray, and some were white, and two or three were striped with broad bands of yellow and red. Behind all these was a cabin, and over this there rose a slender staff from which floated the black and white pennant of St. Pierre. The raft was alive. Men were running between the tents. The long rudder sweeps were flashing in the sun. Rowers with naked arms and shoulders were straining their muscles in four York boats that were pulling like ants at the giant mass of timber. And to David's ears came a deep monotone of human voices, the chanting of the men as they worked. Nearer to him a louder response suddenly made answer to it. A dozen steps carried him round a projecting thumb of brush, and he could see the open shore where the bateau was tied. Marie-Anne had crossed the strip of sand, and Bateese was helping her into a waiting York boat. Then Bateese shoved it off, and the four men in it began to row. Two canoes were already half-way to the raft, and David recognized the occupant of one of them as Andre, the Broken Man. Then he saw Marie-Anne rise in the York boat and wave something white in her hand. He looked again toward the raft. The current and the sweeps and the tugging boats were drawing it steadily nearer. Standing at the very edge of it he saw now a solitary figure, and in the clear sunlight the man stood out clean-cut as a carven statue. He was a giant in size. His head and arms were bare, and he was looking steadily toward the bateau and the approaching York boat. He raised an arm, and a moment later the movement was followed by a voice that rose above all other voices. It boomed over the river like the rumble of a gun. In response to it Marie-Anne waved the white thing in her hand, and David thought he heard her voice in an answering cry. He stared again at the solitary figure of the man, seeing nothing else, hearing no other sound but the booming of the deep cry that came again over the river. His heart was thumping. In his eyes was a gathering fire. His body grew tense. For he knew that at last he was looking at St. Pierre, chief of the Boulains, and husband of the woman he loved. As the significance of the situation grew upon him, a flash of his old humor returned. It was the same grim humor that had possessed him behind the rock, when he had thought he was going to die. Fate had played him a dishonest turn then, and it was doing the same thing by him now. Unless he deliberately turned his face away, he was going to see the reunion of Marie-Anne and St. Pierre. Yesterday he had strapped his binoculars to his belt. Today Marie-Anne had looked through them a dozen times. They had been a source of pleasure and thrill to her. Now, David thought, they would be good medicine for him. He would see the whole thing through, and at close range. He would leave himself no room for doubt. He had laughed behind the rock, when bullets were zipping close to his head, and the same grim smile came to his lips now as he focused his glasses on the solitary figure at the head of the raft. The smile died away when he saw St. Pierre. It was as if he could reach out and touch him with his hand. And never, he thought, had he seen such a man. A moment before, a flashing vision had come to him from out of an Arabian desert; the multitude of colored tents, the half-naked men, the great raft floating almost without perceptible motion on the placid breast of the river had stirred his imagination until he saw a strange picture. But there was nothing Arabic, nothing desert-like, in this man his binoculars brought within a few feet of his eyes. He was more like a viking pirate who had roved the sea a few centuries ago. One great, bare arm was raised as David looked, and his booming voice was rolling over the river again. His hair was shaggy, and untrimmed, and red; he wore a short beard that glistened in the sun--he was laughing as he waved and shouted to Marie-Anne--a joyous, splendid giant of a man who seemed almost on the point of leaping into the water in his eagerness to clasp in his naked arms the woman who was coming to him. David drew a deep breath, and there came an unconscious tightening at his heart as he turned his glasses upon Marie-Anne. She was still standing in the bow of the York boat, and her back was toward him. He could see the glisten of the sun in her hair. She was waving her handkerchief, and the poise of her slim body told him that in her eagerness she would have darted from the bow of the boat had she possessed wings. Again he looked at St. Pierre. And this was the man who was no match for Concombre Bateese! It was inconceivable. Yet he heard Marie-Anne's voice repeating those very words in his ear. But she had surely been joking with him. She had been storing up this little surprise for him. She had wanted him to discover with his own eyes what a splendid man was this chief of the Boulains. And yet, as David stared, there came to him an unpleasant thought of the incongruity of this thing he was looking upon. It struck upon him like a clashing discord, the fact of matehood between these two--a condition inconsistent and out of tune with the beautiful things he had built up in his mind about the woman. In his soul he had enshrined her as a lovely wildflower, easily crushed, easily destroyed, a sweet treasure to be guarded from all that was rough and savage, a little violet-goddess as fragile as she was brave and loyal. And St. Pierre, standing there at the edge of his raft, looked as if he had come up out of the caves of a million years ago! There was something barbaric about him. He needed only a club and a shield and the skin of a beast about his loins to transform him into prehistoric man. At least these were his first impressions--impressions roused by thought of Marie-Anne's slim, beautiful body crushed close in the embrace of that laughing, powerful-lunged giant. Then the reaction swept over him. St. Pierre was not a monster, even though his disturbed mind unconsciously made an effort to conceive him as such. There were gladness and laughter in his face. There was the contagion of joy and good cheer in the voice that boomed over the water. Laughter and shouts answered it from the shore. The rowers in Marie-Anne's York boat burst into a wild and exultant snatch of song and made their oars fairly crack. There came a solitary yell from Andre, the Broken Man, who was close to the head of the raft now. And from the raft itself came a slowly swelling volume of sound, the urge and voice and exultation of red-blooded men a-thrill with the glory of this day and the wild freedom of their world. The truth came to David. St. Pierre Boulain was the beloved Big Brother of his people. He waited, his muscles tense, his jaws set tight. Good medicine, he called it again, a righteous sort of punishment set upon him for the moral cowardice he had betrayed in falling down in worship at the feet of another man's wife. The York boat was very close to the head of the raft now. He saw Marie-Anne herself fling a rope to St. Pierre. Then the boat swung alongside. In another moment St. Pierre had leaned over, and Marie-Anne was with him on the raft. For a space everything else in the world was obliterated for David. He saw St. Pierre's arms gather the slim form into their embrace. He saw Marie-Anne's hands go up fondly to the bearded face. And then-- Carrigan cut the picture there. He turned his shoulder to the raft and snapped the binoculars in the case at his belt. Some one was coming in his direction from the bateau. It was the riverman who had brought to Marie-Anne the news of St. Pierre's arrival. David went down to meet him. From the foot of the ridge he again turned his eyes in the direction of the raft. St. Pierre and Marie-Anne were just about to enter the little cabin built in the center of the drifting mass of timber. XV It was easy for Carrigan to guess why the riverman had turned back for him. Men were busy about the bateau, and Concombre Bateese stood in the stern, a long pole in his hands, giving commands to the others. The bateau was beginning to swing out into the stream when he leaped aboard. A wide grin spread over the half-breed's face. He eyed David keenly and laughed in his deep chest, an unmistakable suggestiveness in the note of it. "You look seek, m'sieu," he said in an undertone, for David's ears alone, "You look ver' unhappy, an' pale lak leetle boy! Wat happen w'en you look t'rough ze glass up there, eh? Or ees it zat you grow frighten because ver' soon you stan' up an' fight Concombre Bateese? Eh, coq de bruyere? Ees it zat?" A quick thought came to David. "Is it true that St. Pierre can not whip you, Bateese?" Bateese threw out his chest with a mighty intake of breath. Then he exploded: "No man on all T'ree River can w'ip Concombre Bateese." "And St. Pierre is a powerful man," mused David, letting his eyes travel slowly from the half-breed's moccasined feet to the top of his head. "I measured him well through the glasses, Bateese. It will be a great fight. But I shall whip you!" He did not wait for the half-breed to reply, but went into the cabin and closed the door behind him. He did not like the taunting note of suggestiveness in the other's words. Was it possible that Bateese suspected the true state of his mind, that he was in love with the wife of St. Pierre, and that his heart was sick because of what he had seen aboard the raft? He flushed hotly. It made him uncomfortable to feel that even the half-breed might have guessed his humiliation. David looked through the window toward the raft. The bateau was drifting downstream, possibly a hundred feet from the shore, but it was quite evident that Concombre Bateese was making no effort to bring it close to the floating mass of timber, which had made no change in its course down the river. David's mind painted swiftly what was happening in the cabin into which Marie-Anne and St. Pierre had disappeared. At this moment Marie-Anne was telling of him, of the adventure in the hot patch of sand. He fancied the suppressed excitement in her voice as she unburdened herself. He saw St. Pierre's face darken, his muscles tighten--and crouching in silence, he seemed to see the misshapen hulk of Andre, the Broken Man, listening to what was passing between the other two. And he heard again the mad monotone of Andre's voice, crying plaintively, "HAS ANY ONE SEEN BLACK ROGER AUDEMARD?" His blood ran a little faster, and his old craft was a dominantly living thing within him once more. Love had dulled both his ingenuity and his desire. For a space a thing had risen before him that was mightier than the majesty of the Law, and he had TRIED to miss the bull's-eye--because of his love for the wife of St. Pierre Boulain. Now he shot squarely for it, and the bell rang in his brain. Two times two again made four. Facts assembled themselves like arguments in flesh and blood. Those facts would have convinced Superintendent McVane, and they now convinced David. He had set out to get Black Roger Audemard, alive or dead. And Black Roger, wholesale murderer, a monster who had painted the blackest page of crime known in the history of Canadian law, was closely and vitally associated with Marie-Anne and St. Pierre Boulain! The thing was a shock, but Carrigan no longer tried to evade the point. His business was no longer with a man supposed to be a thousand or fifteen hundred miles farther north. It was with Marie-Anne, St. Pierre, and Andre, the Broken Man. And also with Concombre Bateese. He smiled a little grimly as he thought of his approaching battle with the half-breed. St. Pierre would be astounded at the proposition he had in store for him. But he was sure that St. Pierre would accept. And then, if he won the fight with Bateese-- The smile faded from his lips. His face grew older as he looked slowly about the bateau cabin, with its sweet and lingering whispers of a woman's presence. It was a part of her. It breathed of her fragrance and her beauty; it seemed to be waiting for her, crying softly for her return. Yet once had there been another woman even lovelier than the wife of St. Pierre. He had not hesitated then. Without great effort he had triumphed over the loveliness of Carmin Fanchet and had sent her brother to the hangman. And now, as he recalled those days, the truth came to him that even in the darkest hour Carmin Fanchet had made not the slightest effort to buy him off with her beauty. She had not tried to lure him. She had fought proudly and defiantly. And had Marie-Anne done that? His fingers clenched slowly, and a thickening came in his throat. Would she tell St. Pierre of the many hours they had spent together? Would she confess to him the secret of that precious moment when she had lain close against his breast, her arms about him, her face pressed to his? Would she speak to him of secret hours, of warm flushes that had come to her face, of glowing fires that at times had burned in her eyes when he had been very near to her? Would she reveal EVERYTHING to St. Pierre--her husband? He was powerless to combat the voice that told him no. Carmin Fanchet had fought him openly as an enemy and had not employed her beauty as a weapon. Marie-Anne had put in his way a great temptation. What he was thinking seemed to him like a sacrilege, yet he knew there could be no discriminating distinctions between weapons, now that he was determined to play the game to the end, for the Law. When Carrigan went out on deck, the half-breed was sweating from his exertion at the stern sweep. He looked at the agent de police who was going to fight him, perhaps tomorrow or the next day. There was a change in Carrigan. He was not the same man who had gone into the cabin an hour before, and the fact impressed itself upon Bateese. There was something in his appearance that held back the loose talk at the end of Concombre's tongue. And so it was Carrigan himself who spoke first. "When will this man St. Pierre come to see me?" he demanded. "If he doesn't come soon, I shall go to him." For an instant Concombre's face darkened. Then, as he bent over the sweep with his great back to David, he chuckled audibly, and said: "Would you go, m'sieu? Ah--it is le malade d'amour over there in the cabin. Surely you would not break in upon their love-making?" Bateese did not look over his shoulder, and so he did not see the hot flush that gathered in David's face. But David was sure he knew it was there and that Concombre had guessed the truth of matters. There was a sly note in his voice, as if he could not quite keep to himself his exultation that beauty and bright eyes had played a clever trick on this man who, if his own judgment had been followed, would now be resting peacefully at the bottom of the river. It was the final stab to Carrigan. His muscles tensed. For the first time he felt the desire to shoot a naked fist into the grinning mouth of Concombre Bateese. He laid a hand on the half-breed's shoulder, and Bateese turned about slowly. He saw what was in the other's eyes. "Until this moment I have not known what a great pleasure it will be to fight you, Bateese," said David quietly. "Make it tomorrow--in the morning, if you wish. Take word to St. Pierre that I will make him a great wager that I win, a gamble so large that I think he will be afraid to cover it. For I don't think much of this St. Pierre of yours, Bateese. I believe him to be a big-winded bluff, like yourself. And also a coward. Mark my word, he will be so much afraid that he will not accept my wager!" Bateese did not answer. He was looking over David's shoulder. He seemed not to have heard what the other had said, yet there had come a sudden gleam of exultation in his eyes, and he replied, still gazing toward the raft, "Diantre, m'sieu coq de bruyere may keep ze beeg word in hees mout'! See!--St. Pierre, he ees comin' to answer for himself. Mon Dieu, I hope he does not wring ze leetle rooster's neck, for zat would spoil wan great, gran' fight tomorrow!" David turned toward the big raft. At the distance which separated them he could make out the giant figure of St. Pierre Boulain getting into a canoe. The humped-up form already in that canoe he knew was the Broken Man. He could not see Marie-Anne. Very lightly Bateese touched his arm. "M'sieu will go into ze cabin," he suggested softly. "If somet'ing happens, it ees bes' too many eyes do not see it. You understan', m'sieu agent de police?" Carrigan nodded. "I understand," he said. XVI In the cabin David waited. He did not look through the window to watch St. Pierre's approach. He sat down and picked up a magazine from the table upon which Marie-Anne's work-basket lay. He was cool as ice now. His blood flowed evenly and his pulse beat unhurriedly. Never had he felt himself more his own master, more like grappling with a situation. St. Pierre was coming to fight. He had no doubt of that. Perhaps not physically, at first. But, one way or another, something dynamic was bound to happen in the bateau cabin within the next half-hour. Now that the impending drama was close at hand, Carrigan's scheme of luring St. Pierre into the making of a stupendous wager seemed to him rather ridiculous. With calculating coldness he was forced to concede that St. Pierre would be somewhat of a fool to accept the wager he had in mind, when he was so completely in St. Pierre's power. For Marie-Anne and the chief of the Boulains, the bottom of the river would undoubtedly be the best and easiest solution, and the half-breed's suggestion might be acted upon after all. As his mind charged itself for the approaching struggle, David found himself staring at a double page in the magazine, given up entirely to impossibly slim young creatures exhibiting certain bits of illusive and mysterious feminine apparel. Marie-Anne had expressed her approbation in the form of pencil notes under several of them. Under a cobwebby affair that wreathed one of the slim figures he read, "St. Pierre will love this!" There were two exclamation points after that particular notation! David replaced the magazine on the table and looked toward the door. No, St. Pierre would not hesitate to put him at the bottom of the river, for her. Not if he, Dave Carrigan, made the solution of the matter a necessity. There were times, he told himself, when it was confoundedly embarrassing to force the letter of the law. And this was one of them. He was not afraid of the river bottom. He was thinking again of Marie-Anne. The scraping of a canoe against the side of the bateau recalled him suddenly to the moment at hand. He heard low voices, and one of them, he knew, was St. Pierre's. For an interval the voices continued, frequently so low that he could not distinguish them at all. For ten minutes he waited impatiently. Then the door swung open, and St. Pierre came in. Slowly and coolly David rose to meet him, and at the same moment the chief of the Boulains closed the door behind him. There was no greeting in Carrigan's manner. He was the Law, waiting, unexcited, sure of himself, impassive as a thing of steel. He was ready to fight. He expected to fight. It only remained for St. Pierre to show what sort of fight it was to be. And he was amazed at St. Pierre, without betraying that amazement. In the vivid light that shot through the western windows the chief of the Boulains stood looking at David. He wore a gray flannel shirt open at the throat, and it was a splendid throat David saw, and a splendid head above it, with its reddish beard and hair. But what he saw chiefly were St. Pierre's eyes. They were the sort of eyes he disliked to find in an enemy--a grayish, steely blue that reflected sunlight like polished flint. But there was no flash of battle-glow in them now. St. Pierre was neither excited nor in a bad humor. Nor did Carrigan's attitude appear to disturb him in the least. He was smiling; his eyes glowed with almost boyish curiosity as he stared appraisingly at David--and then, slowly, a low chuckle of laughter rose in his deep chest, and he advanced with an outstretched hand. "I am St. Pierre Boulain," he said. "I have heard a great deal about you, Sergeant Carrigan. You have had an unfortunate time!" Had the man advanced menacingly, David would have felt more comfortable. It was disturbing to have this giant come to him with an extended hand of apparent friendship when he had anticipated an entirely different sort of meeting. And St. Pierre was laughing at him! There was no doubt of that. And he had the colossal nerve to tell him that he had been unfortunate, as though being shot up by somebody's wife was a fairly decent joke! Carrigan's attitude did not change. He did not reach out a hand to meet the other. There was no responsive glimmer of humor in his eyes or on his lips. And seeing these things, St. Pierre turned his extended hand to the open box of cigars, so that he stood for a moment with his back toward him. "It's funny," he said, as if speaking to himself, and with only a drawling note of the French patois in his voice. "I come home, find my Jeanne in a terrible mix-up, a stranger in her room--and the stranger refuses to let me laugh or shake hands with him. Tonnerre, I say it is funny! And my Jeanne saved his life, and made him muffins, and gave him my own bed, and walked with him in the forest! Ah, the ungrateful cochon!" He turned, laughing openly, so that his deep voice filled the cabin. "Vous aves de la corde de pendu, m'sieu--yes, you are a lucky dog! For only one other man in the world would my Jeanne have done that. You are lucky because you were not ended behind the rock; you are lucky because you are not at the bottom of the river; you are lucky--" He shrugged his big shoulders hopelessly. "And now, after all our kindness and your good luck, you wait for me like an enemy, m'sieu. Diable, I can not understand!" For the life of him Carrigan could not, in these few moments, measure up his man. He had said nothing. He had let St. Pierre talk. And now St. Pierre stood there, one of the finest men he had ever looked upon, as if honestly overcome by a great wonder. And yet behind that apparent incredulity in his voice and manner David sensed the deep underflow of another thing. St. Pierre was all that Marie-Anne had claimed for him, and more. She had given him assurance of her unlimited confidence that her husband could adjust any situation in the world, and Carrigan conceded that St. Pierre measured up splendidly to that particular type of man. The smile had not left his face; the good humor was still in his eyes. David smiled back at him coldly. He recognized the cleverness of the other's play. St. Pierre was a man who would smile like that even as he fought, and Carrigan loved a smiling fighter, even when he had to slip steel bracelets over his wrists. "I am Sergeant Carrigan, of 'N' Division, Royal Northwest Mounted Police," he said, repeating the formula of the law. "Sit down, St. Pierre, and I will tell you a few things that have happened. And then--" "Non, non, it is not necessary, m'sieu. I have already listened for an hour, and I do not like to hear a story twice. You are of the Police. I love the Police. They are brave men, and brave men are my brothers. You are out after Roger Audemard, the rascal! Is it not so? And you were shot at behind the rock back there. You were almost killed. Ma foi, and it was my Jeanne who did the shooting! Yes, she thought you were another man." The chuckling, drum-like note of laughter came again out of St. Pierre's great chest. "It was bad shooting. I have taught her better, but the sun was blinding there in the hot, white sand. And after that--I know everything that has happened. Bateese was wrong. I shall scold him for wanting to put you at the bottom of the river--perhaps. Oui, ce que femme veut, Dieu le veut--that is it. A woman must have her way, and my Jeanne's gentle heart was touched because you were a brave and handsome man, M'sieu Carrigan. But I am not jealous. Jealousy is a worm that does not make friendship! And we shall be friends. Only as a friend could I take you to the Chateau Boulain, far up on the Yellowknife. And we are going there." In spite of what might have been the entirely proper thing to do at this particular moment, Carrigan's face broke into a smile as he drew a second chair up close to the table. He was swift to readjust himself. It came suddenly back to him how he had grinned behind the rock, when death seemed close at hand. And St. Pierre was like that now. David measured him again as the chief of the Boulains sat down opposite him. Such a man could not be afraid of anything on the face of the earth, even of the Law. The gleam that lay in his eyes told David that as they met his own over the table. "We are smiling now because it happens to please us," David read in them. "But in a moment, if it is necessary, we shall fight." Carrigan leaned a little over the table. "You know we are not going to the Chateau Boulain, St. Pierre," he said. "We are going to stop at Fort McMurray, and there you and your wife must answer for a number of things that have happened. There is one way out--possibly. That is largely up to you. Why did your wife try to kill me behind the rock? And what did you know about Black Roger Audemard?" St. Pierre's eyes did not for an instant leave Carrigan's face. Slowly a change came into them; the smile faded, the blue went out, and up from behind seemed to come another pair of eyes that were hard as steel and cold as ice. Yet they were not eyes that threatened, nor eyes that betrayed excitement or passion. And St. Pierre's voice, when he spoke, lacked the deep and vibrant note that had been in it. It was as if he had placed upon it the force of a mighty will, chaining it back, just as something hidden and terrible lay chained behind his eyes. "Why play like little children, M'sieu Carrigan?" he asked. "Why not come out squarely, honestly, like men? I know what has happened. Mon Dieu, it was bad! You were almost killed, and you heard that poor wreck, Andre, call for Roger Audemard. My Jeanne has told you about that--how I found him in the forest with his broken mind and body. And about my Jeanne--" St. Pierre's fists grew into knotted lumps on the table. "Non, I will die--I will kill you--before I will tell you why she shot at you behind the rock! We are men, both of us. We are not afraid. And you--in my place--what would YOU do, m'sieu?" In the moment's silence each man looked steadily at the other. "I would--fight," said David slowly. "If it was for her, I am pretty sure I would fight." He believed that he was drawing the net in now, that it would catch St. Pierre. He leaned a little farther over the table. "And I, too, must fight," he added. "You know our law, St. Pierre. We don't go back without our man--unless we happen to die. And I would be stupid if I did not understand the situation here. It would be quite easy for you to get rid of me. But I don't believe you are a murderer, even if your Jeanne tried to be." A flicker of a smile crossed his lips. "And Marie-Anne--I beg pardon!--your wife--" St. Pierre interrupted him. "It will please me to have you call her Marie-Anne. And it will please her also, m'sieu. Dieu, if we only had eyes that could see what is in a woman's heart! Life is funny, m'sieu. It is a great joke, I swear it on my soul!" He shrugged his shoulders, smiling again straight into David's eyes. "See what has happened! You set out for a murderer. My Jeanne makes a great mistake and shoots you. Then she pities you, saves your life, brings you here, and--ma foi! it is true--learns to care for you more than she should! But that does not make me want to kill you. Non, her happiness is mine. Dead men tell no tales, m'sieu, but there are times when living men also keep tales to themselves. And that is what you are going to do, M'sieu Carrigan. You are going to keep to yourself the thing that happened behind the rock. You are going to keep to yourself the mumblings of our poor mad Andre. Never will they pass your lips. I know. I swear it. I stake my life on it!" St. Pierre was talking slowly and unexcitedly. There was an immeasurable confidence in his deep voice. It did not imply a threat or a warning. He was sure of himself. And his eyes had deepened into blue again and were almost friendly. "You would stake your life?" repeated Carrigan questioningly. "You would do that?" St. Pierre rose to his feet and looked about the cabin with a shining light in his eyes that was both pride and exaltation. He moved toward the end of the room, where the piano stood, and for a moment his big fingers touched the keys; then, seeing the lacy bit of handkerchief that lay there, he picked it up--and placed it back again. Carrigan did not urge his question, but waited. In spite of his effort to fight it down he found himself in the grip of a mysterious and growing thrill as he watched St. Pierre. Never had the presence of another man had the same effect upon him, and strangely the thought came to him that he was matched--even overmatched. It was as if St. Pierre had brought with him into the cabin something more than the splendid strength of his body, a thing that reached out in the interval of silence between them, warning Carrigan that all the law in the world would not swerve the chief of the Boulains from what was already in his mind. For a moment the thought passed from David that fate had placed him up against the hazard of enmity with St. Pierre. His vision centered in the man alone. And as he, too, rose to his feet, an unconscious smile came to his lips as he recalled the boastings of Bateese. "I ask you," said he, "if you would really stake your life in a matter such as that? Of course, if your words were merely accidental, and meant nothing--" "If I had a dozen lives, I would stake them, one on top of the other, as I have said," interrupted St. Pierre. Suddenly his laugh boomed out and his voice became louder. "M'sieu Carrigan, I have come to offer you just that test! Oui, I could kill you now. I could put you at the bottom of the river, as Bateese thinks is right. Mon Dieu, how completely I could make you disappear! And then my Jeanne would be safe. She would not go behind prison bars. She would go on living, and laughing, and singing in the big forests, where she belongs. And Black Roger Audemard, the rascal, would be safe for a time! But that would be like destroying a little child. You are so helpless now. So you are going on to the Chateau Boulain with us, and if at the end of the second month from today you do not willingly say I have won my wager--why--m'sieu--I will go with you into the forest, and you may shoot out of me the life which is my end of the gamble. Is that not fair? Can you suggest a better way--between men like you and me?" "I can at least suggest a way that has the virtue of saving time," replied David. "First, however, I must understand my position here. I am, I take it, a prisoner." "A guest, with certain restrictions placed upon you, m'sieu," corrected St. Pierre. The eyes of the two men met on a dead level. "Tomorrow morning I am going to fight Bateese," said David. "It is a little sporting event we have fixed up between us for the amusement of--your men. I have heard that Bateese is the best fighting man along the Three Rivers. And I--I do not like to have any other man claim that distinction when I am around." For the first time St. Pierre's placidity seemed to leave him. His brow became clouded, a moment's frown grew in his face, and there was a certain disconsolate hopelessness in the shrug of his shoulders. It was as if Carrigan's words had suddenly robbed the day of all its sunshine for the chief of the Boulains. His voice, too, carried an unhappy and disappointed note as he made a gesture toward the window. "M'sieu, on that raft out there are many of my men, and they have scarcely rested or slept since word was brought to them that a stranger was to fight Concombre Bateese. Tonnerre, they have gambled without ever seeing you until the clothes on their backs are in the hazard, and they have cracked their muscles in labor to overtake you! They have prayed away their very souls that it would be a good fight, and that Bateese would not eat you up too quickly. It has been a long time since we have seen a good fight, a long time since the last man dared to stand up against the half-breed. Ugh, it tears out my heart to tell you that the fight can not be!" St. Pierre made no effort to suppress his emotion. He was like a huge, disappointed boy. He walked to the window, peered forth at the raft, and as he shrugged his big shoulders again something like a groan came from him. The thrill of approaching triumph swept through David's blood. The flame of it was in his eyes when St. Pierre turned from the window. "And you are disappointed, St. Pierre? You would like to see that fight!" The blue steel in St. Pierre's eyes flashed back. "If the price were a year of my life, I would give it--if Bateese did not eat you up too quickly. I love to look upon a good fight, where there is no venom of hatred in the blows!" "Then you shall see a good fight, St. Pierre." "Bateese would kill you, m'sieu. You are not big. You are not his match." "I shall whip him, St. Pierre--whip him until he avows me his master." "You do not know the half-breed, m'sieu. Twice I have tried him in friendly combat myself and have been beaten." "But I shall whip him," repeated Carrigan. "I will wager you anything--anything in the world--even life against life--that I whip him!" The gloom had faded from the face of St. Pierre Boulain. But in a moment it clouded again. "My Jeanne has made me promise that I will stop the fight," he said. "And why--why should she insist in a matter such as this, which properly should be settled among men?" asked David. Again St. Pierre laughed; with an effort, it seemed, "She is gentle-hearted, m'sieu. She laughed and thought it quite a joke when Bateese humbled me. 'What! My great St. Pierre, with the blood of old France in his veins, beaten by a man who has been named after a vegetable!' she cried. I tell you she was merry over it, m'sieu! She laughed until the tears came into her eyes. But with you it is different. She was white when she entreated me not to let you fight Bateese. Yes, she is afraid you will be badly hurt. And she does not want to see you hurt again. But I tell you that I am not jealous, m'sieu! She does not try to hide things from me. She tells me everything, like a little child. And so--" "I am going to fight Bateese," said David. He wondered if St. Pierre could hear the thumping of his heart, or if his face gave betrayal of the hot flood it was pumping through his body. "Bateese and I have pledged ourselves. We shall fight, unless you tie one of us hand and foot. And as for a wager--" "Yes--what have you to wager?" demanded St. Pierre eagerly. "You know the odds are great," temporized Carrigan. "That I concede, m'sieu." "But a fight without a wager would be like a pipe without tobacco, St. Pierre." "You speak truly, m'sieu." David came nearer and laid a hand on the other's arm. "St. Pierre, I hope you--and your Jeanne--will understand what I am about to offer. It is this. If Bateese whips me, I will disappear into the forests, and no word shall ever pass my lips of what has passed since that hour behind the rock--and this. No whisper of it will ever reach the Law. I will forget the attempted murder and the suspicious mumblings of your Broken Man. You will be safe. Your Jeanne will be safe--if Bateese whips me." He paused, and waited. St. Pierre made no answer, but amazement came into his face, and after that a slow and burning fire in his eyes which told how deeply and vitally Carrigan's words had struck into his soul. "And if I should happen to win," continued David, turning a bit carelessly toward the window, "why, I should expect as large a payment from you. If I win, your fulfillment of the wager will be to tell me in every detail why your wife tried to kill me behind the rock, and you will also tell me all that you know about the man I am after, Black Roger Audemard. That is all. I am asking for no odds, though you concede the handicap is great." He did not look at St. Pierre. Behind him he heard the other's deep breathing. For a space neither spoke. Outside they could hear the soft swish of water, the low voices of men in the stern, and a shout and the barking of a dog coming from the raft far out on the river. For David the moment was one of suspense. He turned again, a bit carelessly, as if his proposition were a matter of but little significance to him. St. Pierre was not looking at him. He was staring toward the door, as if through it he could see the powerful form of Bateese bending over the stern sweep. And Carrigan could see that his face was flaming with a great desire, and that the blood in his body was pounding to the mighty urge of it. Suddenly he faced Carrigan. "M'sieu, listen to me," he said. "You are a brave man. You are a man of honor, and I know you will bury sacredly in your heart what I am going to tell you now, and never let a word of it escape--even to my Jeanne. I do not blame you for loving her. Non! You could not help that. You have fought well to keep it within yourself, and for that I honor you. How do I know? Mon Dieu, she has told me! A woman's heart understands, and a woman's ears are quick to hear, m'sieu. When you were sick, and your mind was wandering, you told her again and again that you loved her--and when she brought you back to life, her eyes saw more than once the truth of what your lips had betrayed, though you tried to keep it to yourself. Even more, m'sieu--she felt the touch of your lips on her hair that day. She understands. She has told me everything, openly, innocently--yet her heart thrills with that sympathy of a woman who knows she is loved. M'sieu, if you could have seen the light in her eyes and the glow in her cheeks as she told me these secrets. But I am not jealous! Non! It is only because you are a brave man, and one of honor, that I tell you all this. She would die of shame did she know I had betrayed her confidence. Yet it is necessary that I tell you, because if we make the big wager we must drop my Jeanne from the gamble. Do you comprehend me, m'sieu? "We are two men, strong men, fighting men. I--Pierre Boulain--can not feel the shame of jealousy where a woman's heart is pure and sweet, and where a man has fought against love with honor as you have fought. And you, m'sieu--David Carrigan, of the Police--can not strike with your hard man's hand that tender heart, that is like a flower, and which this moment is beating faster than it should with the fear that some harm is going to befall you. Is it not so, m'sieu? We will make the wager, yes. But if you whip Bateese--and you can not do that in a hundred years of fighting--I will not tell you why my Jeanne shot at you behind the rock. Non, never! Yet I swear I will tell you the other. If you win, I will tell you all I know about Roger Audemard, and that is considerable, m'sieu. Do you agree?" Slowly David held out a hand. St. Pierre's gripped it. The fingers of the two men met like bands of steel. "Tomorrow you will fight," said St. Pierre. "You will fight and be beaten so terribly that you may always show the marks of it. I am sorry. Such a man as you I would rather have as a brother than an enemy. And she will never forgive me. She will always remember it. The thought will never die out of her heart that I was a beast to let you fight Bateese. But it is best for all. And my men? Ah! Diable, but it will be great sport for them, m'sieu!" His hand unclasped. He turned to the door. A moment later it closed behind him, and David was alone. He had not spoken. He had not replied to the engulfing truths that had fallen quietly and without a betrayal of passion from St. Pierre's lips. Inwardly he was crushed. Yet his face was like stone, hiding his shame. And then, suddenly, there came a sound from outside that sent the blood through his cold veins again. It was laughter, the great, booming laughter of St. Pierre! It was not the merriment of a man whose heart was bleeding, or into whose life had come an unexpected pain or grief. It was wild and free, and filled with the joy of the sun-filled day. And David, listening to it, felt something that was more than admiration for this man growing within him. And unconsciously his lips repeated St. Pierre's words. "Tomorrow--you will fight." XVII For many minutes David stood at the bateau window and watched the canoe that carried St. Pierre Boulain and the Broken Man back to the raft. It moved slowly, as if St. Pierre was loitering with a purpose and was thinking deeply of what had passed. Carrigan's fingers tightened, and his face grew tense, as he gazed out into the glow of the western sun. Now that the stress of nerve-breaking moments in the cabin was over, he no longer made an effort to preserve the veneer of coolness and decision with which he had encountered the chief of the Boulains. Deep in his soul he was crushed and humiliated. Every nerve in his body was bleeding. He had heard St. Pierre's big laugh a moment before, but it must have been the laugh of a man who was stabbed to the heart. And he was going back to Marie-Anne like that--drifting scarcely faster than the current that he might steal time to strengthen himself before he looked into her eyes again. David could see him, motionless, his giant shoulders hunched forward a little, his head bowed, and in the stern the Broken Man paddled listlessly, his eyes on the face of his master. Without voice David cursed himself. In his egoism he had told himself that he had made a splendid fight in resisting the temptation of a great love for the wife of St. Pierre. But what was his own struggle compared with this tragedy which St. Pierre was now facing? He turned from the window and looked about the cabin room again--the woman's room and St. Pierre's--and his face burned in its silent accusation. Like a living thing it painted another picture for him. For a space he lost his own identity. He saw himself in the place of St. Pierre. He was the husband of Marie-Anne, worshipping her even as St. Pierre must worship her, and he came, as St. Pierre had come, to find a stranger in his home, a stranger who had lain in his bed, a stranger whom his wife had nursed back to life, a stranger who had fallen in love with his most inviolable possession, who had told her of his love, who had kissed her, who had held her close, in his arms, whose presence had brought a warmer flush and a brighter glow into eyes and cheeks that until this stranger's coming had belonged only to him. And he heard her, as St. Pierre had heard her, pleading with him to keep this man from harm; he heard her soft voice, telling of the things that had passed between them, and he saw in her eyes-- With almost a cry he swept the thought and the picture from him. It was an atrocious thing to conceive, impossible of reality. And yet the truth would not go. What would he have done in St. Pierre's place? He went to the window again. Yes, St. Pierre was a bigger man than he. For St. Pierre had come quietly and calmly, offering a hand of friendship, generous, smiling, keeping his hurt to himself, while he, Dave Carrigan, would have come with the murder of man in his heart. His eyes passed from the canoe to the raft, and from the big raft to the hazy billows of green and golden forest that melted off into interminable miles of distance beyond the river. He knew that on the other side of him lay that same distance, north, east, south, and west, vast spaces in an unpeopled world, the same green and golden forests, ten thousand plains and rivers and lakes, a million hiding-places where romance and tragedy might remain forever undisturbed. The thought came to him that it would not be difficult to slip out into that world and disappear. He almost owed it to St. Pierre. It was the voice of Bateese in a snatch of wild and discordant song that brought him back into grim reality. There was, after all, that embarrassing matter of justice--and the accursed Law! After a little he observed that the canoe was moving faster, and that Andre's paddle was working steadily and with force. St. Pierre no longer sat hunched in the bow. His head was erect, and he was waving a hand in the direction of the raft. A figure had come from the cabin on the huge mass of floating timber. David caught the shimmer of a woman's dress, something white fluttering over her head, waving back at St. Pierre. It was Marie-Anne, and he moved away from the window. He wondered what was passing between St. Pierre and his wife in the hour that followed. The bateau kept abreast of the raft, moving neither faster nor slower than it did, and twice he surrendered to the desire to scan the deck of the floating timbers through his binoculars. But the cabin held St. Pierre and Marie-Anne, and he saw neither of them again until the sun was setting. Then St. Pierre came out--alone. Even at that distance over the broad river he heard the booming voice of the chief of the Boulains. Life sprang up where there had been the drowse of inactivity aboard the raft. A dozen more of the great sweeps were swiftly manned by men who appeared suddenly from the shaded places of canvas shelters and striped tents. A murmur of voices rose over the water, and then the murmur was broken by howls and shouts as the rivermen ran to their places at the command of St. Pierre's voice, and as the sweeps began to flash in the setting sun, it gave way entirely to the evening chant of the Paddling Song. David gripped himself as he listened and watched the slowly drifting glory of the world that came down to the shores of the river. He could see St. Pierre clearly, for the bateau had worked its way nearer. He could see the bare heads and naked arms of the rivermen at the sweeps. The sweet breath of the forests filled his lungs, as that picture lay before him, and there came into his soul a covetousness and a yearning where before there had been humiliation and the grim urge of duty. He could breathe the air of that world, he could look at its beauty, he could worship it--and yet he knew that he was not a part of it as those others were a part of it. He envied the men at the sweeps; he felt his heart swelling at the exultation and joy in their song. They were going home--home down the big rivers, home to the heart of God's Country, where wives and sweethearts and happiness were waiting for them, and their visions were his visions as he stared wide-eyed and motionless over the river. And yet he was irrevocably an alien. He was more than that--an enemy, a man-hound sent out on a trail to destroy, an agent of a powerful and merciless force that carried with it punishment and death. The crew of the bateau had joined in the evening song of the rivermen on the raft, and over the ridges and hollows of the forest tops, red and green and gold in the last warm glory of the sun, echoed that chanting voice of men. David understood now what St. Pierre's command had been. The huge raft with its tented city of life was preparing to tie up for the night. A quarter of a mile ahead the river widened, so that on the far side was a low, clean shore toward which the efforts of the men at the sweeps were slowly edging the raft. York boats shot out on the shore side and dropped anchors that helped drag the big craft in. Two others tugged at tow-lines fastened to the shoreside bow, and within twenty minutes the first men were plunging up out of the water on the white strip of beach and were whipping the tie-lines about the nearest trees. David unconsciously was smiling in the thrill and triumph of these last moments, and not until they were over did he sense the fact that Bateese and his crew were bringing the bateau in to the opposite shore. Before the sun was quite down, both raft and house-boat were anchored for the night. As the shadows of the distant forests deepened, Carrigan felt impending about him an oppression of emptiness and loneliness which he had not experienced before. He was disappointed that the bateau had not tied up with the raft. Already he could see men building fires. Spirals of smoke began to rise from the shore, and he knew that the riverman's happiest of all hours, supper time, was close at hand. He looked at his watch. It was after seven o'clock. Then he watched the fading away of the sun until only the red glow of it remained in the west, and against the still thicker shadows the fires of the rivermen threw up yellow flames. On his own side, Bateese and the bateau crew were preparing their meal. It was eight o'clock when a man he had not seen before brought in his supper. He ate, scarcely sensing the taste of his food, and half an hour later the man reappeared for the dishes. It was not quite dark when he returned to his window, but the far shore was only an indistinct blur of gloom. The fires were brighter. One of them, built solely because of the rivermen's inherent love of light and cheer, threw the blaze of its flaming logs twenty feet into the air. He wondered what Marie-Anne was doing in this hour. Last night they had been together. He had marveled at the witchery of the moonlight in her hair and eyes, he had told her of the beauty of it, she had smiled, she had laughed softly with him--for hours they had sat in the spell of the golden night and the glory of the river. And tonight--now--was she with St. Pierre, waiting as they had waited last night for the rising of the moon? Had she forgotten? COULD she forget? Or was she, as he thought St. Pierre had painfully tried to make him believe, innocent of all the thoughts and desires that had come to him, as he sat worshipping her in their stolen hours? He could think of them only as stolen, for he did not believe Marie-Anne had revealed to her husband all she might have told him. He was sure he would never see her again as he had seen her then, and something of bitterness rose in him as he thought of that. St. Pierre, could he have seen her face and eyes when he told her that her hair in the moonlight was lovelier than anything he had ever seen, would have throttled him with his naked hands in that meeting in the cabin. For St. Pierre's code would not have had her eyes droop under their long lashes or her cheeks flush so warmly at the words of another man--and he could not take vengeance on the woman herself. No, she had not told St. Pierre all she might have told! There were things which she must have kept to herself, which she dared not reveal even to this great-hearted man who was her husband. Shame, if nothing more, had kept her silent. Did she feel that shame as he was feeling it? It was inconceivable to think otherwise. And for that reason, more than all others, he knew that she would not meet him face to face again--unless he forced that meeting. And there was little chance of that, for his pledge with St. Pierre had eliminated her from the aftermath of tomorrow's drama, his fight with Bateese. Only when St. Pierre might stand in a court of law would there be a possibility of her eyes meeting his own again, and then they would flame with the hatred that at another time had been in the eyes of Carmin Fanchet. With the dull stab of a thing that of late had been growing inside him, he wondered what had happened to Carmin Fanchet in the years that had gone since he had brought about the hanging of her brother. Last night and the night before, strange dreams of her had come to him in restless slumber. It was disturbing to him that he should wake up in the middle of the night dreaming of her, when he had gone to his bed with a mind filled to overflowing with the sweet presence of Marie-Anne Boulain. And now his mind reached out poignantly into mysterious darkness and doubt, even as the darkness of night spread itself in a thickening canopy over the river. Gray clouds had followed the sun of a faultless day, and the stars were veiled overhead. When David turned from the window, it was so dark in the cabin that he could not see. He did not light the lamps, but made his way to St. Pierre's couch and sat down in the silence and gloom. Through the open windows came to him the cadence of the river and the forests. There was silence of human voice ashore, but under him he heard the lapping murmur of water as it rustled under the stern and side of the bateau, and from the deep timber came the never-ceasing whisper of the spruce and cedar tops, and the subdued voice of creatures whose hours of activity had come with the dying out of the sun. For a long time he sat in this darkness. And then there came to him a sound that was different than the other sounds--a low monotone of voices, the dipping of a paddle--and a canoe passed close under his windows and up the shore. He paid small attention to it until, a little later, the canoe returned, and its occupants boarded the bateau. It would have roused little interest in him then had he not heard a voice that was thrillingly like the voice of a woman. He drew his hunched shoulders erect and stared through the darkness toward the door. A moment more and there was no doubt. It was almost shock that sent the blood leaping suddenly through his veins. The inconceivable had happened. It was Marie-Anne out there, talking in a low voice to Bateese! Then there came a heavy knock at his door, and he heard the door open. Through it he saw the grayer gloom of the outside night partly shut out a heavy shadow. "M'sieu!" called the voice of Bateese. "I am here," said David. "You have not gone to bed, m'sieu?" "No." The heavy shadow seemed to fade away, and yet there still remained a shadow there. David's heart thumped as he noted the slenderness of it. For a space there was silence. And then, "Will you light the lamps, M'sieu David?" a soft voice came to him. "I want to come in, and I am afraid of this terrible darkness!" He rose to his feet, fumbling in his pocket for matches. XVIII He did not turn toward Marie-Anne when he had lighted the first of the great brass lamps hanging at the side of the bateau. He went to the second, and struck another match, and flooded the cabin with light. She still stood silhouetted against the darkness beyond the cabin door when he faced her. She was watching him, her eyes intent, her face a little pale, he thought. Then he smiled and nodded. He could not see a great change in her since this afternoon, except that there seemed to be a little more fire in the glow of her eyes. They were looking at him steadily as she smiled and nodded, wide, beautiful eyes in which there was surely no revelation of shame or regret, and no very clear evidence of unhappiness. David stared, and his tongue clove to the roof of his mouth. "Why is it that you sit in darkness?" she asked, stepping within and closing the door. "Did you not expect me to return and apologize for leaving you so suddenly this afternoon? It was impolite. Afterward I was ashamed. But I was excited, M'sieu David. I--" "Of course," he hurried to interrupt her. "I understand. St. Pierre is a lucky man. I congratulate you--as well as him. He is splendid, a man in whom you can place great faith and confidence." "He scolded me for running away from you as I did, M'sieu David. He said I should have shown better courtesy than to leave like that one who was a guest in our--home. So I have returned, like a good child, to make amends." "It was not necessary." "But you were lonesome and in darkness!" He nodded. "Yes." "And besides," she added, so quietly and calmly that he was amazed, "you know my sleeping apartment is also on the bateau. And St. Pierre made me promise to say good night to you." "It is an imposition," cried David, the blood rushing to his face. "You have given up all this to me! Why not let me go into that little room forward, or sleep on the raft and you and St. Pierre--" "St. Pierre would not leave the raft," replied Marie-Anne, turning from him toward the table on which were the books and magazines and her work-basket. "And I like my little room forward." "St. Pierre--" He stopped himself. He could see a sudden color deepening in the cheek of St. Pierre's wife as she made pretense of looking for something in her basket. He felt that if he went on he would blunder, if he had not already blundered. He was uncomfortable, for he believed he had guessed the truth. It was not quite reasonable to expect that Marie-Anne would come to him like this on the first night of St. Pierre's homecoming. Something had happened over in the little cabin on the raft, he told himself. Perhaps there had been a quarrel--at least ironical implications on St. Pierre's part. And his sympathy was with St. Pierre. He caught suddenly a little tremble at the corner of Marie-Anne's mouth as her face was turned partly from him, and he stepped to the opposite side of the table so he could look at her fairly. If there had been unpleasantness in the cabin on the raft, St. Pierre's wife in no way gave evidence of it. The color had deepened to almost a blush in her cheeks, but it was not on account of embarrassment, for one who is embarrassed is not usually amused, and as she looked up at him her eyes were filled with the flash of laughter which he had caught her lips struggling to restrain. Then, finding a bit of lace work with the needles meshed in it, she seated herself, and again he was looking down on the droop of her long lashes and the seductive glow of her lustrous hair. Yesterday, in a moment of irresistible impulse, he had told her how lovely it was as she had dressed it, a bewitching crown of interwoven coils, not drawn tightly, but crumpled and soft, as if the mass of tresses were openly rebelling at closer confinement. She had told him the effect was entirely accidental, largely due to carelessness and haste in dressing it. Accidental or otherwise, it was the same tonight, and in the heart of it were the drooping red petals of a flower she had gathered with him early that afternoon. "St. Pierre brought me over," she said in a calmly matter-of-fact voice, as though she had expected David to know that from the beginning. "He is ashore talking over important matters with Bateese. I am sure he will drop in and say good night before he returns to the raft. He asked me to wait for him--here." She raised her eyes, so clear and untroubled, so quietly unembarrassed under his gaze, that he would have staked his life she had no suspicion of the confessions which St. Pierre had revealed to him. "Do you care? Would you rather put out the lights and go to bed?" He shook his head. "No. I am glad. I was beastly lonesome. I had an idea--" He was on the point of blundering again when he caught himself. The effect of her so near him was more than ever disturbing, in spite of St. Pierre. Her eyes, clear and steady, yet soft as velvet when they looked at him, made his tongue and his thoughts dangerously uncertain. "You had an idea, M'sieu David?" "That you would have no desire to see me again after my talk with St. Pierre," he said. "Did he tell you about it?" "He said you were very fine, M'sieu David--and that he liked you." "And he told you it is determined that I shall fight Bateese in the morning?" "Yes." The one word was spoken with a quiet lack of excitement, even of interest--it seemed to belie some of the things St. Pierre had told him, and he could scarcely believe, looking at her now, that she had entreated her husband to prevent the encounter, or that she had betrayed any unusual emotion in the matter at all. "I was afraid you would object," he could not keep from saying. "It does not seem nice to pull off such a thing as that, when there is a lady about--" "Or LADIES." She caught him up quickly, and he saw a sudden little tightening of her pretty mouth as she turned her eyes to the bit of lace work again. "But I do not object, because what St. Pierre says is right--must be right." And the softness, he thought, went altogether out of the curve of her lips for an instant. In a flash their momentary betrayal of vexation was gone, and St. Pierre's wife had replaced the work-basket on the table and was on her feet, smiling at him. There was something of wild daring in her eyes, something that made him think of the glory of adventure he had seen flaming in her face the night they had run the rapids of the Holy Ghost. "Tomorrow will be very unpleasant, M'sieu David," she cried softly. "Bateese will beat you--terribly. Tonight we must think of things more agreeable." He had never seen her more radiant than when she turned toward the piano. What the deuce did it mean? Had St. Pierre been making a fool of him? She actually appeared unable to restrain her elation at the thought that Bateese would surely beat him up! He stood without moving and made no effort to answer her. Just before they had started on that thrilling adventure into the forest, which had ended with his carrying her in his arms, she had gone to the piano and had played for him. Now her fingers touched softly the same notes. A little humming trill came in her throat, and it seemed to David that she was deliberately recalling his thoughts to the things that had happened before the coming of St. Pierre. He had not lighted the lamp over the piano, and for a flash her dark eyes smiled at him out of the half shadow. After a moment she began to sing. Her voice was low and without effort, untrained, and subdued as if conscious and afraid of its limitations, yet so exquisitely sweet that to David it was a new and still more wonderful revelation of St. Pierre's wife. He drew nearer, until he stood close at her side, the dark luster of her hair almost touching his arm, her partly upturned face a bewitching profile in the shadows. Her voice grew lower, almost a whisper in its melody, as if meant for him alone. Many times he had heard the Canadian Boat Song, but never as its words came now from the lips of Marie-Anne Boulain. "Faintly as tolls the evening chime, Our voices keep tune, and our oars keep time. Soon as the woods on shore look dim, We'll sing at St. Ann's our parting hymn; Row, brothers, row, the stream runs fast, The rapids are near, and the daylight's past." She paused. And David, staring down at her shining head, did not speak. Her fingers trembled over the keys, he could see dimly the shadow of her long lashes, and the spirit-like scent of crushed violets rose to him from the soft lace about her throat and her hair. "It is your music," he whispered. "I have never heard the Boat Song like that!" He tried to drag his eyes from her face and hair, sensing that he was a near-criminal, fighting a mighty impulse. The notes under her fingers changed, and again--by chance or design--she was stabbing at him; bringing him face to face with the weakness of his flesh, the iniquity of his desire to reach out his arms and crumple her in them. Yet she did not look up, she did not see him, as she began to sing "Ave Maria." "Ave, Maria, hear my cry! O, guide my path where no harm, no harm is nigh--" As she went on, he knew she had forgotten to think of him. With the reverence of a prayer the holy words came from her lips, slowly, softly, trembling with a pathos and sweetness that told David they came not alone from the lips, but from the very soul of St. Pierre's wife. And then-- "Oh, Mother, hear me where thou art, And guard and guide my aching heart, my aching heart!" The last words drifted away into a whisper, and David was glad that he was not looking into the face of St. Pierre's wife, for there must have been something there now which it would have been sacrilege for him to stare at, as he was staring at her hair. No sound of opening door had come from behind them. Yet St. Pierre had opened it and stood there, watching them with a curious humor in eyes that seemed still to hold a glitter of the fire that had leaped from the half-breed's flaming birch logs. His voice was a shock to Carrigan. "PESTE, but you are a gloomy pair!" he boomed. "Why no light over there in the corner, and why sing that death-song to chase away the devil when there is no devil near?" Guilt was in David's heart, but there was no sting of venom in St. Pierre's words, and he was laughing at them now, as though what he saw were a pretty joke and amused him. "Late hours and shady bowers! I say it should be a love song or something livelier," he cried, closing the door behind him and coming toward them. "Why not En Roulant ma Boule, my sweet Jeanne? You know that is my favorite." He suddenly interrupted himself, and his voice rolled out in a wild chant that rocked the cabin. "The wind is fresh, the wind is free, En roulant ma boule! The wind is fresh--my love waits me, Rouli, roulant, ma boule roulant! Behind our house a spring you see, In it three ducks swim merrily, And hunting, the Prince's son went he, With a silver gun right fair to see--" David was conscious that St. Pierre's wife had risen to her feet, and now she came out of shadow into light, and he was amazed to see that she was laughing back at St. Pierre, and that her two fore-fingers were thrust in her ears to keep out the bellow of her husband's voice. She was not at all discomfited by his unexpected appearance, but rather seemed to join in the humor of the thing with St. Pierre, though he fancied he could see something in her face that was forced and uneasy. He believed that under the surface of her composure she was suffering a distress which she did not reveal. St. Pierre advanced and carelessly patted her shoulder with one of his big hands, while he spoke to David. "Has she not the sweetest voice in the world, m'sieu? Did you ever hear a sweeter or as sweet? I say it is enough to get down into the soul of a man, unless he is already half dead! That voice--" He caught Marie-Anne's eyes. Her cheeks were flaming. Her look, for an instant, flashed lightning as she halted him. "Ma foi, I speak it from the heart," he persisted, with a shrug of his shoulders. "Am I not right, M'sieu Carrigan? Did you ever hear a sweeter voice?" "It is wonderful," agreed David, wondering if he was hazarding too much. "Good! It fills me with happiness to know I am right. And now, cherie, good-night! I must return to the raft." A shadow of vexation crossed Marie-Anne's face. "You seem in great haste." "Plagues and pests! You are right, Pretty Voice! I am most anxious to get back to my troubles there, and you--" "Will also bid M'sieu Carrigan good-night," she quickly interrupted him. "You will at least see me to my room, St. Pierre, and safely put away for the night." She held out her hand to David. There was not a tremor in it as it lay for an instant soft and warm in his own. She made no effort to withdraw it quickly, nor did her eyes hide their softness as they looked into his own. Mutely David stood as they went out. He heard St. Pierre's loud voice rumbling about the darkness of the night. He heard them pass along the side of the bateau forward, and half a minute later he knew that St. Pierre was getting into his canoe. The dip of a paddle came to him. For a space there was silence, and then, from far out in the black shadow of the river, rolled back the great voice of St. Pierre Boulain singing the wild river chant, "En Roulant ma Boule." At the open window he listened. It seemed to him that from far over the river, where the giant raft lay, there came a faint answer to the words of the song, XIX With the slow approach of the storm which was advancing over the wilderness, Carrigan felt more poignantly the growing unrest that was in him. He heard the last of St. Pierre's voice, and after that the fires on the distant shore died out slowly, giving way to utter blackness. Faintly there came to him the far-away rumbling of thunder. The air grew heavy and thick, and there was no sound of night-bird over the breast of the river, and out of the thick cedar and spruce and balsam there came no cry or whisper of the nocturnal life waiting in silence for the storm to break. In that stillness David put out the lights in the cabin and sat close to the window in darkness. He was more than sleepless. Every nerve in his body demanded action, and his brain was fired by strange thoughts until their vividness seemed to bring him face to face with a reality that set his blood stirring with an irresistible thrill. He believed he had made a discovery, that St. Pierre had betrayed himself. What he had visioned, the conclusion he had arrived at, seemed inconceivable, yet what his own eyes had seen and his ears had heard pointed to the truth of it all. The least he could say was that St. Pierre's love for Marie-Anne Boulain was a strange sort of love. His attitude toward her seemed more like that of a man in the presence of a child of whom he was fond in a fatherly sort of way. His affection, as he had expressed it, was parental and careless. Not for an instant had there been in it a betrayal of the lover, no suggestion of the husband who cared deeply or who might be made jealous by another man. Sitting in darkness thickening with the nearer approach of storm, David recalled the stab of pain mingled with humiliation that had come into the eyes of St. Pierre's wife when she had stood facing her husband. He heard again, with a new understanding, the low note of pathos in her voice as in song she had called upon the Mother of Christ to hear her--and help her. He had not guessed at the tragedy of it then. Now he knew, and he thought of her lying awake in the gloom beyond the bulkhead, her eyes were with tears. And St. Pierre had gone back to his raft, singing in the night! Where before there had been sympathy for him, there rose a sincere revulsion. There had been a reason for St. Pierre's masterly possession of himself, and it had not been, as he had thought, because of his bigness of soul. It was because he had not cared. He was a splendid hypocrite, playing his game well at the beginning, but betraying the lie at the end. He did not love Marie-Anne as he, Dave Carrigan, loved her. He had spoken of her as a child, and he had treated her as a child, and was serenely dispassionate in the face of a situation which would have roused the spirit in most men. And suddenly, recalling that thrilling hour in the white strip of sand and all that had happened since, it flashed upon David that St. Pierre was using his wife as the vital moving force in a game of his own--that under the masquerade of his apparent faith and bigness of character he was sacrificing her to achieve a certain mysterious something it the scheme of his own affairs. Yet he could not forget the infinite faith Marie-Anne Boulain had expressed in her husband. There had been no hypocrisy in her waiting and her watching for him, or in her belief that he would straighten out the tangles of the dilemma in which she had become involved. Nor had there been make-believe in the manner she had left him that day in her eagerness to go to St. Pierre. Adding these facts as he had added the others, he fancied he saw the truth staring at him out of the darkness of his cabin room. Marie-Anne loved her husband. And St. Pierre was merely the possessor, careless and indifferent, almost brutally dispassionate in his consideration of her. A heavy crash of thunder brought Carrigan back to a realization of the impending storm. He rose to his feet in the chaotic gloom, facing the bulkhead beyond which he was certain St. Pierre's wife lay wide awake. He tried to laugh. It was inexcusable, he told himself, to let his thoughts become involved in the family affairs of St. Pierre and Marie-Anne. That was not his business. Marie-Anne, in the final analysis, did not appear to be especially abused, and her mind was not a child's mind. Probably she would not thank him for his interest in the matter. She would tell him, like any other woman with pride, that it was none of his business and that he was presuming upon forbidden ground. He went to the window. There was scarcely a breath of air, and unfastening the screen, he thrust out his head and shoulders into the night. It was so black that he could not see the shadow of the water almost within reach of his hands, but through the chaos of gloom that lay between him and the opposite shore he made out a single point of yellow light. He was positive the light was in the cabin on the raft. And St. Pierre was probably in that cabin. A huge drop of rain splashed on his hand, and behind him he heard sweeping over the forest tops the quickening march of the deluge. There was no crash of thunder or flash of lightning when it broke. Straight down, in an inundation, it came out of a sky thick enough to slit with a knife. Carrigan drew in his head and shoulders and sniffed the sweet freshness of it. He tried again to make out the light on the raft, but it was obliterated. Mechanically he began taking off his clothes, and in a few moments he stood again at the window, naked. Thunder and lightning had caught up with the rain, and in the flashes of fire Carrigan's ghost-white face stared in the direction of the raft. In his veins was at work an insistent and impelling desire. Over there was St. Pierre, he was undoubtedly in the cabin, and something might happen if he, Dave Carrigan, took advantage of storm and gloom to go to the raft. It was almost a presentiment that drew his bare head and shoulders out through the window, and every hunting instinct in him urged him to the adventure. The stygian darkness was torn again by a flash of fire. In it he saw the river and the vivid silhouette of the distant shore. It would not be a difficult swim, and it would be good training for tomorrow. Like a badger worming his way out of a hole a bit too small for him, Carrigan drew himself through the window. A lightning flash caught him at the edge of the bateau, and he slunk back quickly against the cabin, with the thought that other eyes might be staring out into that same darkness. In the pitch gloom that followed he lowered himself quietly into the river, thrust himself under water, and struck out for the opposite shore. When he came to the surface again it was in the glare of another lightning flash. He flung the water from his face, chose a point several hundred yards above the raft, and with quick, powerful strokes set out in its direction. For ten minutes he quartered the current without raising his head. Then he paused, floating unresistingly with the slow sweep of the river, and waited for another illumination. When it came, he made out the tented raft scarcely a hundred yards away and a little below him. In the next darkness he found the edge of it and dragged himself up on the mass of timbers. The thunder had been rolling steadily westward, and David crouched low, hoping for one more flash to illumine the raft. It came at last from a mass of inky cloud far to the west, so indistinct that it made only dim shadows out of the tents and shelters, but it was sufficient to give him direction. Before its faint glare died out, he saw the deeper shadow of the cabin forward. For many minutes he lay where he had dragged himself, without making a movement in its direction. Nowhere about him could he see a sign of light, nor could he hear any sound of life. St. Pierre's people were evidently deep in slumber. Carrigan had no very definite idea of the next step in his adventure. He had swum from the bateau largely under impulse, with no preconceived scheme of action, urged chiefly by the hope that he would find St. Pierre in the cabin and that something might come of it. As for knocking at the door and rousing the chief of the Boulains from sleep--he had at the present moment no very good excuse for that. No sooner had the thought and its objection come to him than a broad shaft of light shot with startling suddenness athwart the blackness of the raft, darkened in another instant by an obscuring shadow. Swift as the light itself David's eyes turned to the source of the unexpected illumination. The door of St. Pierre's cabin was wide open. The interior was flooded with lampglow, and in the doorway stood St. Pierre himself. The chief of the Boulains seemed to be measuring the weather possibilities of the night. His subdued voice reached David, chuckling with satisfaction, as he spoke to some one who was behind him in the cabin. "Pitch and brimstone, but it's black!" he cried. "You could carve it with a knife, and stand it on end, AMANTE. But it's going west. In a few hours the stars will be out." He drew back into the cabin, and the door closed. David held his breath in amazement, staring at the blackness where a moment before the light had been. Who was it St. Pierre had called sweetheart? AMANTE! He could not have been mistaken. The word had come to him clearly, and there was but one guess to make. Marie-Anne was not on the bateau. She had played him for a fool, had completely hoodwinked him in her plot with St. Pierre. They were cleverer than he had supposed, and in darkness she had rejoined her husband on the raft! But why that senseless play of falsehood? What could be their object in wanting him to believe she was still aboard the bateau? He stood up on his feet and mopped the warm rain from his face, while the gloom hid the grim smile that came slowly to his lips. Close upon the thrill of his astonishment he felt a new stir in his blood which added impetus to his determination and his action. He was not disgusted with himself, nor was he embittered by what he had thought of a moment ago as the lying hypocrisy of his captors. To be beaten in his game of man-hunting was sometimes to be expected, and Carrigan always gave proper credit to the winners. It was also "good medicine" to know that Marie-Anne, instead of being an unhappy and neglected wife, had blinded him with an exquisitely clever simulation. Just why she had done it, and why St. Pierre had played his masquerade, it was his duty now to find out. An hour ago he would have cut off a hand before spying upon St. Pierre's wife or eavesdropping under her window. Now he felt no uneasiness of conscience as he approached the cabin, for Marie-Anne herself had destroyed all reason for any delicate discrimination on his part. The rain had almost stopped, and in one of the near tents he heard a sleepy voice. But he had no fear of chance discovery. The night would remain dark for a long time, and in his bare feet he made no sound the sharpest ears of a dog ten feet away might have heard. Close to the cabin door, yet in such a way that the sudden opening of it would not reveal him, he paused and listened. Distinctly he heard St. Pierre's voice, but not the words. A moment later came the soft, joyous laughter of a woman, and for an instant a hand seemed to grip David's heart, filling it with pain. There was no unhappiness in that laughter. It seemed, instead, to tremble in an exultation of gladness. Suddenly St. Pierre came nearer the door, and his voice was more distinct. "Chere-coeur, I tell you it is the greatest joke of my life," he heard him say. "We are safe. If it should come to the worst, we can settle the matter in another way. I can not but sing and laugh, even in the face of it all. And she, in that very innocence which amuses me so, has no suspicion--" He turned, and vainly David keyed his ears to catch the final words. The voices in the cabin grew lower. Twice he heard the soft laughter of the woman. St. Pierre's voice, when he spoke, was unintelligible. The thought that his random adventure was bringing him to an important discovery possessed Carrigan. St. Pierre, he believed, had been on the very edge of disclosing something which he would have given a great deal to know. Surely in this cabin there must be a window, and the window would be open-- Quietly he felt his way through the darkness to the shore side of the cabin. A narrow bar of light at least partly confirmed his judgment. There was a window. But it was almost entirely curtained, and it was closed. Had the curtain been drawn two inches lower, the thin stream of light would have been shut entirely out from the night. Under this window David crouched for several minutes, hoping that in the calm which was succeeding the storm it might be opened. The voices were still more indistinct inside. He scarcely heard St. Pierre, but twice again he heard the low and musical laughter of the woman. She had laughed differently with HIM--and the grim smile settled on his lips as he looked up at the narrow slit of light over his head. He had an overwhelming desire to look in. After all, it was a matter of professional business--and his duty. He was glad the curtain was drawn so low. From experiments of his own he knew there was small chance of those inside seeing him through the two-inch slit, and he raised himself boldly until his eyes were on a level with the aperture. Directly in the line of his vision was St. Pierre's wife. She was seated, and her back was toward him, so he could not see her face. She was partly disrobed, and her hair was streaming loose about her. Once, he remembered, she had spoken of fiery lights that came into her hair under certain illumination. He had seen them in the sun, but never as they revealed themselves now in that cabin lamp glow. He scarcely looked at St. Pierre, who was on his feet, looking down upon her--not until St. Pierre reached out and crumpled the smothering mass of glowing tresses in his big hands, and laughed. It was a laugh filled with the unutterable joy of possession. The woman rose to her feet. Up through her hair went her two white, bare arms, encircling St. Pierre's neck. The giant drew her close. Her slim form seemed to melt in his, and their lips met. And then the woman threw back her head, laughing, so that her glory of hair fell straight down, and she was out of reach of St. Pierre's lips. They turned. Her face fronted the window, and out in the night Carrigan stifled a cry that almost broke from his lips. For a flash he was looking straight into her eyes. Her parted lips seemed smiling at him; her white throat and bosom were bared to him. He dropped down, his heart choking him as he stumbled through the darkness to the edge of the raft. There, with the lap of the water at his feet, he paused. It was hard for him to get Breath. He stared through the gloom in the direction of the bateau. Marie-Anne Boulain, the woman he loved, was there! In her little cabin, alone, on the bateau, was St. Pierre's wife, her heart crushed. And in this cabin on the raft, forgetful of her degradation and her grief, was the vilest wretch he had ever known--St. Pierre Boulain. And with him, giving herself into his arms, caressing him with her lips and hair, was the sister of the man he had helped to hang--CARMIN FANCHET! XX The shock of the amazing discovery which Carrigan had made was as complete as it was unexpected. His eyes had looked upon the last thing in the world he might have guessed at or anticipated when they beheld through the window of St. Pierre's cabin the beautiful face and partly disrobed figure of Carmin Fanchet. The first effect of that shock had been to drive him away. His action had been involuntary, almost without the benefit of reason, as if Carmin had been Marie-Anne herself receiving the caresses which were rightfully hers, and upon which it was both insult and dishonor for him to spy. He realized now that he had made a mistake in leaving the window too quickly. But he did not move back through the gloom, for there was something too revolting in what he had seen, and with the revulsion of it a swift understanding of the truth which made his hands clench as he sat down on the edge of the raft with his feet and legs submerged in the slow-moving current of the river. The thing was not uncommon. It was the same monstrous story, as old as the river itself, but in this instance it filled him with a sickening sort of horror which gripped him at first even more than the strangeness of the fact that Carmin Fanchet was the other woman. His vision and his soul were reaching out to the bateau lying in darkness on the far side of the river, where St. Pierre's wife was alone in her unhappiness. His first impulse was to fling himself in the river and race to her--his second, to go back to St. Pierre, even in his nakedness, and call him forth to a reckoning. In his profession of man-hunting he had never had the misfortune to kill, but he could kill St. Pierre--now. His fingers dug into the slippery wood of the log under him, his blood ran hot, and in his eyes blazed the fury of an animal as he stared into the wall of gloom between him and Marie-Anne Boulain. How much did she know? That was the first question which pounded in his brain. He suddenly recalled his reference to the fight, his apology to Marie-Anne that it should happen so near to her presence, and he saw again the queer little twist of her mouth as she let slip the hint that she was not the only one of her sex who would know of tomorrow's fight. He had not noticed the significance of it then. But now it struck home. Marie-Anne was surely aware of Carmin Fanchet's presence on the raft. But did she know more than that? Did she know the truth, or was her heart filled only with suspicion and fear, aggravated by St. Pierre's neglect and his too-apparent haste to return to the raft that night? Again David's mind flashed back, recalling her defense of Carmin Fanchet when he had first told her his story of the woman whose brother he had brought to the hangman's justice. There could be but one conclusion. Marie-Anne knew Carmin Fanchet, and she also knew she was on the raft with St. Pierre. As cooler judgment returned to him, Carrigan refused to concede more than that. For any one of a dozen reasons Carmin Fanchet might be on the raft going down the river, and it was also quite within reason that Marie-Anne might have some apprehension of a woman as beautiful as Carmin, and possibly intuition had begun to impinge upon her a disturbing fear of a something that might happen. But until tonight he was confident she had fought against this suspicion, and had overridden it, even though she knew a woman more beautiful than herself was slowly drifting down the stream with her husband. She had betrayed no anxiety to him in the days that had passed; she had waited eagerly for St. Pierre; like a bird she had gone to him when at last he came, and he had seen her crushed close in St. Pierre's arms in their meeting. It was this night, with its gloom and its storm, that had made the shadowings of her unrest a torturing reality. For St. Pierre had brought her back to the bateau and had played a pitiably weak part in concealing his desire to return to the raft. So he told himself Marie-Anne did not know the truth, not as he had seen it through the window of St. Pierre's cabin. She had been hurt, for he had seen the sting of it, and in that same instant he had seen her soul rise up and triumph. He saw again the sudden fire that came into her eyes when St. Pierre urged the necessity of his haste, he saw her slim body grow tense, her red lips curve in a flash of pride and disdain. And as Carrigan thought of her in that way his muscles grew tighter, and he cursed St. Pierre. Marie-Anne might be hurt, she might guess that her husband's eyes and thoughts were too frequently upon another's face--but in the glory of her womanhood it was impossible for her to conceive of a crime such as he had witnessed through the cabin window. Of that he was sure. And then, suddenly, like a blinding sheet of lightning out of a dark sky, came back to him all that St. Pierre had said about Marie-Anne. He had pitied St. Pierre then; he had pitied this great cool-eyed giant of a man who was fighting gloriously, he had thought, in the face of a situation that would have excited most men. Frankly St. Pierre had told him Marie-Anne cared more for him than she should. With equal frankness he had revealed his wife's confessions to him, that she knew of his love for her, of his kiss upon her hair. In the blackness Carrigan's face burned hot. If he had in him the desire to kill St. Pierre now, might not St. Pierre have had an equally just desire to kill him? For he had known, even as he kissed her hair, and as his arms held her close to his breast in crossing the creek, that she was the wife of St. Pierre. And Marie-Anne-- His muscles relaxed. Slowly he lowered himself into the cool wash of the river, and struck out toward the bateau. He did not breast the current with the same fierce determination with which he had crossed through the storm to the raft, but drifted with it and reached the opposite shore a quarter of a mile below the bateau. Here he waited for a time, while the thickness of the clouds broke, and a gray light came through them, revealing dimly the narrow path of pebbly wash along the shore. Silently, a stark naked shadow in the night, he came back to the bateau and crawled through his window. He lighted a lamp, and turned it very low, and in the dim glow of it rubbed his muscles until they burned. He was fit for tomorrow, and the knowledge of that fitness filled him with a savage elation. A good-humored love of sport had induced him to fling his first half-bantering challenge into the face of Concombre Bateese, but that sentiment was gone. The approaching fight was no longer an incident, a foolish error into which he had unwittingly plunged himself. In this hour it was the biggest physical thing that had ever loomed up in his life, and he yearned for the dawn with the eagerness of a beast that waits for the kill which comes with the break of day. But it was not the half-breed's face he saw under the hammering of his blows. He could not hate the half-breed. He could not even dislike him now. He forced himself to bed, and later he slept. In the dream that came to him it was not Bateese who faced him in battle, but St. Pierre Boulain. He awoke with that dream a thing of fire in his brain. The sun was not yet up, but the flush of it was painting the east, and he dressed quietly and carefully, listening for some sound of awakening beyond the bulkhead. If Marie-Anne was awake, she was very still. There was noise ashore. Across the river he could hear the singing of men, and through his window saw the white smoke of early fires rising above the tree-tops. It was the Indian who unlocked the door and brought in his breakfast, and it was the Indian who returned for the dishes half an hour later. After that Carrigan waited, tense with the desire for action to begin. He sensed no premonition of evil about to befall him. Every nerve and sinew in his body was alive for the combat. He thrilled with an overwhelming confidence, a conviction of his ability to win, an almost dangerous, self-conviction of approaching triumph in spite of the odds in weight and brute strength which were pitted against him. A dozen times he listened at the bulkhead between him and Marie-Anne, and still he heard no movement on the other side. It was eight o'clock when one of the bateau men appeared at the door and asked if he was ready. Quickly David joined him. He forgot his taunts to Concombre Bateese, forgot the softly padded gloves in his pack with which he had promised to pommel the half-breed into oblivion. He was thinking only of naked fists. Into a canoe he followed the bateau man, who turned his craft swiftly in the direction of the opposite shore. And as they went, David was sure he caught the slight movement of a curtain at the little window of Marie-Anne's forward cabin. He smiled back and raised his hand, and at that the curtain was drawn back entirely, and he knew that St. Pierre's wife was watching him as he went to the fight. The raft was deserted, but a little below it, on a wide strip of beach made hard and smooth by flood water, had gathered a crowd of men. It seemed odd to David they should remain so quiet, when he knew the natural instinct of the riverman was to voice his emotion at the top of his lungs. He spoke of this to the bateau man, who shrugged his shoulders and grinned. "Eet ees ze command of St. Pierre," he explained. "St. Pierre say no man make beeg noise at--what you call heem--funeral? An' theese goin' to be wan gran' fun-e-RAL, m'sieu!" "I see," David nodded. He did not grin back at the other's humor. He was looking at the crowd. A giant figure had appeared out of the center of it and was coming slowly down to the river. It was St. Pierre. Scarcely had the prow of the canoe touched shore when David leaped out and hurried to meet him. Behind St. Pierre came Bateese, the half-breed. He was stripped to the waist and naked from the knees down. His gorilla-like arms hung huge and loose at his sides, and the muscles of his hulking body stood out like carven mahogany in the glisten of the morning sun. He was like a grizzly, a human beast of monstrous power, something to look at, to back away from, to fear. Yet, David scarcely noticed him. He met St. Pierre, faced him, and stopped--and he had gone swiftly to this meeting, so that the chief of the Boulains was within earshot of all his men. St. Pierre was smiling. He held out his hand as he had held it out once before in the bateau cabin, and his big voice boomed out a greeting. Carrigan did not answer, nor did he look at the extended hand. For an instant the eyes of the two men met, and then, swift as lightning, Carrigan's arm shot out, and with the flat of his hand he struck St. Pierre a terrific blow squarely on the cheek. The sound of the blow was like the smash of a paddle on smooth water. Not a riverman but heard it, and as St. Pierre staggered back, flung almost from his feet by its force, a subdued cry of amazement broke from the waiting men. Concombre Bateese stood like one stupefied. And then, in another flash, St. Pierre had caught himself and whirled like a wild beast. Every muscle in his body was drawn for a gigantic, overwhelming leap; his eyes blazed; the fury of a beast was in his face. Before all his people he had suffered the deadliest insult that could be offered a man of the Three River Country--a blow struck with the flat of another's hand. Anything else one might forgive, but not that. Such a blow, if not avenged, was a brand that passed down into the second and third generations, and even children would call out "Yellow-Back--Yellow-Back," to the one who was coward enough to receive it without resentment. A rumbling growl rose in the throat of Concombre Bateese in that moment when it seemed as though St. Pierre Boulain was about to kill the man who had struck him. He saw the promise of his own fight gone in a flash. For no man in all the northland could now fight David Carrigan ahead of St. Pierre. David waited, prepared to meet the rush of a madman. And then, for a second time, he saw a mighty struggle in the soul of St. Pierre. The giant held himself back. The fury died out of his face, but his great hands remained clenched as he said, for David alone, "That was a playful blow, m'sieu? It was--a joke?" "It was for you, St. Pierre," replied Carrigan, "You are a coward--and a skunk. I swam to the raft last night, looked through your window, and saw what happened there. You are not fit for a decent man to fight, yet I will fight you, if you are not too great a coward--and dare to let our wagers stand as they were made." St. Pierre's eyes widened, and for a breath or two he stared at Carrigan, as if looking into him and not at him. His big hands relaxed, and slowly the panther-like readiness went out of his body. Those who looked beheld the transformation in amazement, for of all who waited only St. Pierre and the half-breed had heard Carrigan's words, though they had seen and heard the blow of insult. "You swam to the raft," repeated St. Pierre in a low voice, as if doubting what he had heard. "You looked through the window--and saw--" David nodded. He could not cover the sneering poison in his voice, his contempt for the man who stood before him. "Yes, I looked through the window. And I saw you, and the lowest woman on the Three Rivers--the sister of a man I helped to hang, I--" "STOP!" St. Pierre's voice broke out of him like the sudden crash of thunder. He came a step nearer, his face livid, his eyes shooting flame. With a mighty effort he controlled himself again. And then, as if he saw something which David could not see, he tried to smile, and in that same instant David caught a grin cutting a great slash across the face of Concombre Bateese. The change that came over St. Pierre now was swift as sunlight coming out from shadowing cloud. A rumble grew in his great chest. It broke in a low note of laughter from his lips, and he faced the bateau across the river. "M'sieu, you are sorry for HER. Is that it? You would fight--" "For the cleanest, finest little girl who ever lived--your wife!" "It is funny," said St. Pierre, as if speaking to himself, and still looking at the bateau. "Yes, it is very funny, ma belle Marie-Anne! He has told you he loves you, and he has kissed your hair and held you in his arms--yet he wants to fight me because he thinks I am steeped in sin, and to make me fight in place of Bateese he has called my Carmin a low woman! So what else can I do? I must fight. I must whip him until he can not walk. And then I will send him back for you to nurse, cherie, and for that blessing I think he will willingly take my punishment! Is it not so, m'sieu?" He was smiling and no longer excited when he turned to David. "M'sieu, I will fight you. And the wagers shall stand. And in this hour let us be honest, like men, and make confession. You love ma belle Jeanne--Marie-Anne? Is it not so? And I--I love my Carmin, whose brother you hanged, as I love no other woman in the world. Now, if you will have it so, let us fight!" He began stripping off his shirt, and with a bellow in his throat Concombre Bateese slouched away like a beaten gorilla to explain to St. Pierre's people the change in the plan of battle. And as that news spread like fire in the fir-tops, there came but a single cry in response--shrill and terrible--and that was from the throat of Andre, the Broken Man. XXI As Carrigan stripped off his shirt, he knew that at least in one way he had met more than his match in St. Pierre Boulain. In the splendid service of which he was a part he had known many men of iron and steel, men whose nerve and coolness not even death could very greatly disturb. Yet St. Pierre, he conceded, was their master--and his own. For a flash he had transformed the chief of the Boulains into a volcano which had threatened to break in savage fury, yet neither the crash nor destruction had come. And now St. Pierre was smiling again, as Carrigan faced him, stripped to the waist. He betrayed no sign of the tempest of passion that had swept him a few minutes before. His cool, steely eyes had in them a look that was positively friendly, as Concombre Bateese marked in the hard sand the line of the circle within which no man might come. And as he did this and St. Pierre's people crowded close about it, St. Pierre himself spoke in a low voice to David. "M'sieu, it seems a shame that we should fight. I like you. I have always loved a man who would fight to protect a woman, and I shall be careful not to hurt you more than is necessary to make you see reason--and to win the wagers. So you need not be afraid of my killing you, as Bateese might have done. And I promise not to destroy your beauty, for the sake of--the lady in the bateau. My Carmin, if she knew you spied through her window last night, would say kill you with as little loss of time as possible, for as regards you her sweet disposition was spoiled when you hung her brother, m'sieu. Yet to me she is an angel!" Contempt for the man who spoke of his wife and the infamous Carmin Fanchet in the same breath drew a sneer to Carrigan's lips. He nodded toward the waiting circle of men. "They are ready for the show, St. Pierre. You talk big. Now let us see if you can fight." For another moment St. Pierre hesitated. "I am so sorry, m'sieu-- "Are you ready, St. Pierre?" "It is not fair, and she will never forgive me. You are no match for me. I am half again as heavy." "And as big a coward as you are a scoundrel, St. Pierre." "It is like a man fighting a boy." "Yet it is less dishonorable than betraying the woman who is your wife for another who should have been hanged along with her brother, St. Pierre." Boulain's face darkened. He drew back half a dozen steps and cried out a word to Bateese. Instantly the circle of waiting men grew tense as the half-breed jerked the big handkerchief from his head and held it out at arm's length. Yet, with that eagerness for the fight there was something else which Carrigan was swift to sense. The attitude of the watchers was not one of uncertainty or of very great expectation, in spite of the staring faces and the muscular tightening of the line. He knew what was passing in their minds and in the low whispers from lip to lip. They were pitying him. Now that he stood stripped, with only a few paces between him and the giant figure of St. Pierre, the unfairness of the fight struck home even to Concombre Bateese. Only Carrigan himself knew how like tempered steel the sinews of his body were built. But to the eye, in size alone, he stood like a boy before St. Pierre. And St. Pierre's people, their voices stilled by the deadly inequality of it, were waiting for a slaughter and not a fight. A smile came to Carrigan's lips as he saw Bateese hesitating to drop the handkerchief, and with the swiftness of the trained fighter he made his first plan for the battle before the cloth fell from the half-breed's fingers, As the handkerchief fluttered to the ground, he faced St. Pierre, the smile gone. "Never smile when you fight," the greatest of all masters of the ring had told him. "Never show anger, Don't betray any emotion at all if you can help it." Carrigan wondered what the old ring-master would say could he see him now, backing away slowly from St. Pierre as the giant advanced upon him, for he knew his face was betraying to St. Pierre and his people the deadliest of all sins--anxiety and indecision. Very closely, yet with eyes that seemed to shift uneasily, he watched the effect of his trick on Boulain. Twice the huge riverman followed him about the ring of sand, and the steely glitter in his eyes changed to laughter, and the tense faces of the men about them relaxed. A subdued ripple of merriment rose where there had been silence. A third time David maneuvered his retreat, and his eyes shot furtively to Concombre Bateese and the men at his back. They were grinning. The half-breed's mouth was wide open, and his grotesque body hung limp and astonished. This was not a fight! It was a comedy--like a rooster following a sparrow around a barnyard! And then a still funnier thing happened, for David began to trot in a circle around St. Pierre, dodging and feinting, and keeping always at a safe distance. A howl of laughter came from Bateese and broke in a roar from the men. St. Pierre stopped in his tracks, a grin on his face, his big arms and shoulders limp and unprepared as Carrigan dodged in close and out again. And then-- A howl broke in the middle of the half-breed's throat. Where there had been laughter, there came a sudden shutting off of sound, a great gasp, as if made by choking men. Swifter than anything they had ever seen in human action Carrigan had leaped in. They saw him strike. They heard the blow. They saw St. Pierre's great head rock back, as if struck from his shoulders by a club, and they saw and heard another blow, and a third--like so many flashes of lightning--and St. Pierre went down as if shot. The man they had laughed at was no longer like a hopping sparrow. He was waiting, bent a little forward, every muscle in his body ready for action. They watched for him to leap upon his fallen enemy, kicking and gouging and choking in the riverman way. But David waited, and St. Pierre staggered to his feet. His mouth was bleeding and choked with sand, and a great lump was beginning to swell over his eye. A deadly fire blazed in his face, as he rushed like a mad bull at the insignificant opponent who had tricked and humiliated him. This time Carrigan did not retreat, but held his ground, and a yell of joy went up from Bateese as the mighty bulk of the giant descended upon his victim. It was an avalanche of brute-force, crushing in its destructiveness, and Carrigan seemed to reach for it as it came upon him. Then his head went down, swifter than a diving grebe, and as St. Pierre's arm swung like an oaken beam over his shoulder, his own shot in straight for the pit of the other's stomach. It was a bull's-eye blow with the force of a pile-driver behind it, and the groan that forced its way out of St. Pierre's vitals was heard by every ear in the cordon of watchers. His weight stopped, his arms opened, and through that opening Carrigan's fist went a second time to the other's jaw, and a second time the great St. Pierre Boulain sprawled out upon the sand. And there he lay, and made no effort to rise. Concombre Bateese, with his great mouth agape, stood for an instant as if the blow had stunned him in place of his master. Then, suddenly he came to life, and leaped to David's side. "Diable! Tonnerre! You have not fight Concombre Bateese yet!" he howled. "Non, you have cheat me, you have lie, you have run lak cat from Concombre Bateese, ze stronges' man on all T'ree River! You are wan' gran' coward, wan poltroon, an' you 'fraid to fight ME, who ees greates' fightin' man in all dees countree! Sapristi! Why you no hit Concombre Bateese, m'sieu? Why you no hit ze greates' fightin' man w'at ees--" David did not hear the rest. The opportunity was too tempting. He swung, and with a huge grunt the gorilla-like body of Concombre Bateese rolled over that of the chief of the Boulains. This time Carrigan did not wait, but followed up so closely that the half-breed had scarcely gathered the crook out of his knees when another blow on the jaw sent him into the sand again. Three times he tried the experiment of regaining his feet, and three times he was knocked down. After the last blow he raised himself groggily to a sitting posture, and there he remained, blinking like a stunned pig, with his big hands clutching in the sand. He stared up unseeingly at Carrigan, who waited over him, and then stupidly at the transfixed cordon of men, whose eyes were bulging and who were holding their breath in the astonishment of this miracle which had descended upon them. They heard Bateese muttering something incoherent as his head wobbled, and St. Pierre himself seemed to hear it, for he stirred and raised himself slowly, until he also was sitting in the sand, staring at Bateese. Carrigan picked up his shirt, and the riverman who had brought him from the bateau returned with him to the canoe. There was no demonstration behind them. To David himself the whole thing had been an amazing surprise, and he was not at all reluctant to leave as quickly as his dignity would permit, before some other of St. Pierre's people offered to put a further test upon his prowess. He wanted to laugh. He wanted to thank God at the top of his voice for the absurd run of luck that had made his triumph not only easy but utterly complete. He had expected to win, but he had also expected a terrific fight before the last blow was struck. And there had been no fight! He was returning to the bateau without a scratch, his hair scarcely ruffled, and he had defeated not only St. Pierre, but the giant half-breed as well! It was inconceivable--and yet it had happened; a veritable burlesque, an opera-bouffe affair that might turn quickly into a tragedy if either St. Pierre or Concombre Bateese guessed the truth of it. For in that event he might have to face them again, with the god of luck playing fairly, and he was honest enough with himself to confess that the idea no longer held either thrill or desire for him. Now that he had seen both St. Pierre and Bateese stripped for battle, he had no further appetite for fistic discussion with them. After all, there was a merit in caution, and he had several lucky stars to bless just at the present moment! Inwardly he was a bit suspicious of the ultimate ending of the affair. St. Pierre had almost no cause for complaint, for it was his own carelessness, coupled with his opponent's luck, that had been his undoing--and luck and carelessness are legitimate factors of every fight, Carrigan told himself. But with Bateese it was different. He had held up his big jaw, uncovered and tempting, entreating some one to hit him, and Carrigan had yielded to that temptation. The blow would have stunned an ox. Three others like it had left the huge half-breed sitting weak-mindedly in the sand, and no one of those three blows were exactly according to the rules of the game. They had been mightily efficacious, but the half-breed might demand a rehearing when he came fully into his senses. Not until they were half-way to the bateau did Carrigan dare to glance back over his shoulder at the man who was paddling, to see what effect the fistic travesty had left on him. He was a big-mouthed, clear-eyed, powerfully-muscled fellow, and he was grinning from ear to ear. "Well, what did you think of it, comrade?" The other gave his shoulders a joyous shrug. "Mon Dieu! Have you heard of wan garcon named Joe Clamart, m'sieu? Non? Well, I am Joe Clamart what was once great fightin' man. Bateese hav' whip' me five times, m'sieu--so I say it was wan gr-r-r-a-n' fight! Many years ago I have seen ze same t'ing in Montreal--ze boxeur de profession. Oui, an' Rene Babin pays me fifteen prime martin against which I put up three scrubby red fox that you would win. They were bad, or I would not have gambled, m'sieu. It ees fonny!" "Yes, it is funny," agreed David. "I think it is a bit too funny. It is a pity they did not stand up on their legs a little longer!" Suddenly an inspiration hit him. "Joe, what do you say--shall you and I return and put up a REAL fight for them?" Like a sprung trap Joe Clamart's grinning mouth dosed. "Non, non, non," he grunted. "Dere has been plenty fight, an' Joe Clamart mus' save hees face tor Antoinette Roland, who hate ze sign of fight lak she hate ze devil, m'sieu! Non, non!" His paddle dug deeper into the water, and David's heart felt lighter. If Joe was an average barometer, and he was a husky and fearless-looking chap, it was probable that neither St. Pierre nor Bateese would demand another chance at him, and St. Pierre would pay his wager. He could see no one aboard the bateau when he climbed from the canoe. Looking back, he saw that two other canoes had started from the opposite shore. Then he went to his cabin door, opened it, and entered, Scarcely had the door closed behind him when he stopped, staring toward the window that opened on the river. Standing full in the morning glow of it was Marie-Anne Boulain. She was facing him. Her cheeks were flushed. Her red lips were parted. Her eyes were aglow with a fire which she made no effort to hide from him. In her hand she still held the binoculars he had left on the cabin table. He guessed the truth. Through the glasses she had watched the whole miserable fiasco. He felt creeping over him a sickening shame, and his eyes fell slowly from her to the table. What he saw there caught his breath in the middle. It was the entire surgical outfit of Nepapinas, the old Indian doctor. And there were basins of water, and white strips of linen ready for use, and a pile of medicated cotton, and all sorts of odds and ends that one might apply to ease the agonies of a dying man, And beyond the table, huddled in so small a heap that he was almost hidden by it, was Nepapinas himself, disappointment writ in his mummy-like face as his beady eyes rested on David. The evidence could not be mistaken. They had expected him to come back more nearly dead than alive, and St. Pierre's wife had prepared for the thing she had thought inevitable. Even his bed was nicely turned down, its fresh white sheets inviting an occupant! And David, looking at St. Pierre's wife again, felt his heart beating hard in his breast at the look which was in her eyes. It was not the scintillation of laughter, and the flame in her cheeks was not embarrassment. She was not amused. The ludicrousness of her mislaid plans had not struck her as they had struck him. She had placed the binoculars on the table, and slowly she came to him. Her hands reached out, and her fingers rested like the touch of velvet on his arms. "It was splendid!" she said softly, "It was splendid!" She was very near, her breast almost touching him, her hands creeping up until the tips of her fingers rested on his shoulders, her scarlet mouth so close he could feel the soft breath of it in his face. "It was splendid!" she whispered again. And then, suddenly, she rose up on her tiptoes and kissed him. So swiftly was it done that she was gone before he sensed that wild touch of her lips against his own. Like a swallow she was at the door, and the door opened and closed behind her, and for a moment he heard the quick running of her feet. Then he looked at the old Indian, and the Indian, too, was staring at the door through which St. Pierre's wife had flown. XXII For many seconds that seemed like minutes David stood where she had left him, while Nepapinas rose gruntingly to his feet, and gathered up his belongings, and hobbled sullenly to the bateau door and out. He was scarcely conscious of the Indian's movement, for his soul was aflame with a red-hot fire. Deliberately--with that ravishing glory of something in her eyes--St. Pierre's wife had kissed him! On her tiptoes, her cheeks like crimson flowers, she had given her still redder lips to him! And his own lips burned, and his heart pounded hard, and he stared for a time like one struck dumb at the spot where she had stood by the window. Then suddenly, he turned to the door and flung it wide open, and on his lips was the reckless cry of Marie-Anne's name. But St. Pierre's wife was gone, and Nepapinas was gone, and at the tail of the big sweep sat only Joe Clamart, guarding watchfully. The two canoes were drawing near, and in one of them were two men, and in the other three, and David knew that--like Joe Clamart--they were watchers set over him by St. Pierre. Then a fourth canoe left the far shore, and when it had reached mid-stream, he recognized the figure in the stern as that of Andre, the Broken Man. The other, he thought, must be St. Pierre. He went back into the cabin and stood where Marie-Anne had stood--at the window. Nepapinas had not taken away the basins of water, and the bandages were still there, and the pile of medicated cotton, and the suspiciously made-up bed. After all, he was losing something by not occupying the bed--and yet if St. Pierre or Bateese had messed him up badly, and a couple of fellows had lugged him in between them, it was probable that Marie-Anne would not have kissed him. And that kiss of St. Pierre's wife would remain with him until the day he died! He was thinking of it, the swift, warm thrill of her velvety lips, red as strawberries and twice as sweet, when the door opened and St. Pierre came in. The sight of him, in this richest moment of his life, gave David no sense of humiliation or shame. Between him and St. Pierre rose swiftly what he had seen last night--Carmin Fanchet in all the lure of her disheveled beauty, crushed close in the arms of the man whose wife only a moment before had pressed her lips close to his; and as the eyes of the two met, there came over him a desire to tell the other what had happened, that he might see him writhe with the sting of the two-edged thing with which he was playing. Then he saw that even that would not hurt St. Pierre, for the chief of the Boulains, standing there with the big lump over his eye, had caught sight of the things on the table and the nicely turned down bed, and his one good eye lit up with sudden laughter, and his white teeth flashed in an understanding smile. "TONNERRE, I said she would nurse you with gentle hands," he rumbled. "See what you have missed, M'sieu Carrigan!" "I received something which I shall remember longer than a fine nursing," retorted David. "And yet right now I have a greater interest in knowing what you think of the fight, St. Pierre--and if you have come to pay your wager." St. Pierre was chuckling mysteriously in his throat. "It was splendid--splendid," he said, repeating Marie-Anne's words. "And Joe Clamart says she ran out, blushing like a red rose in August, and that she said no word, but flew like a bird into the white-birch ashore!" "She was dismayed because I beat you, St. Pierre." "Non, non--she was like a lark filled with joy." Suddenly his eyes rested on the binoculars. David nodded. "Yes, she saw it all through the glasses." St. Pierre seated himself at the table and heaved out a groan as he took one of the bandage strips between his fingers. "She saw my disgrace. And she didn't wait to bandage ME up, did she?" "Perhaps she thought Carmin Fanchet would do that, St. Pierre." "And I am ashamed to go to Carmin--with this great lump over my eye, m'sieu. And on top of that disgrace--you insist that I pay the wager?" "I do." St. Pierre's face hardened. "OUI, I am to pay. I am to tell you all I know about that BETE NOIR--Black Roger Audemard. Is it not so?" "That is the wager." "But after I have told you--what then? Do you recall that I gave you any other guarantee, M'sieu Carrigan? Did I say I would let you go? Did I promise I would not kill you and sink your body to the bottom of the river? If I did, I can not remember." "Are you a beast, St. Pierre--a murderer as well as--" "Stop! Do not tell me again what you saw through the window, for it has nothing to do with this. I am not a beast, but a man. Had I been a beast, I should have killed you the first day I saw you in this cabin. I am not threatening to kill you, and yet it may be necessary if you insist that I pay the wager. You understand, m'sieu. To refuse to pay a wager is a greater crime among my people than the killing of a man, if there is a good reason for the killing. I am helpless. I must pay, if you insist. Before I pay it is fair that I give you warning." "You mean?" "I mean nothing, as yet. I can not say what it will be necessary for me to do, after you have heard what I know about Roger Audemard. I am quite settled on a plan just now, m'sieu, but the plan might change at any moment. I am only warning you that it is a great hazard, and that you are playing with a fire of which you know nothing, because it has not burned you yet." Carrigan seated himself slowly in a chair opposite St. Pierre, with the table between them. "You are wasting time in attempting to frighten me," he said. "I shall insist on the payment of the wager, St Pierre." For a moment St. Pierre was clearly troubled. Then his lips tightened, and he smiled grimly over the table at David. "I am sorry, M'sieu David. I like you. You are a fighting man and no coward, and I should like to travel shoulder to shoulder with you in many things. And such a thing might be, for you do not understand. I tell you it would have been many times better for you had I whipped you out there, and it had been you--and not me--to pay the wager!" "It is Roger Audemard I am interested in, St. Pierre. Why do you hesitate?" "I? Hesitate? I am not hesitating, m'sieu. I am giving you a chance." He leaned forward, his great arms bent on the table. "And you insist, M'sieu David?" "Yes, I insist." Slowly the fingers of St. Pierre's hands closed into knotted fists, and he said in a low voice, "Then I will pay, m'sieu. _I_ AM ROGER AUDEMARD!" XXIII The astounding statement of the man who sat opposite him held David speechless. He had guessed at some mysterious relationship between St. Pierre and the criminal he was after, but not this, and Roger Audemard, with his hands unclenching and a slow humor beginning to play about his mouth, waited coolly for him to recover from his amazement. In those moments, when his heart seemed to have stopped beating, Carrigan was staring at the other, but his mind had shot beyond him--to the woman who was his wife. Marie-Anne AUDEMARD--the wife of Black Roger! He wanted to cry out against the possibility of such a fact, yet he sat like one struck dumb, as the monstrous truth took possession of his brain and a whirlwind of understanding swept upon him. He was thinking quickly, and with a terrific lack of sentiment now. Opposite him sat Black Roger, the wholesale murderer. Marie-Anne was his wife. Carmin Fanchet, sister of a murderer, was simply one of his kind. And Bateese, the man-gorilla, and the Broken Man, and all the dark-skinned pack about them were of Black Roger's breed and kind. Love for a woman had blinded him to the facts which crowded upon him now. Like a lamb he had fallen among wolves, and he had tried to believe in them. No wonder Bateese and the man he had known as St. Pierre had betrayed such merriment at times! A fighting coolness possessed him as he spoke to Black Roger. "I will admit this is a surprise. And yet you have cleared up a number of things very quickly. It proves to me again that comedy is not very far removed from tragedy at times." "I am glad you see the humor of it, M'sieu David." Black Roger was smiling as pleasantly as his swollen eye would permit. "We must not be too serious when we die. If I were to die a-hanging, I would sing as the rope choked me, just to show the world one need not be unhappy because his life is coming to an end." "I suppose you understand that ultimately I am going to give you that opportunity," said David. Almost eagerly Black Roger leaned toward him over the table. "You believe you are going to hang me?" "I am sure of it." "And you are willing to wager the point, M'sieu David?" "It is impossible to gamble with a condemned man." Black Roger chuckled, rubbing his big hands together until they made a rasping sound, and his one good eye glowed at Carrigan. "Then I will make a wager with myself, M'sieu David. MA FOI, I swear that before the leaves fall from the trees, you will be pleading for the friendship of Black Roger Audemard, and you will be as much in love with Carmin Fanchet as I am! And as for Marie-Anne--" He thrust back his chair and rose to his feet, the old note of subdued laughter rumbling in his chest. "And because I make this wager with myself, I cannot kill you, M'sieu David--though that might be the best thing to do. I am going to take you to the Chateau Boulain, which is in the forests of the Yellowknife, beyond the Great Slave. Nothing will happen to you if you make no effort to escape. If you do that, you will surely die. And that would hurt me, M'sieu David, because I love you like a brother, and in the end I know you are going to grip the hand of Black Roger Audemard, and get down on your knees to Carmin Fanchet. And as for Marie-Anne--" Again he interrupted himself, and went out of the cabin, laughing. And there was no mistake in the metallic click of the lock outside the door. For a time David did not move from his seat near the table. He had not let Roger Audemard see how completely the confession had upset his inner balance, but he made no pretense of concealing the thing from himself now. He was in the power of a cut-throat, who in turn had an army of cut-throats at his back, and both Marie-Anne and Carmin Fanchet were a part of this ring. And he was not only a prisoner. It was probable, under the circumstances, that Black Roger would make an end of him when a convenient moment came. It was even more than a probability. It was a grim necessity. To let him live and escape would be fatal to Black Roger. From back of these convictions, riding over them as if to demoralize any coherence and logic that might go with the evidence he was building up, came question after question, pounding at him one after the other, until his mind became more than ever a whirling chaos of uncertainty. If St. Pierre was Black Roger, why would he confess to that fact simply to pay a wager? What reason could he have for letting him live at all? Why had not Bateese killed him? Why had Marie-Anne nursed him back to life? His mind shot to the white strip of sand in which he had nearly died. That, at least, was convincing. Learning in some way that he was after Black Roger, they had attempted to do away with him there. But if that were so, why was it Bateese and Black Roger's wife and the Indian Nepapinas had risked so much to make him live, when if they had left him where he had fallen he would have died and caused them no trouble? There was something exasperatingly uncertain and illogical about it all. Was it possible that St. Pierre Boulain was playing a huge joke on him? Even that was inconceivable. For there was Carmin Fanchet, a fitting companion for a man like Black Roger, and there was Marie-Anne, who, if it had been a joke, would not have played her part so well. Suddenly his mind was filled only with her. Had she been his friend, using all her influence to protect him, because her heart was sick of the environment of which she was a part? His own heart jumped at the thought. It was easy to believe. In Marie-Anne he had faith, and that faith refused to be destroyed, but persisted--even clearer and stronger as he thought again of Carmin Fanchet and Black Roger. In his heart grew the conviction it was sacrilege to believe the kiss she had given him that morning was a lie. It was something else--a spontaneous gladness, a joyous exultation that he had returned unharmed, a thing unplanned in the soul of the woman, leaping from her before she could stop it. Then had come shame, and she had run away from him so swiftly he had not seen her face again after the touch of her lips. If it had been a subterfuge, a lie, she would not have done that. He rose to his feet and paced restlessly back and forth as he tried to bring together a few tangled bits of the puzzle. He heard voices outside, and very soon felt the movement of the bateau under his feet, and through one of the shoreward windows he saw trees and sandy beach slowly drifting away. On that shore, as far as his eyes could travel up and down, he saw no sign of Marie-Anne, but there remained a canoe, and near the canoe stood Black Roger Audemard, and beyond him, huddled like a charred stump in the sand, was Andre, the Broken Man. On the opposite shore the raft was getting under way. During the next half-hour several things happened which told him there was no longer a sugar-coating to his imprisonment. On each side of the bateau two men worked at his windows, and when they had finished, no one of them could be opened more than a few inches. Then came the rattle of the lock at the door, the grating of a key, and somewhat to Carrigan's surprise it was Bateese who came in. The half-reed bore no facial evidence of the paralyzing blows which had knocked him out a short time before. His jaw, on which they had landed, was as aggressive as ever, yet in his face and his attitude, as he stared curiously at Carrigan, there was no sign of resentment or unfriendliness. Nor did he seem to be ashamed. He merely stared, with the curious and rather puzzled eyes of a small boy gazing at an inexplicable oddity. Carrigan, standing before him, knew what was passing in the other's mind, and the humor of it brought a smile to his lips. Instantly Concombre's face split into a wide grin. "MON DIEU, w'at if you was on'y brother to Concombre Bateese, m'sieu. T'ink of zat--you--me--FRERE D'ARMES! VENTRE SAINT GRIS, but we mak' all fightin' men in nort' countree run lak rabbits ahead of ze fox! OUI, we mak' gr-r-r-eat pair, m'sieu--you, w'at knock down Bateese--an' Bateese, w'at keel polar bear wit hees naked hands, w'at pull down trees, w'at chew flint w'en hees tobacco gone." His voice had risen, and suddenly there came a laugh from outside the door, and Concombre cut himself short and his mouth closed with a snap. It was Joe Clamart who had laughed. "I w'ip heem five time, an' now I w'ip heem seex!" hissed Bateese in an undertone. "Two time each year I w'ip zat gargon Joe Clamart so he understan' w'at good fightin' man ees. An' you will w'ip heem, eh, m'sieu? Oui? An' I will breeng odder good fightin' mans for you to w'ip--all w'at Concombre Bateese has w'ipped--ten, dozen, forty--an' you w'ip se gran' bunch, m'sieu. Eh, shall we mak' ze bargain?" "You are planning a pleasant time for me, Bateese," said Carrigan, "but I am afraid it will be impossible. You see, this captain of yours, Black Roger Audemard--" "W'at!" Bateese jumped as if stung. "W'at you say, m'sieu?" "I said that Roger Audemard, Black Roger, the man I thought was St. Pierre Boulain--" Carrigan said no more. What he had started to say was unimportant compared with the effect of Roger Audernard's name on Concombre Bateese. A deadly light glittered in the half-breed's eyes, and for the first time David realized that in the grotesque head of the riverman was a brain quick to grip at the significance of things. The fact was evident that Black Roger had not confided in Bateese as to the price of the wager and the confession of his identity, and for a moment after the repetition of Audemard's name came from David's lips the half-breed stood as if something had stunned him. Then slowly, as if forcing the words in the face of a terrific desire that had transformed his body into a hulk of quivering steel, he said: "M'sieu--I come with message--from St. Pierre. You see windows--closed. Outside door--she locked. On bot' sides de bateau, all de time, we watch. You try get away, an' we keel you. Zat ees all. We shoot. We five mans on ze bateau, all ze day, TOUTE LA NUIT. You unnerstan'?" He turned sullenly, waiting for no reply, and the door opened and closed after him--and again came the snap of the lock outside. Steadily the bateau swept down the big river that day. There was no let-up in the steady creaking of the long sweep. Even in the swifter currents David could hear the working of it, and he knew he had seen the last of the more slowly moving raft. Near one of the partly open windows he heard two men talking just before the bateau shot into the Brule Point rapids. They were strange voices. He learned that Audemard's huge raft was made up of thirty-five cribs, seven abreast, and that nine times between the Point Brule and the Yellowknife the raft would be split up, so that each crib could be run through dangerous rapids by itself. That would be a big job, David assured himself. It would be slow work as well as hazardous, and as his own life was in no immediate jeopardy, he would have ample time in which to formulate some plan of action for himself. At the present moment, it seemed, the one thing for him to do was to wait--and behave himself, according to the half-breed's instructions. There was, when he came to think about it, a saving element of humor about it all. He had always wanted to make a trip down the Three Rivers in a bateau. And now--he was making it! At noon a guard brought in his dinner. He could not recall that he had ever seen this man before, a tall, lithe fellow built to run like a hound, and who wore a murderous-looking knife at his belt. As the door opened, David caught a glimpse of two others. They were business-like looking individuals, with muscles built for work or fight; one sitting cross-legged on the bateau deck with a rifle over his knees, and the other standing with a rifle in his hand. The man who brought his dinner wasted no time or words. He merely nodded, murmured a curt bonjour, and went out. And Carrigan, as he began to eat, did not have to tell himself twice that Audemard had been particular in his selection of the bateau's crew, and that the eyes of the men he had seen could be as keen as a hawk's when leveled over the tip of a rifle barrel. They meant business, and he felt no desire to smile in the face of them, as he had smiled at Concombre Bateese. It was another man, and a stranger, who brought in his supper. And for two hours after that, until the sun went down and gloom began to fall, the bateau sped down the river. It had made forty miles that day, he figured. It was still light when the bateau was run ashore and tied up, but tonight there were no singing voices or wild laughter of men whose hours of play-time and rest had come. To Carrigan, looking through his window, there was an oppressive menace about it all. The shadowy figures ashore were more like a death-watch than a guard, and to dispel the gloom of it he lighted two of the lamps in the cabin, whistled, drummed a simple chord he knew on the piano, and finally settled down to smoking his pipe. He would have welcomed the company of Bateese, or Joe Clamart, or one of the guards, and as his loneliness grew upon him there was something of companionship even in the subdued voices he heard occasionally outside. He tried to read, but the printed words jumbled themselves and meant nothing. It was ten o'clock, and clouds had darkened the night, when through his open windows he heard a shout coming from the river. Twice it came before it was answered from the bateau, and the second time Carrigan recognized it as the voice of Roger Audemard. A brief interval passed between that and the scraping of a canoe alongside, and then there was a low conversation in which even Audemard's great voice was subdued, and after that the grating of a key in the lock, and the opening of the door, and Black Roger came in, bearing an Indian reed basket under his arm. Carrigan did not rise to meet him. It was not like the coming of the old St. Pierre, and on Black Roger's lips there was no twist of a smile, nor in his eyes the flash of good-natured greeting. His face was darkly stern, as if he had traveled far and hard on an unpleasant mission, but in it there was no shadow of menace, as there had been in that of Concombre Bateese. It was rather the face of a tired man, and yet David knew what he saw was not physical exhaustion. Black Roger guessed something of his thought, and his mouth for an instant repressed a smile. "Yes, I have been having a rough time," he nodded, "This is for you!" He placed the basket on the table. It held half a bushel, and was filled to the curve of the handle. What lay in it was hidden under a cloth securely tied about it. "And you are responsible," he added, stretching himself in a chair with a gesture of weariness. "I should kill you, Carrigan. And instead of that I bring you good things to eat! Half the day she has been fussing with the things in the basket, and then insisted that I bring them to you. And I have brought them simply to tell you another thing. I am sorry for her. I think, M'sieu Carrigan, you will find as many tears in the basket as anything else, for her heart is crushed and sick because of the humiliation she brought upon herself this morning." He was twisting his big, rough hands, and David's own heart went sick as he saw the furrowed lines that had deepened in the other's face. Black Roger did not look at him as he went on. "Of course, she told me. She tells me everything. And if she knew I was telling you this, I think she would kill herself. But I want you to understand. She is not what you might think she is. That kiss came from the lips of the best woman God ever made, M'sieu Carrigan!" David, with the blood in him running like fire, heard himself answering, "I know it. She was excited, glad you had not stained your hands with my life--" This time Audemard smiled, but it was the smile of a man ten years older than he had appeared yesterday. "Don't try to answer, m'sieu. I only want you to know she is as pure as the stars. It was unfortunate, but to follow the impulse of one's heart can not be a sin. Everything has been unfortunate since you came. But I blame no one, except--" "Carmin Fanchet?" Audemard nodded. "Yes. I have sent her away. Marie-Anne is in the cabin on the raft now. But even Carmin I can not blame very greatly, m'sieu, for it is impossible to hold anything against one you love. Tell me if I am right? You must know. You love my Marie-Anne. Do you hold anything against her?" "It is unfair," protested David. "She is your wife, Audemard, is it possible you don't love her?" "Yes, I love her." "And Carmin Fanchet?" "I love her, too. They are so different. Yet I love them both. Is it not possible for a big heart like mine to do that, m'sieu?" With almost a snort David rose to his feet and stared through one of the windows into the darkness of the river. "Black Roger," he said without turning his head, "the evidence at Headquarters condemns you as one of the blackest-hearted murderers that ever lived. But that crime, to me, is less atrocious than the one you are committing against your own wife. I am not ashamed to confess I love her, because to deny it would be a lie. I love her so much that I would sacrifice myself--soul and body--if that sacrifice could give you back to her, clean and undefiled and with your hand unstained by the crime for which you must hang!" He did not hear Roger Audemard as he rose from his chair. For a moment the riverman stared at the back of David's head, and in that moment he was fighting to keep back what wanted to come from his lips in words. He turned before David faced him again, and did not pause until he stood at the cabin door with his hand at the latch. There he was partly in shadow. "I shall not see you again until you reach the Yellowknife," he said. "Not until then will you know--or will I know--what is going to happen. I think you will understand strange things then, but that is for the hour to tell. Bateese has explained to you that you must not make an effort to escape. You would regret it, and so would I. If you have red blood in you, m'sieu--if you would understand all that you cannot understand now--wait as patiently as you can. Bonne nuit, M'sieu Carrigan!" "Good night!" nodded David. In the pale shadows he thought a mysterious light of gladness illumined Black Roger's face before the door opened and closed, leaving him alone again. XXIV With the going of Black Roger also went the oppressive loneliness which had gripped Carrigan, and as he stood listening to the low voices outside, the undeniable truth came to him that he did not hate this man as he wanted to hate him. He was a murderer, and a scoundrel in another way, but he felt irresistibly the impulse to like him and to feel sorry for him. He made an effort to shake off the feeling, but a small voice which he could not quiet persisted in telling him that more than one good man had committed what the law called murder, and that perhaps he didn't fully understand what he had seen through the cabin window on the raft. And yet, when unstirred by this impulse, he knew the evidence was damning. But his loneliness was gone. With Audemard's visit had come an unexpected thrill, the revival of an almost feverish anticipation, the promise of impending things that stirred his blood as he thought of them. "You will understand strange things then," Roger Audemard had said, and something in his voice had been like a key unlocking mysterious doors for the first time. And then, "Wait, as patiently as you can!" Out of the basket on the table seemed to come to him a whispering echo of that same word--wait! He laid his hands upon it, and a pulse of life came with the imagined whispering. It was from Marie-Anne. It seemed as though the warmth of her hands were still there, and as he removed the cloth the sweet breath of her came to him. And then, in the next instant, he was trying to laugh at himself and trying equally hard to call himself a fool, for it was the breath of newly-baked things which her fingers had made. Yet never had he felt the warmth of her presence more strangely in his heart. He did not try to explain to himself why Roger Audemard's visit had broken down things which had seemed insurmountable an hour ago. Analysis was impossible, because he knew the transformation within himself was without a shred of reason. But it had come, and with it his imprisonment took on another form. Where before there had been thought of escape and a scheming to jail Black Roger, there filled him now an intense desire to reach the Yellowknife and the Chateau Boulain. It was after midnight when he went to bed, and he was up with the early dawn. With the first break of day the bateau men were preparing their breakfast. David was glad. He was eager for the day's work to begin, and in that eagerness he pounded on the door and called out to Joe Clamart that he was ready for his breakfast with the rest of them, but that he wanted only hot coffee to go with what Black Roger had brought to him in the basket. That afternoon the bateau passed Fort McMurray, and before the sun was well down in the west Carrigan saw the green slopes of Thickwood Hills and the rising peaks of Birch Mountains. He laughed outright as he thought of Corporal Anderson and Constable Frazer at Fort McMurray, whose chief duty was to watch the big waterway. How their eyes would pop if they could see through the padlocked door of his prison! But he had no inclination to be discovered now. He wanted to go on, and with a growing exultation he saw there was no intention on the part of the bateau's crew to loiter on the way. There was no stop at noon, and the tie-up did not come until the last glow of day was darkening into the gloom of night in the sky. For sixteen hours the bateau had traveled steadily, and it could not have made less than sixty miles as the river ran. The raft, David figured, had not traveled a third of the distance. The fact that the bateau's progress would bring him to Chateau Boulain many days, and perhaps weeks, before Black Roger and Marie-Anne could arrive on the raft did not check his enthusiasm. It was this interval between their arrivals which held a great speculative promise for him. In that time, if his efficiency had not entirely deserted him, he would surely make discoveries of importance. Day after day the journey continued without rest. On the fourth day after leaving Fort McMurray it was Joe Clamart who brought in David's supper, and he grunted a protest at his long hours of muscle-breaking labor at the sweeps. When David questioned him he shrugged his shoulders, and his mouth closed tight as a clam. On the fifth, the bateau crossed the narrow western neck of Lake Athabasca, slipping past Chipewyan in the night, and on the sixth it entered the Slave River. It was the fourteenth day when the bateau entered Great Slave Lake, and the second night after that, as dusk gathered thickly between the forest walls of the Yellowknife, David knew that at last they had reached the mouth of the dark and mysterious stream which led to the still more mysterious domain of Black Roger Audemard. That night the rejoicing of the bateau men ashore was that of men who had come out from under a strain and were throwing off its tension for the first time in many days. A great fire was built, and the men sang and laughed and shouted as they piled wood upon it. In the flare of this fire a smaller one was built, and kettles and pans were soon bubbling and sizzling over it, and a great coffee pot that held two gallons sent out its steam laden with an aroma that mingled joyously with the balsam and cedar smells in the air. David could see the whole thing from his window, and when Joe Clamart came in with supper, he found the meat they were cooking over the fire was fresh moose steak. As there had been no trading or firing of guns coming down, he was puzzled and when he asked where the meat had come from Joe Clamart only shrugged his shoulders and winked an eye, and went out singing about the allouette bird that had everything plucked from it, one by one. But David noticed there were never more than four men ashore at the same time. At least one was always aboard the bateau, watching his door and windows. And he, too, felt the thrill of an excitement working subtly within him, and this thrill pounded in swifter running blood when he saw the men about the fire jump to their feet suddenly and go to meet new and shadowy figures that came up indistinctly just in the edge of the forest gloom. There they mingled and were lost in identity for a long time, and David wondered if the newcomers were of the people of Chateau Boulain. After that, Bateese and Joe Clamart and two others stamped out the fires and came over the plank to the bateau to sleep. David followed their example and went to bed. The cook fires were burning again before the gray dawn was broken by a tint of the sun, and when the voices of many men roused David, he went to his window and saw a dozen figures where last night there had been only four. When it grew lighter he recognized none of them. All were strangers. Then he realized the significance of their presence. The bateau had been traveling north, but downstream. Now it would still travel north, but the water of the Yellow-knife flowed south into Great Slave Lake, and the bateau must be towed. He caught a glimpse of the two big York boats a little later, and six rowers to a boat, and after that the bateau set out slowly but steadily upstream. For hours David was at one window or the other, with something of awe working inside him as he saw what they were passing through--and between. He fancied the water trail was like an entrance into a forbidden land, a region of vast and unbroken mystery, a country of enchantment, possibly of death, shut out from the world he had known. For the stream narrowed, and the forest along the shores was so dense he could not see into it. The tree-tops hung in a tangled canopy overhead, and a gloom of twilight filled the channel below, so that where the sun shot through, it was like filtered moonlight shining on black oil. There was no sound except the dull, steady beat of the rowers' oars, and the ripple of water along the sides of the bateau. The men did not sing or laugh, and if they talked it must have been in whispers. There was no cry of birds from ashore. And once David saw Joe Clamart's face as he passed the window, and it was set and hard and filled with the superstition of a man who was passing through a devil-country. And then suddenly the end of it came. A flood of sunlight burst in at the windows, and all at once voices came from ahead, a laugh, a shout, and a yell of rejoicing from the bateau, and Joe Clamart started again the everlasting song of the allouette bird that was plucked of everything it had. Carrigan found himself grinning. They were a queer people, these bred-in-the-blood northerners--still moved by the superstitions of children. Yet he conceded that the awesome deadness of the forest passage had put strange thoughts into his own heart. Before nightfall Bateese and Joe Clamart came in and tied his arms behind him, and he was taken ashore with the rumble of a waterfall in his ears. For two hours he watched the labors of the men as they beached the bateau on long rollers of smooth birch and rolled it foot by foot over a cleared trail until it was launched again above the waterfall. Then he was led back into the cabin and his arms freed. That night he went to sleep with the music of the waterfall in his ears. The second day the Yellowknife seemed to be no longer a river, but a narrow lake, and the third day the rowers came into the Nine Lake country at noon, and until another dusk the bateau threaded its way through twisting channels and impenetrable forests, and beached at last at the edge of a great open where the timber had been cut. There was more excitement here, but it was too dark for David to understand the meaning of it. There were many voices; dogs barked. Then voices were at his door, a key rattled in the lock, and it opened. David saw Bateese and Joe Clamart first. And then, to his amazement, Black Roger Audemard stood there, smiling at him and nodding good-evening. It was impossible for David to repress his astonishment. "Welcome to Chateau Boulain," greeted Black Roger. "You are surprised? Well, I beat you out by half a dozen hours--in a canoe, m'sieu. It is only courtesy that I should be here to give you welcome!" Behind him Bateese and Joe Clamart were grinning widely, and then both came in, and Joe Clamart picked up his dunnage-sack and threw it over his shoulder. "If you will come with us, m'sieu--" David followed, and when he stepped ashore there were Bateese, and Joe Clamart and one other behind him, and three or four shadowy figures ahead, with Black Roger walking at his side. There were no more voices, and the dog had ceased barking. Ahead was a wall of darkness, which was the deep black forest beyond the clearing, and into it led a trail which they followed. It was a path worn smooth by the travel of many feet, and for a mile not a star broke through the tree-tops overhead, nor did a flash of light break the utter chaos of the way but once, when Joe Clamart lighted his pipe. No one spoke. Even Black Roger was silent, and David found no word to say. At the end of the mile the trees began to open above their heads, and they soon came to the edge of the timber. In the darkness David caught his breath. Dead ahead, not a rifle shot away, was the Chateau Boulain. He knew it before Black Roger had said a word. He guessed it by the lighted windows, full a score of them, without a curtain drawn to shut out their illumination from the night. He could see nothing but these lights, yet they measured off a mighty place to be built of logs in the heart of a wilderness, and at his side he heard Black Roger chuckling in low exultation. "Our home, m'sieu," he said. "Tomorrow, when you see it in the light of day, you will say it is the finest chateau in the north--all built of sweet cedar where birch is not used, so that even in the deep snows it gives us the perfume of springtime and flowers." David did not answer, and in a moment Audemard said: "Only on Christmas and New Year and at birthdays and wedding feasts is it lighted up like that. Tonight it is in your honor, M'sieu David." Again he laughed softly, and under his breath he added, "And there is some one waiting for you there whom you will be surprised to see!" David's heart gave a jump. There was meaning in Black Roger's words and no double twist to what he meant. Marie-Anne had come ahead with her husband! Now, as they passed on to the brilliantly lighted chateau, David made out the indistinct outlines of other buildings almost hidden in the out-creeping shadows of the forest-edges, with now and then a ray of light to show people were in them. But there was a brooding silence over it all which made him wonder, for there was no voice, no bark of dog, not even the opening or closing of a door. As they drew nearer, he saw a great veranda reaching the length of the chateau, with screening to keep out the summer pests of mosquitoes and flies and the night prowling insects attracted by light. Into this they went, up wide birch steps, and ahead of them was a door so heavy it looked like the postern gate of a castle. Black Roger opened it, and in a moment David stood beside him in a dimly lighted hall where the mounted heads of wild beasts looked down like startled things from the gloom of the walls. And then David heard the low, sweet notes of a piano coming to them very faintly. He looked at Black Roger. A smile was on the lips of the chateau master; his head was up, and his eyes glowed with pride and joy as the music came to him. He spoke no word, but laid a hand on David's arm and led him toward it, while Bateese and Joe Clamart remained standing at the entrance to the hall. David's feet trod in thick rugs of fur; he saw the dim luster of polished birch and cedar in the walls, and over his head the ceiling was rich and matched, as in the bateau cabin. They drew nearer to the music and came to a closed door. This Black Roger opened very quietly, as if anxious not to disturb the one who was playing. They entered, and David held his breath. It was a great room he stood in, thirty feet or more from end to end, and scarcely less in width--a room brilliant with light, sumptuous in its comfort, sweet with the perfume of wild-flowers, and with a great black fireplace at the end of it, from over which there stared at him the glass eyes of a monster moose. Then he saw the figure at the piano, and something rose up quickly and choked him when his eyes told him it was not Marie-Anne. It was a slim, beautiful figure in a soft and shimmering white gown, and its head was glowing gold in the lamplight. Roger Audemard spoke, "Carmin!" The woman at the piano turned about, a little startled at the unexpectedness of the voice, and then rose quickly to her feet--and David Carrigan found himself looking into the eyes of Carmin Fanchet! Never had he seen her more beautiful than in this moment, like an angel in her shimmering dress of white, her hair a radiant glory, her eyes wide and glowing--and, as she looked at him, a smile coming to her red lips. Yes, SHE WAS SMILING AT HIM--this woman whose brother he had brought to the hangman, this woman who had stolen Black Roger from another! She knew him--he was sure of that; she knew him as the man who had believed her a criminal along with her brother, and who had fought to the last against her freedom. Yet from her lips and her eyes and her face the old hatred was gone. She was coming toward him slowly; she was reaching out her hand, and half blindly his own went out, and he felt the warmth of her fingers for a moment, and he heard her voice saying softly, "Welcome to Chateau Boulain, M'sieu Carrigan." He bowed and mumbled something, and Black Roger gently pressed his arm, drawing him back to the door. As he went he saw again that Carmin Fanchet was very beautiful as she stood there, and that her lips were very red--but her face was white, whiter than he had ever seen the face of a woman before. As they went up a winding stair to the second floor, Roger Audemard said, "I am proud of my Carmin, M'sieu David. Would any other woman in the world have given her hand like that to the man who had helped to kill her brother?" They stopped at another door. Black Roger opened it. There were lights within, and David knew it was to be his room. Audemard did not follow him inside, but there was a flashing humor in his eyes. "I say, is there another woman like her in the world, m'sieu?" "What have you done to Marie-Anne--your wife?" asked David. It was hard for him to get the words out. A terrible thing was gripping at his throat, and the clutch of it grew tighter as he saw the wild light in Black Roger's eyes. "Tomorrow you will know, m'sieu. But not to-night. You must wait until tomorrow." He nodded and stepped back, and the door closed--and in the same instant came the harsh grating of a key in the lock. XXV Carrigan turned slowly and looked about his room. There was no other door except one opening into a closet, and but two windows. Curtains were drawn at these windows, and he raised them. A grim smile came to his lips when he saw the white bars of tough birch nailed across each of them, outside the glass. He could see the birch had been freshly stripped of bark and had probably been nailed there that day. Carmin Fanchet and Black Roger had welcomed him to Chateau Boulain, but they were evidently taking no chances with their prisoner. And where was Marie-Anne? The question was insistent, and with it remained that cold grip of something in his heart that had come with the sight of Carmin Fanchet below. Was it possible that Carmin's hatred still lived, deadlier than ever, and that with Black Roger she had plotted to bring him here so that her vengeance might be more complete--and a greater torture to him? Were they smiling and offering him their hands, even as they knew he was about to die? And if that was conceivable, what had they done with Marie-Anne? He looked about the room. It was singularly bare, in an unusual sort of way, he thought. There were rich rugs on the floor--three magnificent black bearskins, and two wolf. The heads of two bucks and a splendid caribou hung against the walls. He could see, from marks on the floor, where a bed had stood, but this bed was now replaced by a couch made up comfortably for one inclined to sleep. The significance of the thing was clear--nowhere in the room could he lay his hand upon an object that might be used as a weapon! His eyes again sought the white-birch bars of his prison, and he raised the two windows so that the cool, sweet breath of the forests reached in to him. It was then that he noticed the mosquito-proof screening nailed outside the bars. It was rather odd, this thinking of his comfort even as they planned to kill him! If there was truth to this new suspicion that Black Roger and his mistress were plotting both vengeance and murder, their plans must also involve Marie-Anne. Suddenly his mind shot back to the raft. Had Black Roger turned a clever coup by leaving his wife there, while he came on ahead of the bateau with Carmin Fanchet? It would be several weeks before the raft reached the Yellowknife, and in that time many things might happen. The thought worried him. He was not afraid for himself. Danger, the combating of physical forces, was his business. His fear was for Marie-Anne. He had seen enough to know that Black Roger was hopelessly infatuated with Carmin Fanchet. And several things might happen aboard the raft, planned by agents as black-souled as himself. If they killed Marie-Anne-- His hand gripped the knob of the door, and for a moment he was filled with the impulse to shout for Black Roger and face him with what was in his mind. And as he stood there, every muscle in his body ready to fight, there came to him faintly the sound of music. He heard the piano first, and then a woman's voice singing. Soon a man's voice joined the woman's, and he knew it was Black Roger, singing with Carmin Fanchet. Suddenly the mad impulse in his heart went out, and he leaned his head nearer to the crack of the door, and strained his ears to hear. He could make out no word of the song, yet the singing came to him with a thrill that set his lips apart and brought a staring wonder into his eyes. In the room below him, fifteen hundred miles from civilization, Black Roger and Carmin Fanchet were singing "Home, Sweet Home!" An hour later David looked through one of the barred windows upon a world lighted by a splendid moon. He could see the dark edge of the distant forest that rimmed in the chateau, and about him seemed to be a level meadow, with here and there the shadow of a building in which the lights were out. Stars were thick in the sky, and a strange quietness hovered over the world he looked upon. From below him floated up now and then a perfume of tobacco smoke. The guard under his window was awake, but he made no sound. A little later he undressed, put out the two lights in his room, and stretched himself between the cool, white sheets on the couch. After a time he slept, but it was a restless slumber filled with troubled dreams. Twice he was half awake, and the second time it seemed to him his nostrils sensed a sharper tang of smoke than that of burning tobacco, yet he did not fully rouse himself, and the hours passed, and new sounds and smells that rose in the night impinged themselves upon him only as a part of the troublous fabric of his dreams. But at last there came a shock, something which beat over these things which chained him, and seized upon his consciousness, demanding that he rouse himself, open his eyes, and get up. He obeyed the command, and before he was fully awake, found himself on his feet. It was still dark, but he heard voices, voices no longer subdued, but filled with a wild note of excitement and command. And what he smelled was not the smell of tobacco smoke! It was heavy in his room. It filled his lungs. His eyes were smarting with the sting of it. Then came vision, and with a startled cry he leaped to a window. To the north and east he looked out upon a flaming world! With his fist he rubbed his smarting eyes. The moon was gone. The gray he saw outside must be the coming of dawn, ghostly with that mist of smoke that had come into his room. He could see shadowy figures of men running swiftly in and out and disappearing, and he could hear the voices of women and children, and from beyond the edge of the forest to the west came the howling of many dogs. One voice rose above the others. It was Black Roger's, and at its commands little groups of figures shot out into the gray smoke-gloom and did not appear again. North and east the sky was flaming sullen red, and a breath of air blowing gently in David's face told him the direction of the wind. The chateau lay almost in the center of the growing line of conflagration. He dressed himself and went again to the window. Quite distinctly now, he could make out Joe Clamart under his window, running toward the edge of the forest at the head of half a dozen men and boys who carried axes and cross-cut saws over their shoulders. It was the last of Black Roger's people that he saw for some time in the open meadow, but from the front of the chateau he could hear many voices, chiefly of women and children, and guessed it was from there that the final operations against the fire were being directed. The wind was blowing stronger in his face. With it came a sharper tang of smoke, and the widening light of day was fighting to hold its own against the deepening pall of flame-lit gloom advancing with the wind. There seemed to come a low and distant sound with that wind, so indistinct that to David's ears it was like a murmur a thousand miles away. He strained his ears to hear, and as he listened, there came another sound--a moaning, sobbing voice below his window! It was grief he heard now, something that went to his heart and held him cold and still. The voice was sobbing like that of a child, yet he knew it was not a child's. Nor was it a woman's. A figure came out slowly in his view, humped over, twisted in its shape, and he recognized Andre, the Broken Man. David could see that he was crying like a child, and he was facing the flaming forests, with his arms reaching out to them in his moaning. Then, of a sudden, he gave a strange cry, as if defiance had taken the place of grief, and he hurried across the meadow and disappeared into the timber where a great lightning-riven spruce gleamed dully white through the settling veil of smoke-mist. For a space David looked after him, a strange beating in his heart. It was as if he had seen a little child going into the face of a deadly peril, and at last he shouted out for some one to bring back the Broken Man. But there was no answer from under his window. The guard was gone. Nothing lay between him and escape--if he could force the white birch bars from the window. He thrust himself against them, using his shoulder as a battering-ram. Not the thousandth part of an inch could he feel them give, yet he worked until his shoulder was sore. Then he paused and studied the bars more carefully. Only one thing would avail him, and that was some object which he might use as a lever. He looked about him, and not a thing was there in the room to answer the purpose. Then his eyes fell on the splendid horns of the caribou head. Black Roger's discretion had failed him there, and eagerly David pulled the head down from the wall. He knew the woodsman's trick of breaking off a horn from the skull, yet in this room, without log or root to help him, the task was difficult, and it was a quarter of an hour after he had last seen the Broken Man before he stood again at the window with the caribou horn in his hands. He no longer had to hold his breath to hear the low moaning in the wind, and where there had been smoke-gloom before there were now black clouds rolling and twisting up over the tops of the north and eastern forests, as if mighty breaths were playing with them from behind. David thrust the big end of the caribou horn between two of the white-birch bars, but before he had put his weight to the lever he heard a great voice coming round the end of the chateau, and it was calling for Andre, the Broken Man. In a moment it was followed by Black Roger Audemard, who ran under the window and faced the lightning-struck spruce as he shouted Andre's name again. Suddenly David called down to him, and Black Roger turned and looked up through the smoke-gloom, his head bare, his arms naked, and his eyes gleaming wildly as he listened. "He went that way twenty minutes ago," David shouted. "He disappeared into the forest where you see the dead spruce yonder. And he was crying, Black Roger--he was crying like a child." If there had been other words to finish, Black Roger would not have heard them. He was running toward the old spruce, and David saw him disappear where the Broken Man had gone. Then he put his weight on the horn, and one of the tough birch bars gave way slowly, and after that a second was wrenched loose, and a third, until the lower half of the window was free of them entirely. He thrust out his head and found no one within the range of his vision. Then he worked his way through the window, feet first, and hanging the length of arms and body from the lower sill, dropped to the ground. Instantly he faced the direction taken by Roger Audemard, it was HIS turn now, and he felt a savage thrill in his blood. For an instant he hesitated, held by the impulse to rush to Carmin Fanchet and with his fingers at her throat, demand what she and her paramour had done with Marie-Anne. But the mighty determination to settle it all with Black Roger himself overwhelmed that impulse like an inundation. Black Roger had gone into the forest. He was separated from his people, and the opportunity was at hand. Positive that Marie-Anne had been left with the raft, the thought that the Chateau Boulain might be devoured by the onrushing conflagration did not appal David. The chateau held little interest for him now. It was Black Roger he wanted. As he ran toward the old spruce, he picked up a club that lay in the path. This path was a faintly-worn trail where it entered the forest beyond the spruce, very narrow, and with brush hanging close to the sides of it, so that David knew it was not in general use and that but few feet had ever used it. He followed swiftly, and in five minutes came suddenly out into a great open thick with smoke, and here he saw why Chateau Boulain would not burn. The break in the forest was a clearing a rifle-shot in width, free of brush and grass, and partly tilled; and it ran in a semi-circle as far as he could see through the smoke in both directions. Thus had Black Roger safeguarded his wilderness castle, while providing tillable fields for his people; and as David followed the faintly beaten path, he saw green stuffs growing on both sides of him, and through the center of the clearing a long strip of wheat, green and very thick. Up and down through the fog of smoke he could hear voices, and he knew it was this great, circular fire-clearing the people of Chateau Boulain were watching and guarding. But he saw no one as he trailed across the open. In soft patches of the earth he found footprints deeply made and wide apart, the footprints of hurrying men, telling him Black Roger and the Broken Man were both ahead of him, and that Black Roger was running when he crossed the clearing. The footprints led him to a still more indistinct trail in the farther forest, a trail which went straight into the face of the fire ahead. He followed it. The distant murmur had grown into a low moaning over the tree-tops, and with it the wind was coming stronger, and the smoke thicker. For a mile he continued along the path, and then he stopped, knowing he had come to the dead-line. Over him was a swirling chaos. The fire-wind had grown into a roar before which the tree-tops bent as if struck by a gale, and in the air he breathed he could feel a swiftly growing heat. For a space he stood there, breathing quickly in the face of a mighty peril. Where had Black Roger and the Broken Man gone? What mad impulse could it be that dragged them still farther into the path of death? Or had they struck aside from the trail? Was he alone in danger? As if in answer to the questions there came from far ahead of him a loud cry. It was Black Roger's voice, and as he listened, it called over and over again the Broken Man's name, "Andre--Andre--Andre--" Something in the cry held Carrigan. There was a note of terror in it, a wild entreaty that was almost drowned in the trembling wind and the moaning that was in the air. David was ready to turn back. He had already approached too near to the red line of death, yet that cry of Black Roger urged him on like the lash of a whip. He plunged ahead into the chaos of smoke, no longer able to distinguish a trail under his feet. Twice again in as many minutes he heard Black Roger's voice, and ran straight toward it. The blood of the hunter rushed over all other things in his veins. The man he wanted was ahead of him and the moment had passed when danger or fear of death could drive him back. Where Black Roger lived, he could live, and he gripped his club and ran through the low brush that whipped in stinging lashes against his face and hands. He came to the foot of a ridge, and from the top of this he knew Black Roger had called. It was a huge hog's-back, rising a hundred feet up out of the forest, and when he reached the top of it, he was panting for breath. It was as if he had come suddenly within the blast of a hot furnace. North and east the forest lay under him, and only the smoke obstructed his vision. But through this smoke he could make out a thing that made him rub his eyes in a fierce desire to see more clearly. A mile away, perhaps two, the conflagration seemed to be splitting itself against the tip of a mighty wedge. He could hear the roar of it to the right of him and to the left, but dead ahead there was only a moaning whirlpool of fire-heated wind and smoke. And out of this, as he looked, came again the cry, "Andre--Andre--Andre!" Again he stared north and south through the smoke-gloom. Mountains of resinous clouds, black as ink, were swirling skyward along the two sides of the giant wedge. Under that death-pall the flames were sweeping through the spruce and cedar tops like race-horses, hidden from his eyes. If they closed in there could be no escape; in fifteen minutes they would inundate him, and it would take him half an hour to reach the safety of the clearing. His heart thumped against his ribs as he hurried down the ridge in the direction of Black Roger's voice. The giant wedge of the forest was not burning--yet, and Audemard was hurrying like mad toward the tip of that wedge, crying out now and then the name of the Broken Man. And always he kept ahead, until at last--a mile from the ridge--David came to the edge of a wide stream and saw what it was that made the wedge of forest. For under his eyes the stream split, and two arms of it widened out, and along each shore of the two streams was a wide fire-clearing made by the axes of Black Roger's people, who had foreseen this day when fire might sweep their world. Carrigan dashed water into his eyes, and it was warm. Then he looked across. The fire had passed, the pall of smoke was clearing away, and what he saw was the black corpse of a world that had been green. It was smoldering; the deep mold was afire. Little tongues of flame still licked at ten thousand stubs charred by the fire-death--and there was no wind here, and only the whisper of a distant moaning sweeping farther and farther away. And then, out of that waste across the river, David heard a terrible cry. It was Black Roger, still calling--even in that place of hopeless death--for Andre, the Broken Man! XXVI Into the stream Carrigan plunged and found it only waist-deep in crossing. He saw where Black Roger had come out of the water and where his feet had plowed deep in the ash and char and smoldering debris ahead. This trail he followed. The air he breathed was hot and filled with stifling clouds of ash and char-dust and smoke. His feet struck red-hot embers under the ash, and he smelled burning leather. A forest of spruce and cedar skeletons still crackled and snapped and burst out into sudden tongues of flame about him, and the air he breathed grew hotter, and his face burned, and into his eyes came a smarting pain--when ahead of him he saw Black Roger. He was no longer calling out the Broken Man's name, but was crashing through the smoking chaos like a great beast that had gone both blind and mad. Twice David turned aside where Black Roger had rushed through burning debris, and a third time, following where Audemard had gone, his feet felt the sudden stab of living coals. In another moment he would have shouted Black Roger's name, but even as the words were on his lips, mingled with a gasp of pain, the giant river-man stopped where the forest seemed suddenly to end in a ghostly, smoke-filled space, and when David came up behind him, he was standing at the black edge of a cliff which leaped off into a smoldering valley below. Out of this narrow valley between two ridges, an hour ago choked with living spruce and cedar, rose up a swirling, terrifying heat. Down into this pit of death Black Roger stood looking, and David heard a strange moaning coming in his breath. His great, bare arms were black and scarred with heat; his hair was burned; his shirt was torn from his shoulders. When David spoke--and Black Roger turned at the sound--his eyes glared wildly out of a face that was like a black mask. And when he saw it was David who had spoken, his great body seemed to sag, and with an unintelligible cry he pointed down. David, staring, saw nothing with his half-blind eyes, but under his feet he felt a sudden giving way, and the fire-eaten tangle of earth and roots broke off like a rotten ledge, and with it both he and Black Roger went crashing into the depths below, smothered in an avalanche of ash and sizzling earth. At the bottom David lay for a moment, partly stunned. Then his fingers clutched a bit of living fire, and with a savage cry he staggered to his feet and looked to see Black Roger. For a space his eyes were blinded, and when at last he could see, he made out Black Roger, fifty feet away, dragging himself on his hands and knees through the blistering muck of the fire. And then, as he stared, the stricken giant came to the charred remnant of a stump and crumpled over it with a great cry, moaning again that name-- "Andre--Andre--" David hurried to him, and as he put his hands under Black Roger's arms to help him to his feet, he saw that the charred stump was not a stump, but the fire-shriveled corpse of Andre, the Broken Man! Horror choked back speech on his own lips. Black Roger looked up at him, and a great breath came in a sob out of his body. Then, suddenly, he seemed to get grip of himself, and his burned and bleeding fingers closed about David's hand at his shoulder. "I knew he was coming here," he said, the words forcing themselves with an effort through his swollen lips. "He came home--to die." "Home--?" "Yes. His mother and father were buried here nearly thirty years ago, and he worshiped them. Look at him, Carrigan. Look at him closely. For he is the man you have wanted all these years, the finest man God ever made, Roger Audemard! When he saw the fire, he came to shield their graves from the flames. And now he is dead!" A moan came to his lips, and the weight of his body grew so heavy that David had to exert his strength to keep him from falling. "And YOU?" he cried. "For God's sake, Audemard--tell me--" "I, m'sieu? Why, I am only St. Pierre Audemard, his brother." And with that his head dropped heavily, and he was like a dead man in David's arms. How at last David came to the edge of the stream again, with the weight of St. Pierre Audemard on his shoulders, was a torturing nightmare which would never be quite clear in his brain. The details were obliterated in the vast agony of the thing. He knew that he fought as he had never fought before; that he stumbled again and again in the fire-muck; that he was burned, and blinded, and his brain was sick. But he held to St. Pierre, with his twisted, broken leg, knowing that he would die if he dropped him into the flesh-devouring heat of the smoldering debris under his feet. Toward the end he was conscious of St. Pierre's moaning, and then of his voice speaking to him. After that he came to the water and fell down in the edge of it with St. Pierre, and inside his head everything went as black as the world over which the fire had swept. He did not know how terribly he was hurt. He did not feel pain after the darkness came. Yet he sensed certain things. He knew that over him St. Pierre was shouting. For days, it seemed, he could hear nothing but that great voice bellowing away in the interminable distance. And then came other voices, now near and now far, and after that he seemed to rise up and float among the clouds, and for a long time he heard no other sound and felt no movement, but was like one dead. Something soft and gentle and comforting roused him out of darkness. He did not move, he did not open his eyes for a time, while reason came to him. He heard a voice, and it was a woman's voice, speaking softly, and another voice replied to it. Then he heard gentle movement, and some one went away from him, and he heard the almost noiseless opening and closing of a door. A very little he began to see. He was in a room, with a patch of sunlight on the wall. Also, he was in a bed. And that gentle, comforting hand was still stroking his forehead and hair, light as thistledown. He opened his eyes wider and looked up. His heart gave a great throb. Over him was a glorious, tender face smiling like an angel into his widening eyes. And it was the face of Carmin Fanchet! He made an effort, as if to speak. "Hush," she whispered, and he saw something shining in her eyes, and something wet fell upon his face. "She is returning--and I will go. For three days and nights she has not slept, and she must be the first to see you open your eyes." She bent over him. Her soft lips touched his forehead, and he heard her sobbing breath. "God bless you, David Carrigan!" Then she was going to the door, and his eyes dropped shut again. He began to experience pain now, a hot, consuming pain all over him, and he remembered the fight through the path of the fire. Then the door opened very softly once more, and some one came in, and knelt down at his side, and was so quiet that she scarcely seemed to breathe. He wanted to open his eyes, to cry out a name, but he waited, and lips soft as velvet touched his own. They lay there for a moment, then moved to his closed eyes, his forehead, his hair--and after that something rested gently against him. His eyes shot open. It was Marie-Anne, with her head nestled in the crook of his arm as she knelt there beside him on the floor. He could see only a bit of her face, but her hair was very near, crumpled gloriously on his breast, and he could see the tips of her long lashes as she remained very still, seeming not to breathe. She did not know he had roused from his sleep--the first sleep of those three days of torture which he could not remember now; and he, looking at her, made no movement to tell her he was awake. One of his hands lay over the edge of the bed, and so lightly he could scarce feel the weight of her fingers she laid one of her own upon it, and a little at a time drew it to her, until the bandaged thing was against her lips. It was strange she did not hear his heart, which seemed all at once to beat like a drum inside him! Suddenly he sensed the fact that his other hand was not bandaged. He was lying on his side, with his right arm partly under him, and against that hand he felt the softness of Marie-Anne's cheek, the velvety crush of her hair! And then he whispered, "Marie-Anne--" She still lay, for a moment, utterly motionless. Then, slowly, as if believing he had spoken her name in his sleep, she raised her head and looked into his wide-open eyes. There was no word between them in that breath or two. His bandaged hand and his well hand went to her face and hair, and then a sobbing cry came from Marie-Anne, and swiftly she crushed her face down to his, holding him close with both her arms for a moment. And after that, as on that other day when she kissed him after the fight, she was up and gone so quickly that her name had scarcely left his lips when the door closed behind her, and he heard her running down the hall. He called after her, "Marie-Anne! Marie-Anne!" He heard another door, and voices, and quick footsteps again, coming his way, and he was waiting eagerly, half on his elbow, when into his room came Nepapinas and Carmin Fanchet. And again he saw the glory of something in the woman's face. His eyes must have burned strangely as he stared at her, but it did not change that light in her own, and her hands were wonderfully gentle as she helped Nepapinas raise him so that he was sitting up straight, with pillows at his back. "It doesn't hurt so much now, does it?" she asked, her voice low with a mothering tenderness. He shook his head. "No. What is the matter?" "You were burned--terribly. For two days and nights you were in great pain, but for many hours you have been sleeping, and Nepapinas says the burns will not hurt any more. If it had not been for you--" She bent over him. Her hand touched his face, and now he began to understand the meaning of that glory shining in her eyes. "If it hadn't been for you--he would have died!" She drew back, turning to the door. "He is coming to see you--alone," she said, a little broken note in her throat. "And I pray God you will see with clear understanding, David Carrigan--and forgive me--as I have forgiven you--for a thing that happened long ago." He waited. His head was in a jumble, and his thoughts were tumbling over one another in an effort to evolve some sort of coherence out of things amazing and unexpected. One thing was impressed upon him--he had saved St. Pierre's life, and because he had done this Carmin Fanchet was very tender to him. She had kissed him, and Marie-Anne had kissed him, and-- A strange dawning was coming to him, thrilling him to his finger-tips. He listened. A new sound was approaching from the hall. His door was opened, and a wheel-chair was rolled in by old Nepapinas. In the chair was St. Pierre Audemard. Feet and hands and arms were wrapped in bandages, but his face was uncovered and wreathed in smiling happiness when he saw David propped up against his pillows. Nepapinas rolled him close to the bed and then shuffled out, and as he closed the door, David was sure he heard the subdued whispering of feminine voices down the hall. "How are you, David?" asked St. Pierre. "Fine," nodded Carrigan. "And you?" "A bit scorched, and a broken leg." He held up his padded hands. "Would be dead if you hadn't carried me to the river. Carmin says she owes you her life for having saved mine." "And Marie-Anne?" "That's what I've come to tell you about," said St. Pierre. "The instant they knew you were able to listen, both Carmin and Marie-Anne insisted that I come and tell you things. But if you don't feel well enough to hear me now--" "Go on!" almost threatened David. The look of cheer which had illumined St. Pierre's face faded away, and David saw in its place the lines of sorrow which had settled there. He turned his gaze toward a window through which the afternoon sun was coming, and nodded slowly. "You saw--out there. He's dead. They buried him in a casket made of sweet cedar. He loved the smell of that. He was like a little child. And once--a long time ago--he was a splendid man, a greater and better man than St. Pierre, his brother, will ever be. What he did was right and just, M'sieu David. He was the oldest--sixteen--when the thing happened. I was only nine, and didn't fully understand. But he saw it all--the death of our father because a powerful factor wanted my mother. And after that he knew how and why our mother died, but not a word of it did he tell us until years later--after the day of vengeance was past. "You understand, David? He didn't want me in that. He did it alone, with good friends from the upper north. He killed the murderers of our mother and father, and then he buried himself deeper into the forests with us, and we took our mother's family names which was Boulain, and settled here on the Yellowknife. Roger--Black Roger, as you know him--brought the bones of our father and mother and buried them over in the edge of that plain where he died and where our first cabin stood. Five years ago a falling tree crushed him out of shape, and his mind went at the same time, so that he has been like a little child, and was always seeking for Roger Audemard--the man he once was. That was the man your law wanted. Roger Audemard. Our brother." "OUR brother," cried David. "Who is the other?" "My sister." "Yes?" "Marie-Anne." "Good God!" choked David. "St. Pierre, do you lie? Is this another bit of trickery?" "It is the truth," said St. Pierre. "Marie-Anne is my sister, and Carmin--whom you saw in my arms through the cabin window--" He paused, smiling into David's staring eyes, taking full measure of recompense in the other's heart-breaking attitude as he waited. "--Is my wife, M'sieu David." A great gasp of breath came out of Carrigan. "Yes, my wife, and the greatest-hearted woman that ever lived, without one exception in all the world!" cried St. Pierre, a fierce pride in his voice. "It was she, and not Marie-Anne, who shot you on that strip of sand, David Carrigan! Mon Dieu, I tell you not one woman in a million would have done what she did--let you live! Why? Listen, m'sieu, and you will understand at last. She had a brother, years younger than she, and to that brother she was mother, sister, everything, because they had no parents almost from babyhood. She worshiped him. And he was bad. Yet the worse he became, the more she loved him and prayed for him. Years ago she became my wife, and I fought with her to save the brother. But he belonged to the devil hand and foot, and at last he left us and went south, and became what he was when you were sent out to get him, Sergeant Carrigan. It was then that my wife went down to make a last fight to save him, to bring him back, and you know how she made that fight, m'sieu--until the day you hanged him!" St. Pierre was leaning from his chair, his face ablaze. "Tell me, did she not fight?" he cried. "And YOU, until the last--did you not fight to have her put behind prison bars with her brother?" "Yes, it is so," murmured Carrigan. "She hated you," went on St. Pierre. "You hanged her brother, who was almost a part of her flesh and body. He was bad, but he had been hers from babyhood, and a mother will love her son if he is a devil. And then--I won't take long to tell the rest of it! Through friends she learned that you, who had hanged her brother, were on your way to run down Roger Audemard. And Roger Audemard, mind you, was the same as myself, for I had sworn to take my brother's place if it became necessary. She was on the bateau with Marie-Anne when the messenger came. She had but one desire--to save me--to kill you. If it had been some other man, but it was you, who had hanged her brother! She disappeared from the bateau that day with a rifle. You know, M'sieu David, what happened. Marie-Anne heard the shooting and came--alone--just as you rolled out in the sand as if dead. It was she who ran out to you first, while my Carmin crouched there with her rifle, ready to send another bullet into you if you moved. It was Marie-Anne you saw standing over you, it was she who knelt down at your side, and then--" St. Pierre paused, and he smiled, and then grimaced as he tried to rub his two bandaged hands together. "David, fate mixes things up in a funny way. My Carmin came out and stood over you, hating you; and Marie-Anne knelt down there at your side, loving you. Yes, it is true. And over you they fought for life or death, and love won, because it is always stronger than hate. Besides, as you lay there bleeding and helpless, you looked different to my Carmin than as you did when you hanged her brother. So they dragged you up under a tree, and after that they plotted together and planned, while I was away up the river on the raft. The feminine mind works strangely, M'sieu David, and perhaps it was that thing we call intuition which made them do what they did. Marie-Anne knew it would never do for you to see and recognize my Carmin, so in their scheming of things she insisted on passing herself off as my wife, while my Carmin came back in a canoe to meet me. They were frightened, and when I came, the whole thing had gone too far for me to mend, and I knew the false game must be played out to the end. When I saw what was happening--that you loved Marie-Anne so well that you were willing to fight for her honor even when you thought she was my wife--I was sure it would all end well. But I could take no chances until I knew. And so there were bars at your windows, and--" St. Pierre shrugged his shoulders, and the lines of grief came into his face again, and in his voice was a little break as he continued: "If Roger had not gone out there to fight back the flames from the graves of his dead, I had planned to tell you as much as I dared, M'sieu David, and I had faith that your love for our sister would win. I did not tell you on the river because I wanted you to see with your own eyes our paradise up here, and I knew you would not destroy it once you were a part of it. And so I could not tell you Carmin was my wife, for that would have betrayed us--and--besides--that fight of yours against a love which you thought was dishonest interested me very much, for I saw in it a wonderful test of the man who might become my brother if he chose wisely between love and what he thought was duty. I loved you for it, even when you sat me there on the sand like a silly loon. And now, even my Carmin loves you for bringing me out of the fire--But you are not listening!" David was looking past him toward the door, and St. Pierre smiled when he saw the look that was in his face. "Nepapinas!" he called loudly. "Nepapinas!" In a moment there was shuffling of feet outside, and Nepapinas came in. St. Pierre held out his two great, bandaged hands, and David met them with his own, one bandaged and one free. Not a word was spoken between them, but their eyes were the eyes of men between whom had suddenly come the faith and understanding of a brotherhood as strong as life itself. Then Nepapinas wheeled St. Pierre from the room and David straightened himself against his pillows, and waited, and listened, until it seemed two hearts were thumping inside him in the place of one. It was an interminable time, he thought, before Marie-Anne stood in the doorway. For a breath she paused there, looking at him as he stretched out his bandaged arm to her, moved by every yearning impulse in her soul to come in, yet ready as a bird to fly away. And then, as he called her name, she ran to him and dropped upon her knees at his side, and his arms went about her, insensible to their hurt--and her hot face was against his neck, and his lips crushed in the smothering sweetness of her hair. He made no effort to speak, beyond that first calling of her name. He could feel her heart throbbing against him, and her hands tightened at his shoulders, and at last she raised her glorious face so near that the breath of it was on his lips. Then, seeing what was in his eyes, her soft mouth quivered in a little smile, and with a broken throb in her throat she whispered, "Has it all ended--right--David?" He drew the red mouth to his own, and with a glad cry which was no word in itself he buried his face in the lustrous tresses he loved. Afterward he could not remember all it was that he said, but at the end Marie-Anne had drawn a little away so that she was looking at him, her eyes shining gloriously and her cheeks beautiful as the petals of a wild rose. And he could see the throbbing in her white throat, like the beating of a tiny heart. "And you'll take me with you?" she whispered joyously. "Yes; and when I show you to the old man--Superintendent Me Vane, you know--and tell him you're my wife, he can't go back on his promise. He said if I settled this Roger Audemard affair, I could have anything I might ask for. And I'll ask for my discharge, I ought to have it in September, and that will give us time to return before the snow flies. You see--" He held out his arms again. "You see," he cried, his face smothered in her hair again, "I've found the place of my dreams up here, and I want to stay--always. Are you a little glad, Marie-Anne?" In a great room at the end of the hall, with windows opening in three directions upon the wilderness, St. Pierre waited in his wheel-chair, grunting uneasily now and then at the long time it was taking Carmin to discover certain things out in the hall. Finally he heard her coming, tiptoeing very quietly from the direction of David Carrigan's door, and St. Pierre chuckled and tried to rub his bandaged hands when she came in, her face pink and her eyes shining with the greatest thrill that can stir a feminine heart. "If we'd only known," he tried to whisper, "I would have had the keyhole made larger, Cherie! He deserves it for having spied on us at the cabin window. But--tell me!--Could you see? Did you hear? What--" Carmin's soft hand went over his mouth. "In another moment you'll be shouting," she warned. "Maybe I didn't see, and maybe I didn't hear, Big Bear--but I know there are four very happy people in Chateau Boulain. And now, if you want to guess who is the happiest--" "I am, chere-coeur." "No." "Well, then, if you insist--YOU are." "Yes. And the next?" St. Pierre chuckled. "David Carrigan," he said. "No, no, no! If you mean that--" "I mean--always--that I am second, unless you will ever let me be first," corrected St. Pierre, kissing the hand that was gently stroking his cheek. And then he leaned his great head back against her where she stood behind him, and Carmin's fingers ran where his hair was crisp with the singe of fire, and for a long time they said no other word, but let their eyes rest upon the dim length of the hall at the far end of which was David Carrigan's room. 
15940	----	THE LUCK OF THE MOUNTED A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police by SERGEANT RALPH S. KENDALL Ex-Member of the R.N.W.M.P. Grosset & Dunlap Publishers New York 1920 This truest of stories confirms beyond doubt, That truest of adages--"Murder will out!" In vain may the blood-spiller "double" and fly, In vain even witchcraft and sorcery try: Although for a time he may 'scape, by-and-by He'll be sure to be caught by a Hue and a Cry! --THE INGOLDSBY LEGEND TO MY OLD COMRADES PRESENT, AND EX-MEMBERS OF THE R.N.W.M. POLICE THIS WORK IS DEDICATED WITH EVERY KIND THOUGHT CHAPTER I _O sing us a song of days that are gone-- Of men and happenings--of war and peace; We love to yarn of "th' times that was" As our hair grows gray, and our years increase. So--revert we again to our ancient lays-- Fill we our pipes, and our glasses raise-- "Salue! to those stirring, bygone days!" Cry the old non-coms of the Mounted Police._ MEMORIES All day long the blizzard had raged, in one continuous squalling moaning roar--the fine-spun snow swirling and drifting about the barrack-buildings and grounds of the old Mounted Police Post of L. Division. Whirraru!-ee!--thrumm-mm! hummed the biting nor'easter through the cross-tree rigging of the towering flag-pole in the centre of the wind-swept square, while the slapping flag-halyards kept up an infernal "devil's tattoo." With snow-bound roof from which hung huge icicles, like walrus-tusks, the big main building loomed up, ghostly and indistinct, amidst the whirling, white-wreathed world, save where, from the lighted windows broad streamers of radiance stabbed the surrounding gloom; reflecting the driving snow-spume like dust-motes dancing in a sunbeam. Enveloped in snow-drifts and barely visible in the uncertain light there clustered about the central structure the long, low-lying guard-room, stables, quartermaster's store, and several smaller adjacent buildings comprising "The Barracks." It was a bitter February night in South Alberta. From the vicinity of the guard-room the muffled-up figure of a man, with head down against the driving blizzard, padded noiselessly with moccasined feet up the pathway leading to the main building. Soon reaching his destination, he dived hastily through the double storm-doors of the middle entrance into the passage, and banged them to. Flanking him on either side, in welcome contrast to the bitter world outside, he beheld the all-familiar sight of two inviting portals, each radiating light, warmth, and good fellowship--the one on his right hand particularly. A moment he halted irresolutely between regimental canteen and library; then, for some reason best known to himself, he steadily ignored both, for the time being, and passing on began slowly to mount a short flight of stairs at the end of the passage. Sweet music beguiled each reluctant step of his ascent: the tinkle of a piano accompaniment to a roaring jovial chorus from the canteen assuring him with plaintive, but futile insistence just then, that-- _Beer, beer! was glorious beer, etc_. Reaching the landing he paused for a space in an intent listening attitude outside the closed door of a room marked No. 3. From within came the sounds of men's voices raised in a high-pitched, gabbling altercation. Turning swiftly to an imaginary audience, his expressive young countenance contorted into a grimace of unholy glee, the listener flung aloft his arms and blithely executed a few noiseless steps of an impromptu war-dance. "They're at it again!" he muttered ecstatically. Some seconds he capered thus in pantomime; then, as swiftly composing his features into a mask-like expression, he turned the handle and entered. On the big thermometer nailed outside the Orderly-room the mercury may have registered anything between twenty and thirty below zero, but inside Barrack-room No. 3 the temperature at that moment was warm enough. Two men, seated at either end Of a long table in the centre of the room, busily engaged in cleaning their accoutrements, glanced up casually at his entrance; then, each vouchsafing him a preoccupied salutory mumble, they bent to their furbishing with the brisk concentration peculiar to "Service men" the world over. As an accompaniment to their labours, in desultory fashion, they kept alive the embers of a facetious wrangling argument--their respective vocabularies, albeit more or less ensanguined, exhibiting a fluent and masterly range of quaint barrack-room idiom and invective. Both were clad in brown duck "fatigue slacks," the rolled-up sleeves of their "gray-back" shirts disclosing the fact that the sinewy forearms of both men were decorated with gay and fanciful specimens of the tattoo artist's genius. A third man, similarly habited, lay stretched out, apparently sleeping on one of the cots that were arranged around the room. Opening his eyes he greeted the newcomer with a lethargic "'Lo, Redmond!"; then, turning over on his side, he relapsed once more into the arms of Morpheus--his nasal organ proclaiming that fact beyond doubt. The orderly aspect of the room bore mute evidence of regimental discipline. The blankets--with the sheets placed in the centre--were strapped into a neat roll at the head of each tartan-rugged cot, at the foot of which lay a folded black oil-sheet. Above, on a small shelf, were the spare uniform and Stetson hat, flanked on either side by a pair of high brown "Strathcona" riding-boots, with straight-shanked "cavalry-jack" spurs attached. On pegs underneath hung the regulation side-arms,--a "Sam Browne" belt and holster containing the Colt's .45 Service revolver. A rifle-rack at the end of the room contained its quota of Winchester carbines. The last arrival, whom the sleeper had designated "Redmond," proceeded to divest himself of his short fur coat and, after dashing the snow from it and his muskrat-faced cap, unbuckled his side-arms, and hung all up at the head of his own particular cot. Flashing across our retrospective mind-screens, as at times we dreamily delve into the past, beloved faces come and go. Forever in the memory of the writer, as his ideal conception of healthy, virile splendid Youth personified, will stand the bronzed, debonair, clean-shaven young face of George Redmond--or "Reddy," as he was more familiarly dubbed by his comrades of L. Division. Handsome his countenance could not have been termed--the features were too strongly-marked and roughly-hewn. But it was an undeniably open, attractive and honest one--the sort of face that instinctively invited one's "Hail, fellow, well met!" trust at first sight. His hair was dark auburn in colour, short and wavy, with a sort of golden tinge in it; his forehead was broad and open, and below it were two uncommonly waggish blue eyes. His habitual expression was a mixture of nonchalant good humour and gay insouciance, but the slightly aquiline, prominent nose and the set of the square aggressive jaw belied in a measure the humourous curl of the lips. Those who knew his disposition well were fully aware how swiftly the mocking smile could vanish from that indolent young face on occasion--how unpleasantly those wide blue orbs could contract beneath scowling brows into mere pin-points of steel and ice. Slightly above middle height, well-set-up and strongly, though not heavily made, the lines of his clean-built figure suggested the embodiment of grace, strength and activity. He was dressed in the regulation winter uniform of the Force, consisting of a scarlet-serge tunic, dark-blue cord riding breeches with the broad yellow stripe down the side, thick black woollen stockings reaching to the knee, and buckskin moccasins with spurs attached. Over the stockings, and rolled tightly down upon the tops of the moccasins as snow-excluders, were a pair of heavy gray socks. Wriggling out of his tightly-fitting red serge he carelessly flung that article onto the next cot; then, filling and lighting a pipe, he stretched out comfortably upon his own. With hands clasped behind his head he lazily watched the two previously-mentioned men at their cleaning operations, his expressive face registering indolent but mischievous interest, as he listened to their wrangling. "No!" resumed one of the twain emphatically, apropos of some previous contention, "No, by gum! this division ain't what it used to be in them days." He gave vent to a reminiscent sigh as he spat upon and rubbed up some powdered brick-dust. "Billy Herchmer was O.C., Fred Bagley was Sergeant-Major--and there was Harry Hetherington, Ralph Bell, De Barre, Jeb Browne, Pennycuik, and all them old-timers. Eyah! th' times that was! th' times that was! Force's all filled up now mostly with 'Smart Aleck' kids, like Reddy, here, an'"--he shot a glance of calculating invitation at his vis-a-vis, Hardy--"'old sweats' from the Old Country Imperials." Artfully to start some trivial but decidedly inflammable barrack-room argument was one of Corporal Dave McCullough's pet diversions. At this somewhat doubtful pastime he would exhibit a knowledge of human nature and an infinite patience worthy of a better object. From some occult reasoning of his Celtic soul the psychological moment he generally chose as being likely the most fruitful of results was either a few minutes before, or after "Lights Out." When the ensuing conflagration had blazed to the desired stage he would quietly extinguish his own vocal torch and lie back on his cot with a sort of "Mark Antony" "Now let it work!" chuckle. "Getting their goats" he termed it. Usually though, when the storm of bad language and boots had subsided, his dupes, too, like those of "Silver Street" were wont to scratch their heads and commune one with another:-- --_begod, I wonder why_? He was a heavy-shouldered man; middle-aged, with thick, crisp iron-gray hair and moustache and a pair of humourous brown eyes twinkling in a lined, weather-beaten face. His slightly nasal voice was dry and penetrating to the point of exasperation. For many years he had acted as "farrier" to L. Division. George warily accepted the share of the pleasantry extended to him with a shrug, and a non-committal grin. But Hardy chose to regard it as a distinct challenge, and therefore a promising bone of contention. He gloated over it awhile ere pouncing. A medium-sized, wiry, compactly-built man bodily, Hardy bore lightly the weight of his forty-five years. His hair was of that uncertain sandy colour which somehow never seems to turn gray; the edges of the crisply-curling forelock being soaped, rolled and brushed up into that approved tonsorial ornament known in barrack-room parlance as a "quiff." His complexion was of that peculiar olive-brown shade especially noticeable in most Anglo-Indians. In his smart, soldierly aspect, biting, jerky Cockney speech and clipped, wax-pointed moustache he betrayed unmistakably the ex-Imperial cavalry-man. "Old sweats!" he echoed sarcastically--he pronounced it "aoweld"--"Yas! you go tell that t' th' Marines, me lad! . . . Took a few o' th' sime 'old sweats' t' knock ''Ay Leg!' 'Straw Leg' inter some o' you mossbacks at th' stort orf. Gee! Har! oh, gorblimey, yas!" He illustrated his trenchant remarks in suggestive pantomime. "Ah!" quoth McCullough blithely, "Yu' know th' sayin'--'Old soldier--old stiff?' . . ." His adversary burnished a spur viciously. "Old pleeceman--old son of a--" he retorted with a spiteful grin. "W'y, my old Kissiwasti here knows more abaht drill'n wot you do." He indicated a rather disreputable-looking gray parrot, preening itself in a cage which stood upon a cot nearby. At the all-familiar sound of its name the bird suddenly ceased its monotonous beak and claw gymnastics for a space, becoming on the instant alertly attentive. There came a preliminary craning of neck and winking of white-parchment-lidded eyes, and then, in shockingly human fashion it proceeded to give voluble utterance to some startling samples of barrack-room profanity. Its shrill invective would have awakened the dead. The whistling, regular snores of the sleeper suddenly wound up with a gasping gurgle; he opened his eyes and, in a strong cereal accent gave vent to a somnolent peevish protest. "Losh! . . . whot wi' you fellers bickerin' an' yon damn birrd currsin' I canna sleep! . . . gie th'--" But Hardy silenced him with a warning finger. "Sh-sh! McSporran!" he hissed in a loud eager whisper, "Jes' 'awk t' im? . . . gort th' real reg'mental tatch 'as old Kissiwasti! ain't he?"--his face shone with simple pride--"d' yer 'ken' that? sh-sh! listen now! . . . Yer shud 'ear 'im s'y 'Oot, mon!' . . . 'Awk t'im up an' tellin'yer _w'y_ th' Jocks wear th' kilts." Awhile McSporran listened, but with singular lack of enthusiasm. Presently, swinging his legs over the side of the cot with a weary sigh, he proceeded to fill his pipe. He was a thick-set, grey-eyed fair man about thirty, with a stolid, though shrewd, clean-shaven face. "Best ye stickit tae wha' ye ca' 'English,' auld mon!" he remarked irritably, "Baith yersel' an' yer plurry pairrut. . . . Ou ay, I ken!--D'ye ken John Peel?--" And, in derision he hummed a few lines of a rather vulgar parody of that ancient song that obtained around Barracks. "Say, by gad, though! that bird is a fright!" ejaculated George suddenly, "Holy Doodle! just listen to what he said then? . . . If ever he starts in to hand out tracts like that when the O.C.'s up here inspecting he'll get invested with the Order of the 'Neck-Wring' for usurping _his_ pet privilege. You'd better let Brankley the quartermaster have him. He was up here the other day and heard him. He was tickled to death--said he'd like to buy him off you, and 'top him off'--finish his education." "Oh, 'e did, did 'e?" growled Hardy mutinously, but with ill-concealed interest, "Well, 'e ain't a-goin' t' 'ave 'im!" He breathed hard upon a buckle and polished it to his satisfaction. "Brankley is some connosser I will admit," he conceded grudgingly, "but Kissiwasti's got orl th' 'toppin orf wot's good fur 'im--dahn Regina--'e went through a reg'lar course dahn there--took 'is degree, so t' speak. . . . I uster tike an' 'ang 'is kydge hup in that little gallery in th' ridin school of a mornin'--when Inspector Chappell, th' ridin' master wos breakin' in a bunch o' rookies--'toppin' orf,' wot? . . ." "Tchkk!" clucked McCullough wearily. "What is the use of arguin' with an old sweat like him? . . . Hardy'll be happy enough in Hell, so long as he can have his bloomin' old blackguard of a parrot along with him. If he can't there will be a pretty fuss." "Bear up, Hardy!" comforted George. "When you've got that 'quiff' of yours all fussed up, and those new 'square-pushin'' dress-pants on you're some 'hot dog.' . . . Now, if I thought you could 'talk pretty' and behave yourself I'd--" The old soldier grinned diabolically. "Sorjint?" he broke in mincingly "c'n I fall out an' tork t' me sister?--garn, Reddy! wipe orf yer chin! . . . though if I did 'appen t' 'ave a sister she might s'y th' sime fing abaht me, now, as she might s'y abaht you--to a lydy-fren' o' 'er's, p'raps. . . ." "Say what?" demanded George incautiously. Hardy chuckled again, "'Ere comes one o' them Mounted Pleecemen, me dear,--orl comb an' spurs,--mark time in front there. . . !" And he emitted an imitation of a barnyard cackle. McCullough shot a glance at Redmond's face. "Can th' grief" he remarked unsympathetically, "you're fly enough usually . . . but you fairly asked for it that time." Hardy spat into a cuspidor with long-range accuracy. He beamed with cheerful malevolence awhile upon his tormentors; then, uplifting a cracked falsetto in an unmusical wail, to the tune of "London Bridge is Falling Down," assured them that-- "_Old soweljers never die, never die, never die, Old soweljers never--_" With infinite mockery Redmond's boyish voice struck in-- "_Young soldiers wish they would, wish they--_" "'Ere!" remonstrated Hardy darkly, "chack it, Reddy! . . . You know wot 'appens t' them as starts in, a-guyin' old soweljers?--eh?--Well, I tell yer now!--worse'n wot 'appened t' them fresh kids in th' Bible wot mocked th' old blowke abaht 'is bald 'ead." "_Isch ga bibble_! I don't care!" bawled the abandoned George; "can't be much worse than doing 'straight duty' round Barracks, here!--same thing, day in, day out--go and look at the 'duty detail' board--Regimental Number--Constable Redmond, 'prisoner's escort'--punching gangs of prisoners around all day long, on little rotten jobs about Barracks--and 'night guard' catching you every third night and--" "Oyez! oyez! oyez! you good men of this--" "Oh, yes! you can come the funny man all right, Mac--you've got a 'staff' job. Straight duty don't affect you. Why don't they shove me out on detachment again, and give me another chance to do real police work? . . . I tell you I'm fed up--properly. . . . I wish I was out of the blooming Force--I'm not 'wedded' to it, like you." "'Ear, 'ear!" chimed in Hardy, with a sort of miserable heartiness. McSporran's contribution was merely a dour Scotch grin. In the moment's silence that followed a tremendous bawling squall of wind rocked the building to its very foundations. The back-draught of it sucked open the door, and, borne upon its wings, the roaring, full-chorused burst of a popular barrack-room chantey floated up the stairs from the canteen below-- "_Old King Cole was a merry old soul, And a merry old soul was he-- He called for his pipe, and he called for his glass, And he called for his old M.P._" Outside the blizzard still moaned and howled; every now and then, between lulls, screeching gusts of sleet beat upon the windows. The parrot, clinging upside down to the roof of its cage, winked rapidly with Sphinx-like eyes and inclined its head sideways in an intent listening attitude. "Eyah! but th' Force's a bloomin' good home to some of you, all th' same," growled McCullough. "Listen to that 'norther'? . . . How'd you like to be chucked out into th' cold, cold world right now?--You, Hardy! that's never done nothin' but 'soldier' all your life--you, Reddy! with your 'collidge edukashun'?" George, unmoved, listened respectfully awhile, lying on his stomach with his chin cupped in his hands. "Must have been a great bunch of fellows when you first took on the Force, Dave?" he queried presently. From sheer force of habit the old policeman glanced at his interlocutor suspiciously. But that young gentleman's face appearing open and serene, merely expressing naive interest, he grunted an affirmative "Uh-huh!" and backed his conviction with a cheerful oath. "Ah, they sure was. But where are they all now?" he rambled on in garrulous reminiscence, "some of 'em rich--some of 'em broke--an' many of 'em back on th' old Force again, an' glad to get their rations. There was some that talked like you, Mister Bloomin' Reddy!--fed up, an' goin' to quit--an' did quit--for a time. There was Corky Jones, I mind. Him that used to blow 'bout th' wonderful jobs he'd got th' pick of when he was 'time-ex.' All he got was 'reeve' of some little shi-poke burg down south. Hooshomin its real name, but they mostly call it Hootch thereabouts. A rotten little dump of 'bout fifty inhabitants. They're drunk half th' time an' wear each other's clothes. Ugh! filthy beggars! . . . He's back on th' Force again. There was Gadgett Malone. Proper dog he was--used to sing 'Love me, an' th' World is Mine.' He got all balled up with a widder, first crack out o' th' box, an' she shook him down for his roll an' put th' skids under him in great shape inside of a month. He's back on th' Force again. There was Barton McGuckin. When he pulled out he shook hands all around, I mind. Yes, sir! with tears in his eyes he did. Told us no matter how high he rose in th' world he'd never forget his old comrades--always rec'gnize 'em on th' street an' all that. On his way down town he was fool enough to go into one o' these here Romany Pikey dives for to get his fortune told. This gypsy woman threw it into him he was goin' to make his fortune in th' next two or three days by investin' his dough in a certain brand of oil shares. . . ." McCullough paused and filled his pipe with elaborate care, "Th' last time I see him he was in th' buildin' an' contractin' line--carryin' a hod an' pushin' an Irishman's buggy . . . There's--but, aw hell! what's th' use o' talkin'?" he concluded disgustedly. "No! times ain't what they was, by gum!--rough stuff an' all things was run more real reg'mental them days--not half th' grousin' either." "Reel reg'mental?" echoed Hardy mincingly, "aowe gorblimey! 'awk t'im? well, wot abaht it? I've done my bit, too!--in Injia. See 'ere; look!" He pulled up the loose duck-pant of his right leg. On the outside of the hairy, spare but muscular limb, an ugly old dirty-white scar zigzagged from knee to ankle. "Paythan knife," he informed them briefly, "but I did th' blowke in wot give it me." He launched into a lurid account of a border hill-scuffle that his regiment had been engaged in relating all its ghastly details with great gusto. "Cleared me lance-point ten times that d'y," he remarked laconically. "Flint was aour Orf'cer Commandin'--Old 'Doolally Flint'--'ard old 'ranker' 'e wos. 'E'd worked us sumphin' crool that week. Night marches an' wot not. I tell yer that man 'ad no 'eart for men or 'orses. An' you tork ababt bein' reel reg'mental, Mac! . . . 'e wos a reg'mental old soor if yer like! . . . Fit to drop we wos--wot wos left o' us, an' th' bloody sun goin' down an' all. But no! 'e give us no rest--burial fatigue right away. Free big trenches we buried aour pore fellers in--I can see 'em now. . . ." For some few seconds he ceased polishing his glossy, mahogany-shaded "Sam Browne" belt, and, chin in hand, stared unseeingly straight in front of him. His audience waited. "Arterwards!" he cleared his throat, "arterwards--w'en we'd filled in 'e made us put th' trimmin's on--line 'em out 'ead an' foot wiv big bowlders. I mind I'd jes kern a-staggerin' ap wiv a big stowne for th' 'ead o' Number Free trench, but Doolally kep me a-markin time till 'e wos ready. 'Kem ap a bit, Private 'Ardy,' 'e sez, 'kem ap a bit! you're aht o' yer dressin'!' 'e sez. 'Arry Wagstaff, as wos in Number Two Squordron 'e pulls a bit o' chork aht of 'is pocket, an' 'e marks on 'is bowlder in big, fat letters 'Lucky soors--in bed ev'ry night'--but old Doolally 'appened to turn rahnd an' cop 'im at it. Drum-'ead coort-martial 'Arry gort for that, an' drew ten d'ys Number One Field Punishment. But that wos old Doolally all over . . . yer might s'y 'e 'adn't no sense o' 'umor, that man. Down country we moves next d'y, for Peshawur, where th' reg'ment lay. We'd copped a thunderin' lot o' prisoners--th' Mullah an' all." "Wha' d'ye ca' a Mullah?" queried McSporran, with grave interest. Hardy, carbine-barrel between knees--struggled with a "pull-through." "Mullah? well, 'e's a sorter--sorter 'ead blowke," he mumbled lamely. "Kind of High Priest?" ventured George. The old soldier beamed upon him gratefully, "Ar, that's wot I meant. 'E stunk that 'igh th' Colonel 'e sez--" The storm doors banged below. "Redmond!--oh, Redmond!" The great, booming, bass voice rang echoing up the stairway. Involuntarily they all sprang to an attitude of alert attention. Rarely did Tom Belcher have to speak twice around Barracks. "There's the S.M.!" muttered George. Aloud he responded "Coming, Sergeant-Major!" And he swung downstairs where a powerfully-built man in a snow and ice-incrusted fur coat awaited him. "The O.C.'s orders, Redmond!--get your kit packed and hold yourself in readiness to pull out on the eleven o'clock West-bound to-morrow. You're transferred to the Davidsburg detachment. I'll give you your transport-requisition later." The storm doors banged behind him, and then, Redmond, not without design, forced himself to saunter slowly--very slowly--upstairs again, whistling nonchalantly the while. Expectant faces greeted him. "What's up?" they chorused. With a fine assumption of indifference he briefly informed them. McSporran received the news with his customary stolidity, only his gray eyes twinkled and he chuntered something that was totally unintelligible to anyone save himself. But its effect upon McCullough and Hardy was peculiar, not to say, startling in the extreme. With brush and burnisher clutched in their respective hands they both turned and gaped upon him fish-eyed for the moment. Then, as their eyes met, those two worthies seemed to experience a difficulty of articulation. Dumfounded himself, George looked from one to the other, "What the devil's wrong with you fools?" he queried irritably. Thereupon, McCullough, still holding the eyes of the Cockney, gasped out one magical word--"Yorkey!" The spell was broken. "W'y, gorblimey!" said Hardy, "Ain't that queer?--that's jes' wot I wos a-thinkin' . . . Well, Gawd 'elp Sorjint Slavin now!" With which cryptic utterance he resumed his eternal polishing. "Amen!" responded the farrier piously, "Reddy, here, an' Yorkey on th' same detachment. . . . What th' one don't know t'other'll teach him. . . . You'd better let 'em have th' parrot, too." McSporran, back on his cot with hands clasped behind his head, gobbled an owlish "Hoot, mon! th' twa o' them thegither! . . . Losh! but that beats a' . . . but, hoo lang, O Lard? hoo lang?" From various sources George had picked up the broken ends of many strange rumours relating to the personality and escapades of one Constable Yorke, of the Davidsburg detachment, whom he had never seen as yet. A hint here, a whisper there, a shrug and a low-voiced jest between the sergeant-major and the quartermaster, overheard one day in the Matter's store. To Redmond it seemed as if a veil of mystery had always enveloped the person and doings of this man, Yorke. The glamour of it now aroused all his latent curiosity. "Why, what sort of a chap is this Yorke?" he inquired casually. McCullough, busily burnishing a bit, shrugged deprecatingly and laughed. Hardy, putting the last touches to his revolver-holster, made answer, George thought, with peculiar reticence. "Wot, Yorkey? . . . oh, 'e's a 'oly terror 'e is. . . . You arst Crampton," he mumbled--"arst Taylor--they wos at Davidsburg wiv 'im. Slavin's orl right but Yorkey!". . . He looked unutterable things. "Proper broken down Old Country torff 'e is, too. 'E's right there wiv th' goods at police work, they s'y, but 'e's sure a bad un to 'ave to live wiv. Free weeks on'y, Crampton stuck it afore 'e applied for a transfer--Taylor, 'e on'y stuck it free d'ys." Redmond made a gesture of exasperation. "Ah-h! come off the perch!" he snarled pettishly, "what sort of old 'batman's' gaff are you trying to 'get my goat' with?" His display of irritation drew an explosive, misthievous cachinnation from the trio. "Old 'batman's' gaff?" echoed the Cockney grinning, "orl right, my fresh cove--this time next week you'll be tellin' us wevver it's old 'batman's' gaff, or not." Outside, the blizzard still moaned and beat upon the windows, packing the wind-driven snow in huge drifts about the big main building. Inside, the canteen roared-- "_Then--I--say, boys! who's for a drink with me? Rum, tum! tiddledy-um! we'll have a fair old spree!_" McSporran slid off his cot with surprising alacrity. "Here's ane!" he announced blithely. Hardy, carefully hanging up his spotless, glossy equipment at the head of his cot, turned to the farrier who was likewise engaged in arranging a bridle and a pipe-clayed headrope. "Wot abaht it, Mac?" he queried briskly. McCullough, in turn looked at Redmond. "All right!" responded that young gentleman with a boyish shrug and grin, "come on then, you bloomin' old sponges! let's wet my transfer. I'll have time to pack my kit to-morrow, before the West-bound pulls out." Upon their departing ears, grown wearily familiar to its monotonous repetition, fell the parrot's customary adieu, as that disreputable-looking bird swung rhythmically to and fro on its perch. "Goo' bye!" it gabbled, "A soldier's farewell' to yeh! goo' bye! goo' bye!" CHAPTER II _Homeless, ragged and tanned, Under the changeful sky; Who so free in the land? Who so contented as I?_. THE VAGABOND The long-drawn-out, sweet notes of "Reveille" rang out in the frosty dawn. Reg. No. ---- Const George Redmond, engaged at that moment in pulling on his "fatigue-slacks" hummed the trumpet-call's time-honoured vocal parody-- "_I sold a cow, I sold a cow, an' bought a donk-ee--' Oh--what--a silly old sot you were_!" The room buzzed like a drowsy hive with hastily dressing men. Breathing hotly on the frosted window-pane next his cot, George rubbed a clear patch and glued his eye to it. The blizzard had died out during the night leaving the snow-drifted landscape frosty, still and clear. A rapidly widening strip of blended rose and pale turquoise on the eastern horizon gave promise of a fine day. He turned away with a contented sigh and, descending the stairs, fell in with the rest of the fur-coated, moccasined men on "Morning Stable Parade." Three hours later, breakfast despatched, blankets rolled and kit and dunnage bags packed, he received a curt summons from the sergeant-major to attend the Orderly-room. To the brisk word of command he was "quick-_marched_" "left-_wheeled_," and "halted" at "attention" before the desk of the Officer Commanding L. Division. "Constable Redmond, Sir!" announced the deep-throated, rumbling bass of the sergeant-major; and for some seconds George gazed at the silvery hair and wide bowed shoulders of the seated figure in front of him, who continued his perusal of some type-written sheets of foolscap, as if unaware of any interruption. Elsewhere have the kindly personality and eccentricities of Captain Richard Bargrave been described; "but that," as Kipling says, "is another story." Presently the papers were cast aside, the bowed shoulders in the splendidly-cut blue-serge uniform squared back in the chair, and Redmond found himself being scrutinized intently by the all-familiar bronzed old aristocratic countenance, with its sweeping fair moustache. Involuntarily he stiffened, though his eyes, momentarily overpowered by the intensity of that keen gaze, strayed to the level of his superior's breast and focussed themselves upon two campaign ribbons there, "North-West Rebellion" and "Ashantee" decorations. Suddenly the thin, high, cultured voice addressed him--whimsically--sarcastic but not altogether unkindly: "The Sergeant-Major"--the gold-rimmed pince-nez were swung to an elevation indicating that individual and the fair moustache was twirled pensively--"the Sergeant-Major reports that--er--for the past six months you have been conducting yourself around the Post with fair average"--the suave tones hardened--"that you have wisely refrained from indulging your youthful fancies in any more such--er--dam-fool antics, Sir, as characterized your merry but brief career at the Gleichen detachment, so--er--I have decided to give you another chance. I have here"--he fumbled through some papers--"a request from Sergeant Slavin for another man at Davidsburg. I am transferring you there. Slavin--er--damn the man! damn the man! what's wrong with him, Sergeant-Major? . . . Two men have I sent him in as many months, and both of 'em, after a few days there, on some flimsy pretext or another, applied for transfers to other detachments. Good men, too. If this occurs again--damme!"--he glared at his subordinate--"I'll--er--bring that Irish 'ginthleman' into the Post for a summary explanation. Wire him of this man's transfer! . . . All right, Sergeant-Major!" "About-turrn!--quick-march!" growled again the bass voice of the senior non-com; and he kept step behind George into the passage. "Here's your transport requisition, Redmond. Now--take a tumble to yourself, my lad--on this detachment. You're getting what 'Father' don't give to many--a second chance. Good-bye!" George gripped the proffered hand and looked full into the kindly, meaning eyes. "Good-bye, S.M.!" he said huskily, "Thanks!" Westward, the train puffed its way slowly along a slight, but continual up-grade through the foothills, following more or less the winding course of the Bow River. Despite the cold, clear brilliance of the day, seen under winter conditions the landscape on either side of the track presented a rather forlorn, dreary picture. So it appeared to George, anyway, as he gazed out of the window at the vast, spreading, white-carpeted valley, the monotonous aspect of which was only occasionally relieved by sparsely-dotted ranches, small wayside stations, or when they thundered across high trestle bridges over the partly-frozen, black, steaming river. Two summers earlier he had travelled the same road, on a luxurious trip to the Coast. The memory of its scenic splendor then, the easy-going stages from one sumptuous mountain resort to another, now made him feel slightly dismal and discontented with his present lot. Eye-restful solace came however with the sight of the ever-nearing glorious sun-crowned peaks of the mighty "Rockies," sharply silhouetted against the dazzling blue of the sky. Children's voices behind him suddenly broke in upon his reverie. "That man!" said a small squeaking treble, "was a hobo. He was sitting in that car in front with the hard seats an' I went up to him an' I said, 'Hullo, Mister! why don't you wash your face an' shave it? we've all washed our faces this morning' . . . . We did, didn't we, Alice?--an' washed Porkey's too, an' he said 'Hullo, Bo! wash my face?--I don't have to--I might catch cold.'" "But Jerry!" said another child's voice, "I don't think he could have been a real hobo, or he'd have had an empty tomato-can hanging around his neck on a string, like the pictures of 'Weary Willie' an' 'Tired Tim' in the funny papers." Then ensued the sounds as of a juvenile scuffle and squawk. Master Jerry apparently resented having his pet convictions treated in this "Doubting Thomas" fashion, for the next thing George heard him say, was: "Goozlemy, goozlemy, goozlemy! . . . No! he hadn't got a tomato-can, silly! but he'd got a big, fat bottle in his pocket an' he pulled the cork out of it an' sucked an' I said 'What have you got in your bottle?' an' he said 'Cold tea' but it didn't smell a bit like cold tea. There's a Mounted Policeman sitting in that seat in front of us. Let's ask him. Policemen always lock hoboes up in gaol an' kick them in the stomach, like you see them in the pictures." The next instant there came a pattering of little feet and two small figures scrambled into the vacant seat in front of Redmond. His gaze fell on a diminutive, red-headed, inquisitive-faced urchin of some eight years, and a small, gray-eyed, wistful-looking maiden, perhaps about a year younger, with hair that matched the boy's in colour. Under one dimpled arm she clutched tightly to her--upside-down--a fat, squirming fox-terrier puppy. Hand-in-hand, in an attitude of breathless, speculative awe, they sat there bolt upright, like two small gophers; watching intently the face of the uniformed representative of the Law, as if seeking some reassuring sign. It came presently--a kind, boyish, friendly smile that gained the confidence of their little hearts at once. "Hullo, nippers!" he said cheerily. "Hullo!" the two small trebles responded. "What's your name, son?" "Jerry!" "Jerry what?" An uneasy wriggle and a moment's hesitation then--"Jeremiah!" came a small--rather sulky--voice. Breathing audibly in her intense eagerness the little girl now came to the rescue. "Please, policeman?" she stopped and gulped excitedly--"please, policeman?--he doesn't like to be called that. . . . It isn't _his_ fault. He always throws stones at the bad boys when they call him that. Call him just 'Jerry.'" That gamin, turning from a minute examination of Redmond's spurred moccasins, began to swing his chubby legs and bounce up and down upon the cushioned seat. "Her name's Alice," he volunteered, with a sidelong fling of his carrot-tinted head. "Yes! she's my sister"--he made a snatch at the pup whose speedy demise was threatened, from blood to the head--"don't hold Porkey that way, Alice! his eyes'll drop out." But his juvenile confrere shrugged away from his clutch. "Stupid!" she retorted, with fine scorn, "no they won't . . . . it's on'y guinea pigs that do that!--when you hold them up by their tails." Nevertheless she promptly reversed that long-suffering canine, which immediately demonstrated its gratitude by licking her face effusively. The all-important question of the hobo was next commended to his attention, with a tremendous amount of chattering rivalry, and, with intense gravity he was cogitating how to render a satisfactory finding to both factions when steps, and the unmistakable rustle of skirts, sounded in his immediate rear. Then a lady's voice said, "Oh, there you are, children! . . . I was wondering where you'd got to." The two heads bobbed up simultaneously, with a joyful "Here's Mother!" and George, turning, glanced with innate, well-bred curiosity at a stout, pleasant-faced, middle-aged woman who stood beside them. "I hope these young imps haven't been bothering you?" she said. "We were in that car behind, but I was reading and they've been having a great time romping all over the place. Oh, well! I suppose it's too much to expect children to keep still on a train." With a fond motherly caress she patted the two small flaming heads that now snuggled boisterously against her on either side. "Come now! Messrs. Bubble and Squeak!" she urged teasingly, "march!--back to our car again!" "Bubble and Squeak" seemed appropriate enough just then, to judge by the many fractious objections immediately voiced by those two small mutineers. They were loth to part with their latest acquaintance and weren't above advertising that fact with unnecessary vehemence. Even the puppy raised a snuffling whine. "Boo-hoo!" wailed Jerry, "don't want to go in the other car--me an' Alice want to stay here--the policeman's goin' to tell us all about hoboes--he--" "Oh, dear!" came a despairing little sigh, "whatever--" Their eyes met and, at the droll perplexity he read in hers, George laughed outright. An explosive frank boyish laugh. He rose with a courteous gesture. "I'm afraid it's a case of 'if the mountain won't come to Mahomet,'" he began, with gay sententiousness. "Won't you sit down?" The matron's kindly eyes appraised the bold, manly young face a moment, then, with a certain leisurely grace, she stepped in between the seats and, seating herself, lugged her two small charges down beside her. "I suppose, under the circumstances, an old woman like me can discard the conventionalities?" she remarked smilingly. Jerry and Alice leered triumphantly at their victim. "Now!" Jerry shrilled exactingly "tell us all about hoboes!" "They do carry empty tomato-cans, don't they?" pleaded Alice. It was now their guardian's turn to laugh at his dismay. "You see what you've let yourself in for now?" she remarked. "Seems I am up against it," he admitted, with a rueful grin, "well! must make good somehow, I suppose?" With an infinitely boyish gesture he tipped his fur cap to the back of his head and leaned forward with finger-tips compressed in approved story-telling fashion. "Once upon a time!--" a breathless "Yes-s"--those two small faces reminded him much of terriers watching a rat-hole--"there was a hobo." He thought hard. "He was a very dirty old hobo--he never used to wash his face. He was walking along the road one day when he heard a little wee voice call out 'Hey!'. He looked down and he saw an empty tomato-can on a rubbish heap. Tomato-cans used to be able to talk in those days and the hoboes were very good to them--always used to drink out of them and carry them to save them from walking. This can had a picture of its big red face on the outside. 'Give us a lift?' said the can. 'Where to?' said the old hobo. 'Back to California, where I came from,' said the can. 'All right!' said the old hobo, 'I'm goin' there, too.' And he picked the can up and hung it round his neck and kept on walking till they came to a house. The window of the house was open and they could see a big fat bottle on a little table. 'Ah!' said the old hobo 'here's an old friend of mine!--he's comin' with us, too,' And he shoved his arm through the window and put the bottle in his pocket. By and by they came to a river--'Hey!' said the can, again--'What's up?' said the old hobo--'I'm dry,' said the can--'So am I,' said the hobo; and he dipped the can in the water and gave it a very little drink. 'Hey!' said the can, 'give us a drop more!'--'Wait a bit!' said the old hobo, and he pulled the cork out of the bottle. 'Don't you pour any of that feller into me!' said the can, 'he'll burn my inside out--an' yours--if you pour him into me I'll open my mouth where I'm soldered and let him run out, and you won't be able to drink out of me any more. Chuck him into the river!--he's no good.' "'You shut your mouth!' said the old hobo, 'or I'll chuck you into the river!' And he poured some of the stuff out of the bottle into the can--" At this exciting point poor George halted for breath and mopped his forehead. He felt fully as thirsty as the tomato-can. But the children were upon him, clutching his scarlet tunic: "What did he do then?" howled Jerry. "Eh?" gasped the young policeman,--"oh, he opened his mouth where he was soldered and let the stuff run out. So the old hobo threw him into the river. That's why hoboes always pack a bottle with them now instead of a tomato-can." He leaned back with a sigh and, thrusting his hands deep into his pockets, smiled wanly at his vis-à-vis. "There!" he said, with feeble triumph, "I've carried out the sentence." And it did him good to drink in her mirthful, waggish laugh. "Yes!" she conceded gaily, "you certainly did great execution, though you look more like a prisoner just reprieved." Jerry, screwing up his small snub nose leered triumphantly across her lap at Alice. "Goozlemy, goozlemy, goozlemy!" he squeaked, "that man was a real hobo." His grimace was returned with interest. Alice hugged her puppy awhile contentedly, murmuring in that canine's ear, "What a silly old thing that tomato-can must have been. If I'd been him I'd have kept my mouth shut." "Cow Run!" intoned the brakeman monotonously, passing through the coaches, "Cow Run next stop!" His eye fell on Redmond. "Wish I'd seen you before, Officer!" he remarked, "I'd have had a hobo for you. Beggar stole a ride on us from Glenbow, back there. The con's goin' to chuck him off here--do you want him?" "No!" said Redmond shortly, "let the stiff go--I'm going on to Davidsburg--haven't got time to get messing around with 'vags' now." The train began to slow down and presently stopped at a small station. Mechanically the quartette gazed through the window at the few shivering platform loungers, and beyond them to the irregular, low-lying facade of snow-plastered buildings that comprised the dreary main street of the little town. Suddenly the children uttered a shrill yelp. "There he is!" cried Alice, darting a small finger at the window-pane. "I saw him first!" bawled Jerry. And, slouching past along the platform, all huddled-up with hands in pockets, George beheld a ragged nondescript of a man whose appearance confirmed Master Jerry's previous assertion beyond doubt. The children drummed on the window excitedly. Glancing up at the two small peering faces the human derelict's red-nosed, stubble-coated visage contorted itself into a friendly grimace of recognition; at the same time, with an indescribably droll, swashbuckling swagger he doffed a shocking dunghill of a hat. Suddenly though his jaw dropped and, replacing his battered headpiece, with double-handed indecent haste the knight of the road executed an incredibly nimble "right-about turn" and vanished behind the station-house. Just then came the engine's toot! toot!, the conductor's warning "All aboar-rd!" and the train started once more on its journey westward. Smiling grimly to himself, the policeman settled back in his seat again and glanced across at the lady. She was shaking with convulsive laughter. "Oh!" she giggled hysterically "he--he must have seen your red coat!" another spasm of merriment, "it was as good as a pantomime," she murmured. Evincing a keen interest in his soldierly vocation, for awhile she subjected him to an exacting and minute inquisition anent the duties and life of a Mounted Policeman. In this agreeable fashion the time passed rapidly and it was with a feeling of regret that he heard the brakeman announce his destination and rose to take leave of his pleasant companion. The children insisted on bidding their late chum a cuddling, osculatory farewell--Alice tearfully holding up the snuffling Porkey for his share. The train drew up at the Davidsburg platform, there came a chorus of "Good-byes" and a few minutes later George was left alone with his kit-bags on the deserted platform. CHAPTER III _St. Agnes' Eve. Ah! bitter chill it was. The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold; The hare limped, trembling, through the frozen grass; And drowsy was the flock in woolly fold_. ST. AGNES' EVE Edmond did not have to wait long. Sounding faint and far off came the silvery ring of sleigh-bells, gradually swelling in volume until, with a measured crunch! crunch! of hoofs on packed snow, a smart Police cutter, drawn by a splendid bay team, swung around a bend of the trail and pulled up at the platform. Redmond regarded with a little awe the huge, bear-like, uniformed figure of the teamster, whom he identified at once from barrack gossip. "Sergeant Slavin?" he enquired respectfully, eyeing the bronzed, clean-shaven face, half hidden by fur cap and turned-up collar. "Meself, lad!" came a rich soft brogue, "I was afther gettin' a wire from th' O.C., tellin' me he was thransfering me another man. Yer name's Ridmond, ain't it?---Whoa, now! T an' B!--lively wid thim kit-bags, son!--team's pretty fresh an' will not shtand." They swung off at a spanking trot. George surveyed the white-washed cattle-corrals and few scattered shacks which seemed to comprise the hamlet of Davidsburg. "Not a very big place, Sergeant?" he remarked, "how far's the detachment from here?" "On'y 'bout a mile" grunted the individual, squirting a stream of tobacco-juice to leeward, "up on the high ground beyant. Nay! 'tis just a jumpin' off place an' shippin' point for th' ranches hereabouts. Business is mostly done at Cow Run--East. Ye passed ut, comin'. Great doin's there--whin th' cowpunchers blow in. Some burg!" "Sure looked it!" Redmond agreed absently, thinking of the casual glimpse he had got of the dreary main street. They were climbing a slight grade. The sun-glare on the snow was intense; the cutter's steel runners no longer screeched, and the team's hoofs began to clog up with soft snow. "They're 'balling-up' pretty bad, Sergeant!" remarked Redmond. And, as he spoke the "off" horse suddenly slipped and fell, and, plunging to its feet again, a leg slid over the cutter's tongue. "Whoa, now! whoa!" barked Slavin, with an oath, as the mettled, high-strung animal began to kick affrightedly. Slipping again it sank down in the snow and remained still for some tense moments. Like a flash Redmond sprang from the cutter, and rapidly and warily he unhooked the team's traces. This done he crept to their heads and slipped the end of the tongue out of the neck-yoke ring. Slavin by this time was also on his feet in the snow, with the situation well in hand. He clucked softly to his team, the fallen horse plunged to its feet again and the next moment all was clear. George, burrowing around in the snow unearthed a big stone, with which he proceeded to tap the team's shoes all round until the huge snow-clogs fell out. In silence the two men hooked up again and were soon on their way. "H-mm!" grunted the big Irishman at last, eyeing his subordinate with a sidelong glance of approval, "h-mm! teamster?" "Oh, I don't know, Sergeant" responded Redmond deprecatingly, "of course I've been around teams some--down East, on the old man's farm. . . I don't know that I can claim to be a real teamster--as you judge them in the Force." "H-mm!" grunted Slavin again, "ye seem tu have th' makin's anyway." He expectorated musingly. "Wan time--down at Coutts 'twas--a young feller was sint tu me for tu dhrive. Mighty chipper gossoon, tu. 'Teamster?' sez I--'Some!' sez he, as if he was a reg'lar gun at th' business--'but I'm gen'rally reckoned handier wid a foursome 'n a single team.'" "'Oh!' sez I, 'fwhere?' An' he tould me--Regina. Sez I thin ''tis Skinner Adams's undershtudy ye must have bin?--for he was Reg'mentil Teamster Sarjint there, an' sure fwas a great man wid a four-in-hand team.'" "'Fwat, ould Skinner Adams?' sez me bould lad, kind av contempshus-like, 'Humph! at shtringin' out four I have Skinner Adams thrimmed tu a peak.' We was dhrivin' from th' station tu th' detachmint--same like tu we're doin' now. Whin we gits in I unhitches an' puts up th' team. 'Give us a hand tu shling th' harniss off!' sez I tu him--an' me shmart Aleck makes a shtab at ut wid th' nigh horse. He was not quite so chipper--thin, an' I noticed his hands thremblin', an' he was all th' time watchin' me close how I did wid th' off harse. I dhraws off wid th' britchin' on me arrum--'Come!' sez I--an' he shtarts in--unbucklin' th' top hame-shtrap. "'As ye were!' sez I 'that's enough! I'm thinkin' th' on'y 'four' you iver shtrung out me young flapdhoodle was a gang av prisoners, an' blarney me sowl! ye shall go back tu th' Post right now, an' du prisoner's escort agin for awhile.'" They had now reached the top of the grade where the trail swung due east, and faced a dazzling sun and cutting wind which whipped the blood to their cheeks and made their eyes water. "Behould our counthry eshtate!" said Sergeant Slavin grandiloquently, with an airy wave of his arm, "beyant that big pile av shtones on th' road-allowance." He chirped to his team which broke into an even, fast trot, and presently they drew up outside a building typical in its outside appearance of the usual range Mounted Police detachment. It was a fairly large dwelling, roughly but substantially-built of squared logs, painted in customary fashion, with the walls--white, and the shingled roof--red. A strongly-guyed flagstaff jutting out from one gable, and copies of the "Game" and "Fire Acts" tacked on the door gave the abode an unmistakable official aspect. Over the doorway was nailed a huge, prehistoric-looking buffalo-skull, bleached white with the years--the time-honoured insignia of the R.N.W.M.P. being a buffalo-head, which is also stamped on the regimental badge and button. Dumping off the kit-bags, the two men drove round to the stable in the rear of the main dwelling, where they unhitched and put up the team. The sergeant led the way into the house. Passing through a small store-house and kitchen they emerged into the living room. On a miniature scale it was a replica of one of the Post barrack-rooms, except that the table boasted a tartan-rugged covering, that two or three easy chairs were scattered around, and some calfskin mats partially covered the painted hardwood floor. The walls, for the most part were adorned with many unframed copies of pictures from the brush of that great Western artist, Charles Russell, and black and white sketches cut from various illustrated papers. Three corners of the room contained cots, one of which the sergeant assigned to Redmond. The room, with its big stove, in a way looked comfortable enough, and was regimentally neat and clean and homelike. George peered into the front room beyond which bore quite a judicial aspect. At one end of it a small dais supported a severe-looking arm-chair and a long flat desk, on which were piled foolscap, blank legal forms, law-books, and the Bible. In front was a long, form-like bench, with a back to it. At the rear of the room were two strongly-built cells, with barred doors. Around the walls were scattered a double row of small chairs and, on a big, green-baize-covered board next the cells hung a brightly burnished assortment of handcuffs and leg-irons. "'Tis here we hould coort," Slavin informed him, "whin we have any shtiffs tu be thried." Opening the front door George lugged in his bedding and kit-bags and, depositing them on his cot, flung off his fur coat, cap, and serge. Slavin divested himself likewise and, as the burly, bull-necked man stood there, slowly filling his pipe, Redmond was able to scan the face and massive proportions of his superior more closely. Standing well over six feet, for the presentment of vast, though perchance clumsy, gorilla-like strength, George reflected with slight awe that he had never seen the man's equal. His wide-spreading shoulders were more rounded than square; his deep, arching chest, powerful, stocky nether limbs and disproportionately long, huge-biceped arms seeming to fit him as an exponent of the mat rather than the gloves. Truly a daunting figure to meet in a close-quarter, rough-and-tumble encounter! thought Redmond. The top of his head was completely bald; his thick, straight black brows indicating that what little close-cropped iron-gray hair remained must originally have been coal-black in colour. His Irish-blue eyes, alternately dreamy and twinklingly alert, were deeply set in a high-cheeked-boned, bronzed face, with a long upper-lipped, grimly-humorous mouth. Its expression in repose gave subtle warning that its owner possessed in a marked degree the strongly melancholic, emotional, and choleric temperament of his race. There was no moroseness--no hardness in it, but rather the taciturnity that invariably settles upon the face of those dwellers of the range who, perforce, live much alone with their thoughts. Sheathed in mail and armed, that face and bulky figure to some imaginations might have found its prototype in some huge, grim, war-worn "man-at-arms" of mediaeval times. Redmond judged him to be somewhere in his forties; forty-two was his exact age as he ascertained later. In curious contrast to his somewhat formidable exterior seemed his mild, gentle, soft-brogued voice. And with speech, his taciturn face relaxed insensibly into an almost genial expression, George noted. Attracted by a cluster of pictures and photographs above and around the cot in the corner opposite his own, the young fellow crossed over and scanned them attentively. Tacked up with a random, reckless hand, the bizarre collection was typically significant of someone's whimsical, freakish tastes and personality. From the sublime to the ridiculous--and worse--subjects pious and impious, dreamily-beautiful and lewdly-vulgar, comic and tragic, also many splendid photographs were all jumbled together on the walls in a shockingly irresponsible fashion. Many of the pictures were unframed copies cut apparently from art and other journals; from theatrical and comic papers. George gazed on them awhile in utterly bewildered astonishment; then, with a little hopeless ejaculation, swung around to the sergeant who met his despairing grin with benign composure. "Whose cot's--" "'Tis Yorke's," said Slavin simply. It was the first time he had mentioned that individual's name. He struck a match on the seat of his pants and standing with his feet apart and hands clasped behind his back smoked awhile contentedly. "Saw ye iver th' like av that for divarsiment?" he continued, with a wave of his pipe at the heterogeneous array, "shtudy thim! an', by an' large ye have th' man himsilf. He's away on pay-day duty at th' Coalmore mines west av here--though by token, 'tis Billy Blythe at Banff shud be doin' ut, 'stead av me havin' tu sind a man from here. He shud be back on Number Four th' night." His twinkling orbs under their black smudge of eyebrow appraised the junior constable with faint, musing interest. "A quare chap is Yorkey," he continued gently--shielding a match-flame and puffing with noisy respiration--"a good polisman--knows th' Criminal Code from A tu Z--eyah! but mighty quare. I misdoubt how th' tu av yez will get along." He sighed deeply, muttering half to himself, "I may have tu take shteps--this time! . . ." A rather ominous beginning, thought George. But, curbing his natural curiosity, he resolutely held his peace, awaiting more enlightenment. This not being forthcoming--his superior having relapsed once more into taciturn silence--he turned again to Yorke's exhibits with pondering interest. Sounding far-off and indistinct in the frosty stillness of the bleak foothills came the faint echoes of a coyote's shrill "ki-yip-yapping"--again and again, as if endeavouring to convey some insidious message. George continued to stare at the pictures. Gad! what a strange fantastic mind the man must have! he mused--what rotten, erratic desecration to shove pictures indiscriminately together like that! . . . Lack of space was no excuse. Millet's "Angelus," "Ally Sloper at the Derby," a splendid lithograph of "The Angel of Pity at the Well of Cawnpore," Lottie Collins, scantily attired, in her song and dance "Tara-ra-ra-boom-de-ay," Sir Frederick Leighton's "Wedded," a gruesome depiction of a Chinese execution at Canton, an old-fashioned engraving of that dashing, debonair cavalry officer, "Major Hodson," of Indian Mutiny fame, George Robey, as a nurse-maid, wheeling Little Tich in a perambulator, the grim, torture-lined face of Slatin Pasha, a ridiculously obscene picture entitled "Two coons scoffing oysters for a wager," that glorious edifice the "Taj Mahal" of India, and so on. "Divarsiment" indeed! To this ill-assorted admixture three exceptions only were grouped with any sense of reason. The central picture was a beautifully coloured reproduction of Sir Hubert Herkomer's famous masterpiece "The Last Muster." Lovers of art subjects are doubtless familiar with this immortal painting. It depicts a pathetic congregation of old, white-haired, war-worn pensioners attending divine service in the chapel of Old Chelsea Hospital, with the variegated lights from the stained-glass windows flooding them with soft gentle colours. Flanking it on either side were portraits of the original founders of this historical institution in 1692--Charles II (The Merry Monarch) and his kindly-hearted "light o' love" Sweet Nell Gwynn of Old Drury. With curiously mixed feelings George finally tore himself away from Yorke's pathetically grotesque attempt at wall-adornment. Strive as he would within his soul to ridicule, the pictures seemed somehow almost to shout at him with hidden meaning. As if a voice--a drunken voice, but gentlemanly withall--was hiccuping in his ear: "Paradise Lost, old man! (hic) Paradise Lost!" And, mixed with it, came again out of the silence of the foothills the coyote's faintly persistent mocking wail--its "ki-yip-yap" sounding almost like "Bah! Yah! Baa!" . . . Some lines of an old quotation, picked up he knew not where, wandered into his mind-- _Comedy, Tragedy, Laughter and Tears! Thou'rt rolled as one in the Dust of Years_! With a sigh he turned to his own cot and began to unpack and arrange his kit; in regulation fashion, and with such small faddy fixings customary to men inured to barrack life. Thus engaged the time passed rapidly. Later in the day he assisted the sergeant in making out the detachment's "monthly returns" and diary. This task accomplished, in the gathering dusk he attended "Evening Stables." There were two saddle-horses beside the previously-mentioned team. A splendid upstanding pair, George thought them. He was good with horses; possessing the faculty of handling them that springs only from a patient, kindly, instinctive love of animals. "Nay! I dhrive mostly," Slavin was telling him, "buckboard an' team's away handier for a man av weight like meself. Eyah!" he sighed, "tho' time was whin I cud throw a leg over wid th' best av thim. Yorke--he gen'rally rides th' black, Parson, so ye'll take th' sorrel, Fox, for yeh pathrols. He's a good stayer, an' fast. Ye'll want tu watch him at mounthin' tho'--he's not a mane harse, but he has a quare thrick av turnin' sharp tu th' 'off'--just as ye go tu shwing up into th' saddle. Many's th' man he's whiraroo'd round wid wan fut in th' stirrup an' left pickin' up dollars off th' bald-headed.' Well! let's tu supper." With the practised hand of an old cook he prepared a simple but hearty repast, upon which they fell with appetites keenly edged with the cold air. "Are ye anythin' av a cuk?" Redmond grinned deprecatingly and then shook his head. "Eyah!" grumbled Slavin, "seems I cannot hilp bein' cuk an' shtandin' orderly-man around here. I thried out Yorkey. . . . Wan day on'y tho'--'tis th' divil's own cuk he is. 'Sarjint!' sez he, 'I'm no bowatchee'--which in Injia he tells me means same as cuk. An' he tould th' trute at that." Some three hours later, as they lay on their cots, came to them the faint, far-off _toot_! _toot_! of an engine, through the keen atmosphere. "That's Number Four from th' West," remarked Slavin drowsily, "Yorkey shud be along on ut. Well! a walk will not hurt th' man if--" He chuntered something to himself. Half an hour elapsed slowly--three quarters. Slavin rolled off his cot with a grunt and strode heavily to the front door, which he opened. Redmond silently followed him and together the two men stepped out into the crisply-crunching hard-packed snow. It was a magnificent night. High overhead in the star-studded sky shone a splendid full moon, its clear cold rays lighting up the white world around them with a sort of phosphorescent, scintillating brilliance. Though not of a particularly sentimental temperament, the calm, peaceful, unearthly beauty of the scene moved George to murmur--half to himself: "_Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky, That dost not bite so nigh As benefits forgot, alas! As benefits forgot_." To his surprise came Slavin's soft brogue echoing the last lines of the old Shakespearian sonnet, with a sort of dreamy, gentle bitterness: "As binifits forghot--forghot!--as binifits forghot! . . . . Luk tu that now! eyah! 'tis th' trute, lad! . . . . for here--unless I am mistuk, comes me bould Yorkey--an' dhrunk as 'a fiddler's ---- again. Tchkk! an' me on'y just afther warnin' um. . . ." And, a far-away black spot as yet, down the moonlit, snow-banked trail, indistinctly they beheld an unsteady figure slowly weaving its way towards the detachment. At intervals the night-wind wafted to them snatches of song. "Singin', singin'," muttered Slavin, "from break av morrn 'till jewy eve! . . . Misther B---- Yorke! luks 'tis goin' large y'are th' night." Nearer and nearer approached the stumbling black figure, weaving an eccentric course in and out along the line of telephone poles; and, to their ears came the voice of one crying in the wilderness:-- "_O, the Midnight Son! the Midnight Son! (hic) You needn't go trottin' to Norway-- You'll find him in ev'ry doorway--_" A sudden cessation of the music, coupled with certain slightly indistinct, weird contortions of the vocalist's figure, apprised the watchers that a snow-bank had momentarily claimed him. Then, suddenly and saucily, as if without a break, the throbbing, high-pitched tenor piped up again-- "_You'll behold him in his glory If you on'y take a run (hic) Down the Strand--that's the Land Of the Midnight Son_." Dewy eve indeed!--a far cry to the Strand! . . . How freakish sounded that old London variety stage ditty ridiculing the nightly silence of the great snow-bound Nor' West. Redmond could not refrain an explosive, snorting chuckle as he remarked the erratic gait of the slowly approaching pedestrian. As Slavin had opined, he was "going large." His vocal efforts had ceased temporarily, and now it was the junior constable's merriment that broke the frosty stillness of the night. But Slavin did not laugh. Watchfully he waited there--curiously still, his head jutting forward loweringly from between his huge shoulders. "Tchkk!" he clucked in gentle distaste--"In uniform . . . an' just afther comin' off the thrain! . . . th' like av that now 'tis--'tis scandh'lus! . . ." Suddenly Redmond shivered, and his mirth died within him. The air seemed to have become charged with a tense, ominous something that filled him with a great dread--of what? he knew not. He felt an inexplicable impulse to cry out a warning to that ludicrous figure, whose crunching moccasins were now the only sounds that broke the uncanny stillness of the night. To him, the whole scene, bathed in the cold brilliance of its moonlit setting, seemed ghostly and unreal--a disturbing dream of comedy and tragedy, intermingled. Inwards, between the telephone poles, the man came stumbling along, gradually drawing nigh to the motionless watchers. Halting momentarily, during his progress he made a quick stooping action at the base of one of the poles, as if with vague purpose, which action was remarked at least by Redmond. Then, for the first time, he seemed to become aware of their presence, and making a pitiful attempt to dissemble his condition and assume a smart, erect military carriage he waved his riding-crop at them by way of salutation. Something in his action, its graceful, airy mockery, trivial though it was, impressed the gestures firmly in Redmond's mind. He became cognizant of a flushed, undeniably handsome face with reckless eyes and mocking lips; a slimly-built figure of a man of medium height, whose natural grace was barely concealed by the short regimental fur coat. Halting unsteadily within the regulation three paces pending salute, he struck an attitude commonly affected by Mr. Sothern, in "Lord Dundreary," and jauntily twirled his crop, the while he declaimed:-- "_Waltz me round again, Willie, Willie, Round and round and--_" "_Round_!" finished Slavin, with a horrible oath. There seemed something shockingly aboriginal--simian--in the swift, gorilla-like clutch of his huge dangling hands, as they fastened on the throat and shoulder of the drunken man and whirled him on his back in the snow--something deadly and menacing in his hard-breathing, soft-brogued invective: "Yeh bloody nightingale! come off th' perch! . . . I'm fed up wid yeh!--I'll waltz yeh!--I'll tache yeh tu make a mock av Burke Slavin, time an' again! I'll--" Redmond interposed, "Steady, Sergeant!" he implored shakily, his hand on his superior's shoulder, "For God's sake--" But Slavin, in absent fashion, shoved him off. He seemed to put no effort in the movement, but the tense muscular impact of it sent Redmond reeling yards away. "Giddap, Yorkey! God d----n ye for a dhrunken waster!--giddap! or I'll put th' boots tu yeh!" Terrible was the menace of the giant Irishman's face, his back-flung boot and his snarling, curiously low-pitched voice. "No! not Burke, old man! . . . ah, don't!" gasped the rich tenor voice pleadingly from the snow--"ah, don't, Burke! . . . remember, remember . . . St. Agnes' Eve-- "St. Agnes' Eve. Ah! bitter chill it was, The--" It broke--that throbbing voice with its strange, impassioned appeal. Far away over the snow the faint, silvery ring of a locomotive gong fell upon the ears of the trio almost like the deep, solemn tolling of bells. Then slowly, and seemingly in pain, the prostrate man arose. And yet! Redmond mused, sorry a figure as he cut just then, minus fur-cap and plastered with snow, alone with the shame which was his, he had an air, a certain dignity of mien, this man, Yorke, which stamped him far above the common run of men. The junior constable, as he noted the dark hair, silvering and worn away at the temples, adjudged him to be somewhere between thirty and forty--thirty-five was his exact age as he ascertained later. Now, with the air of a fallen angel, he stood there in the cold, snow-dazzling moonlight; his face registering silent resignation as to whatever else might befall him. The sergeant had stepped forward. Redmond looked on, in dazed apprehension. A solemn hush had fallen upon the strange scene, and stranger trio. Their figures flung weird, fantastic shadows across the diamond-sparkling snow-crust. George glanced at Slavin, and that individual's demeanor amazed him still further. The big man's face was transformed. There seemed something very terrible just then in the pathetic working of his rugged features, as if he were striving to allay some powerful inward emotion. Then huskily, but not unkindly--as perchance the father may have spoken to the prodigal son--came his soft brogue: "Get yu tu bed, Yorkey! get yu tu bed, man! . . . an' thry me no more! . . . ." Mutely, like a child, Yorke obeyed the order. Glancing at Redmond he turned and walked unsteadily into the detachment. Perturbed and utterly mystified at the sordid drama he had witnessed, its amazing combination of brutality and pathos, George remained rooted to the spot as one in a dream. Instinctively though, he felt that this was not the first time of its enactment. Mechanically he watched the door close; then sounding far off and indistinct, Slavin's hoarse whisper in his ear brought him down to Mother Earth again with a vengeance: "Did ye mark him stoop an' 'plant' th' 'hootch?'" George nodded. "I wasn't quite wise to what he was at," he answered. "Let us go get ut!" said Sergeant Slavin grimly, marching to the spot, "I will not have dhrink brought into th' detachment! . . . 'tis against ordhers." He bent down, straightened up, and turning to Redmond who had joined him exhibited a bottle. He held it up to the light of the moon. It appeared to be about half empty. Extracting the cork, he smelt. "'Tis whiskey," he murmured simply--much as Mr. Pickwick said: "It is punch." He made casual examination of the green and gold label. "'Burke's Oirish,' begob! . . . eyah! a brave ould uniform but"--he turned a moist eye on his subordinate--"a desp'ritly wounded souldier that wears ut--betther out av pain. 'Tis an' ould sayin': 'Whin ye meet th' divil du not turn tail but take um by th' harns.' . . . Bhoy! I thrust the honest face av yeh--I have tuk tu ye since th' handy lad ye showt yersilf with that team mix-up th' morn." Redmond, mollified, grinned shiveringly. "I don't mind a snort, Sergeant," he said, "it's d----d cold out here. Beer's more in my line though. Salue!" He took a swallow or two; the bottle changed hands. "Eyah!" remarked Slavin sometime later--cuddling the bottle at the "port arms." "'Tis put th' kibosh on many a good man in th' ould Force has this same dhrink. Th' likes av Yorkey there"--he jerked his head at the lighted window--"shud never touch ut--never touch ut! . . . Cannot flirrt wid a bottle--'tis wedded they wud be tu ut. Now meself"--he paused impressively--"I can take me dhrink like a ginthleman--can take ut, or lave ut alone." Absorptive demonstration followed. Came a long-drawn, smacking "Ah-hh!" "A sore thrial tu me is that same man," he resumed, "wan more break on his part, as ye have seen this night . . . an' I musht--I will take shteps wid um." "Why don't you transfer him back to the Post?" queried George, wonderingly, mindful of how swiftly that disciplinary measure had rewarded his own reckless conduct at the Gleichen detachment. "He's got nothing on you, has he?" "_Fwhat_?" . . . Slavin, turning like a flash, glared sharply at him out of deep-set scowling eyes, "Fwhat?" Tonelessly, George repeated his query, Slavin's glare gradually faded. "Eyah!" he affirmed presently, "he has! . . ." came a long pause--"but not as yu mane ut . . . oh! begorrah, no!" His eyes glittered dangerously and his wide mouth wreathed into an unholy grin, "'Tis a shmart man that iver puts ut over on me at th' Orderly-room. . . Fwhy du I not sind him into th' Post? . . . eyah! fwhy du I not? . . ." Chin sunk on his huge chest, he mused awhile. George waited. "Listen, bhoy!" A terrible earnestness crept into the soft voice. "I'll tell ye th' tale. . . . 'Twas up at th' Chilkoot Pass--in the gold rush av '98. . . . Together we was--Yorkey an' meself--stationed there undher ould Bobby Belcher. Wan night--Mother av God! will I iver forghet ut? Bitther cowld is th' Yukon, lad; th' like av ut yu' here in Alberta du not know. Afther tu crazy lost _cheechacos_ we had been that day. We found thim--frozen. . . . A blizzard had shprung up, but we shtrapped th' stiffs on th' sled an' mushed ut oursilves tu save th' dogs. "I am a big man, an' shtrong . . . . but Yorkey was th' betther man av us tu that night--havin less weight tu pack. I was all in--dhrowsy, an' wanted tu give up th' ghost an' shleep--an' shleep. . . . Nigh unto death I was. . . ." The murmuring voice died away. A shudder ran through the great frame at the remembrance, while the hand clutching the bottle trembled violently. Unconsciously Redmond shook with him; for the horror Slavin was living over again just then enveloped his listener also. "But Yorkey," he continued "wud not let me lie down. . . . God! how that man did put his fishts an' mucklucks tu me an' pushed an' shtaggered wid me' afther th' dogs, beggin' an' cursin' an' prayin' an' callin' me names that ud fairly make th' dead relations av a man rise up out av their graves. . . . Light-headed he got towards th' ind av th' thrail, poor chap! shoutin' dhrill-ordhers an' Injia naygur talk, an' singin' great songs an' chips av poethry--th' half av which I misremimber--excipt thim--thim wurrds he said this night. 'Shaint Agnus Eve,' he calls ut. Over an' over he kept repeathin' thim as he helped me shtaggerin' along. . . 'God!' cries he, betune cursin' me an' th' dogs an' singin' 'Shaint Agnus Eve'--'Oh, help us this night! let us live, God! . . . oh, let us live!--this poor bloody Oirishman an' me! . . .'" The sergeant's head was thrown back now, gazing full at the evening star the moonbeams shining upon his upturned, powerful face. Cold as was the night Redmond could see glistening beads of sweat on his forehead. As one himself under the spell of the fear of death, the younger man silently watched that face--fascinated. It was calm now, with a great and kindly peace. Slowly the gentle voice took up the tale anew: "We made ut, bhoy--th' Post--or nigh tu ut . . . in th' break av th' dawn. . . . For wan av th' dogs yapped an' they come out an' found us in th' snow. . . . Yorkey, wid his arrums round th' neck av me--as if he wud shtill dhrag me on . . . . an' cryin' upon th' mother that bore um. . . . Tu men--in damned bad shape--tu shtiffs . . . . an' but three dogs lift out av th' six-team we'd shtarted wid. . . . So--now ye know; lad! . . . Fwhat think ye? . . ." What George thought was: "Greater love hath no man than this." What he said was: "He's an Englishman, isn't he?" Slavin nodded. "Comes of a mighty good family tu, they say, but 'tis little he iwer cracks on himself 'bout thim. Years back he hild a commission in some cavalry reg'mint in Injia, but he got broke--over a woman, I fancy. He's knocked about th' wurrld quite a piece since thin. Eyah! he talks av some quare parts he's been in. Fwhat doin'? Lord knows. Been up an' down the ladder some in _this_ outfit--sarjint one week--full buck private next. Yen know th' way these ginthlemin-rankers run amuck?" "How does he get away with it every time?" queried Redmond. "Hasn't any civilian ever reported him to the old man?" "Yes! wance--an' 'Father,' th' ould rapparee! he went for me baldheaded for not reporthin' ut tu." With a sort of miserable heartiness Slavin cursed awhile at the recollection. "Toime an' again," he resumed, "have I taken my hands tu um--pleaded wid um, an' shielded um in many a dhirty scrape, an' ivry toime sez he, wid his ginthlemin's shmile: 'Burke! will ye thry an' overlook it, ould man?' . . . Eyah! he's mighty quare. For some rayson he seems tu hate th' idea av a third man bein' here, tho' th' man' wud die for me. Divil a man can I kape here, anyway. In fwhat fashion he puts th' wind up 'him, I do not know; they will not talk, out av pure kindness av heart an' rispict for meself, I guess. But--a few days here, an' bingo!--they apply for thransfer. Now ye know ivrythin', bhoy--fwhat I am up against, an' fwhy I will not 'can' Yorkey. Ye've a face that begets thrust--do not bethray ut, but thry an' hilp me. Bear wid Yorke as best ye can--divilmint an' all--for my sake, will yeh?" Not devoid of a certain simple dignity was the grim, rugged face that turned appealingly to the younger man's in the light of the moon. And Redmond, smiling inscrutably into the deep-set, glittering eyes, answered as simply: "I will, Sergeant!" He declined an offer. "_Nemoyah_! (No) thanks, I've had enough." For some unaccountable reason, Slavin smiled also. His huge clamping right hand crushed George's, while the left described an arc heavenwards. Came a throaty gurgle, a careless swing of the arm, and-- "Be lay loike a warrior takin' his rist, Wid his-- "I misrimimber th' tail-ind av ut," sighed Sergeant Slavin, "'Tis toime we turned in." In silence they re-entered the detachment. Yorke, minus his moccasins, fur-coat and red-serge, lay stretched out upon his cot sleeping heavily, his flushed, reckless, high-bred face pillowed on one outflung arm. Above him, silent guardians of his rest, his grotesque mixture of prints gleamed duskily in the lamp-light. Into Redmond's mind--sunk into a deep oblivion of dreamy, chaotic thought--came again Slavin's words: "Shtudy thim picthures, bhoy! an', by an' large ye have th' man himsilf" Soon, too, he slept; and into his fitful slumbers drifted a ridiculously disturbing dream. That of actually witnessing the terrible scene of the long-dead Indian Mutiny hero, Major Hodson, executing with his own hand the three princes of Oude. _Inshalla_! it was done--there! there! against the cart, amidst the gorgeous setting of Indian sunset and gleaming minaret. "Deen! Deen! Futteh _Mohammed_!" came a dying scream upon the last shot--the smoking carbine was jerked back to the "recover"--a moment the scarlet-turbaned, scarlet-sashed English officer gazed with ruthless satisfaction at his treacherous victims then, turning sharply, faced him. And lo! to Redmond it seemed that the stern, intolerant, recklessly-handsome countenance he looked upon bore a striking resemblance to the face of Yorke. CHAPTER IV _Burn'd Marmion's swarthy cheek like fire, And shook his very frame for ire, And--"This to me!" he said,--_ MARMION Early on the morrow it came to pass that Sergeant Slavin, cooking breakfast for all hands, heard Yorke's voice uplifted in song, as that worthy made his leisurely toilet. He shot a slightly bilious glance at Redmond, who, "Morning Stables" finished, lounged nearby. "Hear um?" he snorted enviously. "Singin'! singin'!--forever singin'!--eyah! sich nonsince, tu." But, to George, who possessed a musical ear, the ringing tenor sounded rather airily and sweetly-- "_Hark! hark! the lark at Heaven's Gate sings, And Phoebus 'gins arise, His steeds to water at those springs--_" "Fwhat yez know 'bout that?" Slavin forked viciously at the bacon he was frying. "Blarney my sowl! an' him not up for 'Shtables' at all! . . ." "_With ev'rything that pretty is:-- My lady sweet, arise! arise! My lady sweet, arise!_" "My lady shweet!"--Slavin snorted unutterable things. Yawning, the object of his remarks sauntered into the kitchen just then, and, deeming the occasion now to be a fitting one, the sergeant introduced his two subordinates to each other. Yorke, with a bleak nod and handshake, swept the junior constable with a swiftly appraising glance. As frigidly was his salutation returned. Redmond remarked the regular features, suggestive rather of the ancient Norman type, the thin, curved, defiant nostrils and dark, arching eyebrows. The face, with its indefinable stamp of birth and breeding was handsome enough in its patrician mould, but marred somewhat by the lines of cynicism, or dissipation, round the sombre, reckless eyes and intolerant mouth. He had a cool, clear voice and a whimsical, devil-may-care sort of manner that was apparently natural to him, as was also a certain languid grace of movement. He possessed an irritating mannerism of continually elevating his chin and dilating his curved nostrils disdainfully in a sort of soundless sniff. Beyond a slight flush he showed little trace of his previous night's dissipation. "Where do you hail from?" he enquired of George with casual interest over the mess-table later. "Ontario," replied George laconically, "my people are farmers down there." For a moment Yorke's arched brows lifted in puzzled surprise--came a repetition of his offensive sniffing mannerism; and he stared pointedly away again. It was difficult to be more insulting in dumb show. George, mindful of his promise to Slavin, groaned inwardly. "I am going to hate this fellow" he thought. The sergeant, from the head of the table, kept a keen watch upon the pair. "An' fwhat?" came his soft brogue, by way of diversion, "an' fwhat made yu' take on th' Force?" "Oh, I don't know!" Wearily, George shoved his hands deep into his pockets and leant back in his chair. "Old man's pretty well fixed--now. He's a member of the legislature for ---- County. I was at McGill for some terms--medicine." A hopeless note crept into his tones. "I fell down on my exams . . . ran amuck with the wrong bunch an' all that--an'--an' . . . kind of made a mess of things I guess. . . . Went broke--came West. . . . That's why. . . ." With a forlorn sort of forced grin he gazed back at his interlocutor. Yorke, unheeding the conversation, continued his breakfast as if he were alone. "H-mm!" grunted Slavin, summing up the situation with native simplicity, "That's ut, eh?--but, for all ye have th' spache an' manners av a ginthleman--ranker somehow--somehow I misdoubt ye're a way-back waster like Misther Yorkey here!" That hardened "ginthleman," absently sipping his coffee, flung a faintly-derisive, patient smile at his accuser. A perfect understanding seemed to exist between the two men. Redmond, musing upon the pathetically-sordid drama he had witnessed not so many hours since, relapsed into a reverie of speculation. The silence was suddenly broken by the sharp trill of the telephone. Slavin arose lethargically from the mess-table and answered it. "Hullo! yis! Slavin shpeakin'! Fwat?--all right Nick! I'll sind a man shortly an' vag um! So long! Oh, hold on, Nick! . . . May th' divil niver know ye're dead till ye're tu hours in Hivin! Fwhat?--Oh, thank yez! Same tu yez! Well! . . . so long!" "Hobo worryin' Nick Lee at Cow Run. Scared av fire in th' livery-shtable. Go yu', Yorkey!" He eyed George a moment in curious speculation. "Yu' had betther go along tu, Ridmond! Exercise yez harse an'"--he lit his pipe noisily--"learn th' lay av th' thrails." He turned to the senior constable. "If ye can lay hould av th' J.P. there, get this shtiff committed an' let Ridmond take thrain wid um tu th' Post. Yu' return wid th' harses!" "Why can't Redmond nip down there on a way-freight and do the whole thing?" said Yorke, a trifle sulkily. "It seems rot sending two men mounted for one blooming hobo." "Eyah!" murmured Slavin with suspicious mildness, "'tis th' long toime since I have used me shtripes tu give men undher me wan ordher twice." Yorke flashed a slightly apprehensive glance at his superior's face. Then, without another word, he reached for his side-arms, bridle, and fur-coat. He knew his man. Redmond followed suit and they adjourned to the stable. "I saw that beggar yesterday--on my way up," remarked George, ill-advisedly. Yorke stared. "The hell you did! . . . why didn't you vag him then?" he retorted irritably. Bursting with silent wrath at the "choke-off," with difficulty Redmond held his peace. In silence they saddled up and leading the horses out prepared to mount. Yorke swung up on the splendid, mettled black--"Parson." He had an ideal cavalry seat, and as with an easy grace he gently controlled his impatient horse, with an inscrutable, mask-like countenance he watched Redmond and the sorrel "Fox." With toe in the leather-covered stirrup the latter reached for the saddle-horn. Poor George! fuming inwardly over one humiliation caused him shortly to be the recipient of another. Too late to his preoccupied mind came Slavin's warning of the day before. Like a flash the sorrel whirled to the "off-side" and Redmond, swung off his balance, revolved into space and was pitched on his hands and knees in the snow. Fortunately his foot had slipped clear of the stirrup. In this somewhat ignominious position dizzily he heard Yorke's mocking tones: "What are the odds on Fox, bookie? . . . I'd like a few of those dollars when you've quite finished picking them all up." With an almost superhuman effort the young fellow controlled himself once more as he arose. Not lightly had he given a promise. Silently he dusted the snow from his uniform and strode over to where the sorrel awaited him. The horse had made no attempt to run away; apparently being an old hand at the game. It now stood eying its dupe, with Lord knows what mirth tickling its equine brain. Slipping the "nigh" rein through the saddle-fork, then back to the cheek-strap again, George snubbed Fox's head towards him, making it impossible for the horse to whirl to the "off" as before. Warily and quietly he then swung into the saddle and the two men set off. A few yards from the front of the detachment Yorke suddenly pulled up and, dismounting, felt around in the snow at the base of a well-remembered telephone-pole. It was Redmond's hour to jeer now, if he had been mindful to do so. But another usurped that privilege. A queer choking sound made them both turn round. Slavin, his grim face registering unholy mirth, lounged in the doorway. "Fwhat ye lukkin for, Yorkey?" "Oh, nothing!" came that gentleman's answer. "Ye'll find ut in th' bottle thin." Insult was added to injury by the sergeant casually plucking that article from it's "rist" and chucking it over. Yorke's face was a study. "Oh!" cried he dismally, "what wit! . . . give three rousing cheers!" . . . He mounted once more. "Well! there's no denying you are one hell of a sergeant!" That worthy one grinned at him tolerantly. "Get yez gone!" he spat back, "an' du not linger tu play craps on th' thrail either--th' tu av yez!" Long and grimly, with his bald head sunk between his huge shoulders, he gazed after the departing riders. "Eyah! 'tis best so!" he murmured softly, "a showdown--wid no ould shtiff av a non-com like meself tu butt in. . . . An', onless I am mistuk that same will come this very morn, from th' luks av things. . . . Sind th' young wan is as handy wid his dhooks as Brankley sez he is! . . . Thin--an' on'y thin will there be peace in th' fam'ly." He re-lit his pipe and, shading his eyes from the snow-glare focussed them on two rapidly vanishing black specks. "I wud that I cud see ut!" he sighed, plaintively, "I wud that I cud see ut!" It was a glorious day, sunny and clear, with the temperature sufficiently low to prevent the hard-packed snow from balling up the horses' feet. The trail ran fairly level along a lower shelf of the timber-lined foothills, which on their right hand sloped gradually to the banks of the Bow River in a series of rolling "downs." Sharply outlined against the blue ether the Sou' Western chain of the mighty "Rockies" reared their rosily-white peaks in all their morning glory--silent guardians of the winter landscape. Deep down in his soul young Redmond harboured a silent, dreamy adoration for the beauty of such scenes as this. Under different conditions he would have enjoyed this ride immensely. But now--with his mind a seething bitter chaos consequent upon his companion's incomprehensible behavior towards him, he rode in a sort of brooding reverie. Yorke was equally morose. Not a word had fallen from their lips since they left the detachment. Right under the horses' noses a big white jack-rabbit suddenly darted across the snow-banked ruts of the well-worn trail, pursuing its leaping erratic course towards a patch of brush on the river side. Simultaneously the animals shied, with an inward trend, cannoning their respective riders together. Yorke reined away sharply and glared. "Get over'" he said curtly, "don't crowd me!" He spoke as a Cossack hetman might to his sotnia, and, at his tone and attitude, something snapped within Redmond. To his already overflowing cup of resentment it was the last straw. His promise to Slavin he flung to the winds, and it was replaced with vindictive but cool purpose. "Showdown!" he muttered under his breath, "I knew it had to come!" He was conscious of a feeling of vast relief. Aloud he responded, blithely and rudely, "Oh! to hell with _you_!" Yorke checked his horse with a suddenness that brought the animal back onto its haunches. Sitting square and motionless in the saddle for a moment he stared at George with an expression almost of shocked amazement; then his face became convulsed with ruthless passion. The junior constable had pulled up also, and now wheeling "half-left" and lolling lazily in his saddle with shortened leg stared back at his enemy with an expression there was no mistaking. His debonair young face had altered in an incredible fashion. Although his lips were pursed up with their whistling nonchalance his eyes had contracted beneath scowling brows into mere pin-points of steel and ice. He looked about as docile as a young lobo wolf--cornered. "Ah!" murmured Yorke, noting the transformation; and he seemed to consider. He had seen that look on men's faces before. Insensibly, passion had vanished from his face; the bully had disappeared; and in his place there sat in saddle a cool, contemptuous gentleman. "Are you talking back to me?" he said. He did not look astounded now--seemed rather to assume it. Redmond's scowling brows lifted a fraction. "Talking back?" he echoed, "sure! Who the devil do you think you're trying to come 'the Tin Man' over?" Reluctantly Yorke discounted his first impressions. Here was no self-conscious bravado. Warily he surveyed George for a moment--the cool appraising glance of the ring champion in his corner scanning his challenger--then, swinging out of the saddle, he dropped his lines and began to unbuckle his spurs. There was no mistaking his actions. Redmond followed suit. A few seconds he looked dubiously at his horse, then back at Yorke. "Oh, you needn't be scared of Fox beating it," remarked that gentleman a trifle wearily, "he'll stand as good as old Parson if you chuck his lines down." Shading his eyes from the sun-glare he took a rapid survey of their surroundings, then led the way to a wind-swept patch of ground, more or less bare of snow. Arriving thither, as if by mutual consent they flung off caps, side-arms, fur-coats and stable-jackets. Yorke, a graceful, compactly-built figure of a man, sized up his slightly heavier opponent with an approving eye. "You strip good" he said carelessly. "Well! what's it to be? . . . 'muck' or 'muffin'?" "'Muffin' of course!" snapped Redmond angrily, "what d'ye take me for?--a 'rough-house meal ticket'?" "All right!" said Yorke soothingly, "don't lose your temper!" It may have been a shrewdly-calculated attempt to attain that end; and yet again it may have been only sheer mechanical habit that prompted him to stretch forth his hands in the customary salute of the ring. With an inarticulate exclamation of rage the younger man struck the proffered hands aside and led with a straight left for the other's head. Yorke blocked it cleverly and fell into a clinch. "Ah!" murmured Yorke in his antagonist's ear with a sinister smile, "rotten manners! for just that, my buck, I'll make you scoff 'muffin' 'till you're quite poorly!" Working his arms cautiously, he sprang clear of the clinch, then, rushing his man and feinting for the ribs, he rocked Redmond's head back with two terrific left and right hooks to the jaw. The jarring sting of the punches, although dazing him slightly, brought Redmond to his senses, as he realized how vulnerable his momentary loss of temper had rendered him. He now braced himself with dogged determination and, covering up warily, circled his adversary with clever foot-work. Yorke, tearing in again was met with one of the crudest jabs he had ever known--flush in the mouth. Gamely he retaliated with a stinging uppercut and a right swing which, coming home on Redmond's cheek-bone, whirled him off his balance and sent him sprawling. Dazed, but not daunted, he scrambled to his feet. Yorke, blowing upon his knuckles with all the air of an old-time "Regency blood," waited with heaving chest and scornful, narrowed eyes. "Want to elevate the sponge?" he queried sneeringly. "No!" panted George grimly, "it was you started the whole rotten dirty business, and, by gum! I'll finish it!" Dancing in and out he drew an ineffective left from his opponent and countered with a pile-driving right to the heart. Yorke gave vent to a groaning exclamation and turned pale. He spat gaspingly out of his mashed lips and propped Redmond off awhile; then, suddenly springing in again he attempted to mix it. George was nothing loath, and the two men, standing toe-to-toe, slugged each other with a perfect whirlwind of damaging punches to face and body. Even in the giddy whirl of combat, in either man's heart now was a wonder almost akin to respect for each other's ring knowledge and gameness. It was not George's first bout by many, but the physical endurance of this hard, clean-hitting Corinthian of a man was an astounding revelation to him; the science of the graceful, narrow-waisted figure was still as quick and as punishing as a steel trap. Yorke, for his part, reflected with bitter irony how utterly erroneous had been his primary calculations--how Nemesis was hard upon his heels at last in the guise of this relentless youngster, who fought like a college-bred "Charley Mitchell." Ding! dong!--hook, jab, uppercut, block, and swing; in and out, back and forth, side-stepping and head-work--one long exhausting round. Flesh and blood could not stand the pace--though it was Redmond now who forced it. Neither of the men was in training and the long strain began to tell upon them both cruelly--especially upon the veteran Yorke. Still, with frosted hair and streaming faces, the sweat-soaked, bruised and bleeding combatants staggered against each other and strove to make play with their weary arms, until utter exhaustion rang the time gong. Gasping and swaying to and fro, his puffed lips wreathed into a ghastly semblance of his old scornful smile, Yorke dropped his guard and stuck out his chin. He mouthed and pointed to it tauntingly. In spite of himself, a sorry grin flickered over George's battered, weary young face. He mouthed back--speech was beyond either; sagging at the knees he reeled forward and his right arm went poking out in a wobbling, uncertain punch. It glanced harmlessly over Yorke's shoulder, but the violent impact of his body sent the other heavily to the ground. An ineffectual struggle to maintain his equilibrium and he, too, fell--face downwards, with his head pillowed on Yorke's heaving chest. CHAPTER V We're poor little lambs who've lost our way, Baa! Baa! Baa! We're little black sheep who've gone astray, Baa--aa--aa! Gentlemen-rankers out on the spree, Damned from here to Eternity, God ha' mercy on such as we, Baa! Yah! Bah! KIPLING A great peace lay upon the frozen landscape--the deep, wintry peace of the vast, snow-bound Nor'West. A light breeze murmured over the crisping snow, and moaned amongst the pines in the timber-lined spurs of the foothills. High overhead in the sunny, dazzling blue vault of heaven a huge solitary hawk slowly circled with wide-spread, motionless wings, uttering intermittently its querulous, eerie whistle. Awhile the two exhausted men lay gasping for breath--absolutely and utterly spent. Suddenly Yorke shivered violently and sighed. Redmond raised himself off the prostrate form of his late opponent and, staggering over to the pile of their discarded habiliments, slowly and painfully he donned his fur coat and cap; then, picking up Yorke's, he stumbled over to the latter. The senior constable was now sitting up, with arms drooping loosely over his knees. George wrapped the coat around the bowed shoulders and put on the cap. "You're cold, old man!" he said simply. "We'd best get our things on now, and beat it." Wearily Yorke raised his head, and, at something he beheld in that disfigured, but unalterably-handsome face, Redmond's heart smote him. Often in the past he had fondly imagined himself nursing implacable, absolutely undying hatreds; brooding darkly over injuries received in fancy or reality, planning dire and utterly ruthless revenge, etc. But, deep, deep down in his boyish soul he knew it to be only a dismal failure--that he could not keep it up. His was an impulsive, generous young heart--equally quick to forgive an injury as to resent one. Now in his pity and misery he could have cried--to see his erstwhile enemy so hopelessly broken in body and spirit. Therefore it did not occur to him that it was sheer sentimental absurdity on his part now to drop on one knee and put his arms around that shivering, pride-broken form. "Yorkey!" he mumbled huskily, "old man! . . . Yor--" He choked a bit, and was silent. Waveringly, a skinned-knuckled, but sinewy, shapely hand crept out and gently ruffled Redmond's curly auburn hair. Vaguely he heard a voice speaking to him. Could that tired, kind, whimsical voice belong to Yorke? It said: "Reddy, my old son! . . . we're still in the ring, anyway. . . . Seems--do what we would or could--we couldn't poke each other out. . . ." Came a long silence; then: "If ever a man was sorry for the rotten way he's acted, it's surely me right now. . . . Got d----d good cause to be p'raps. . . . I handed it to you about the sponge . . . egad! I well-nigh came chucking it up myself--later. My colonial oath! but you're the cleverest, gamest, hardest-hitting young proposition I've ever ruffled it out with! . . . Where'd you pick it up? Who's handled you?" George slowly rose to his feet. "Man named Scholes--down East" he answered. He eyed Yorke's face ruefully and, incidentally felt his own, "I used to do a bit with the gloves when I was at McGill. Talking about sponges!--I only wish we had one now to chuck up--in tangible form." He abstracted the other's handkerchief and, rolling it with his own into a pad dabbed it in the snow. Yorke winced. "Hold still, old thing!" said Redmond, "we'll have to clean off a bit ere we hit the giddy trail again." For some minutes he gently manipulated the pad. "There! you don't look too bad now. Have a go at me!" Figuratively, they licked each other's wounds awhile. Yorke had grown very silent. Chin in hands and rocking very slightly to and fro, all huddled up in his fur coat, he gazed unseeingly into the beyond. His face was clouded with such hopeless, bitter, brooding misery that it worried Redmond. He guessed it to be something far deeper than the memory of their recent conflict. He strove to arouse the other. "Talk about game cocks!" he began lightly. "Ten years ago, say! you must have been a corker--regular 'Terry McGovern'." "Eh?" Yorke's far-away eyes stared at him vaguely. "I was in India then. Army light-weight champion in my day. Slavin wasn't joshing much at breakfast, by gum! . . . Now we're here! . . . We're a bright pair!" He made as though to cast snow upon his head, "Ichabod! Ichabod! our glory has departed!" He lifted up his tenor voice, chanting the while he rocked-- "_Gentlemen-rankers out on the spree, Damned from here to Eternity, God ha' mercy on such as we, Baa! Yah! Bah!_" Redmond flinched and raised a weakly protesting hand. "Don't, old man!" he implored miserably, "don't! what's the--" "Eh!" queried Yorke brutally--rocking--"does hurt?" "_If the home we never write to, and the oaths we never keep, And all we--_" "No! no! no! Yorkey!" George's voice rose to a cry, "not that! . . . quit it, old man! . . . that's one of the most terrible things Kipling ever wrote--terrible because it's so absolutely, utterly hopeless. . . ." "Well, then!" said Yorke slowly-- "_Can you blame us if we soak ourselves in beer?_" "It wasn't beer," muttered Redmond absently, "it was whiskey. Slavic and I drank it." With an effort he strove to arouse himself out of the despondency that he himself had fallen into. "Listen! . . . Oh! quit that d----d rocking, Yorkey! . . . Listen now! we've put up a mighty good scrap against each other--we'll call that a draw--let's put up another against our--well! we'll call it our rotten luck . . . D----n it all, old man, we're not 'down an' outs' doing duty in this outfit--the best military police corps in the world! . . . Let's both of us quit squalling this eternal 'nobody loves me' stuff! This isn't any slobbery brotherly love or New Jerusalem business, or anything like that, either. I'm not a bloomin' missionary!" He qualified that assertion unnecessarily to prove it. "But let's stick together and back each other up--just us two and old man Slavin--make it a sort of 'rule of three.' We can have a deuce of a good time on this detachment then! . . ." He spoke hotly, eagerly, with boyish fervour, his soul in his eyes. Yorke remained silent, with averted eyes. That imploring, wistful, bruised young countenance was almost more than he could stand. George, dropping on one knee beside him put a tremulous hand on the senior constable's shoulder. "What's wrong, Yorkey?" he queried. He shook the bowed shoulder gently. "What's made you consistently knock every third buck that's been sent here? 'till they got fed up, and transferred? . . . They tried to put the wind up me about it at the Post. What's bitin' you? I don't seem to get your angle at all!" "Oh, I don't know!" Yorke coughed and spat drearily. "Kind of rum reason, you'll think. Long story--too long--dates back. Listen then! Ten years back, in the pride of my giddy youth, I held a Junior Sub's commission in the ---- Lancers--in India. This is just a synopsis of my case, mind! . . . Well! the regiment was lying at Rawal Pindi, and--I guess I kind of ran amuck there--got myself into a rotten _esclandre_--entirely my own fault I'll admit: _Man is fire, and Woman is tow, And the Devil, he comes and begins to blow--_ the same old miserable business the world's fed up with. Since then seems I've kind of made a mess of things. Burke Slavin's about right--his estimate of me." He sighed with bitter, gloomy retrospection. "I've always had a queer, intolerant sort of temperament. If I'd lived in the days of the Indian Mutiny I guess I'd have been in 'Hodson's Horse'." (Redmond started, remembering his curious dream.) "He was a man after my own heart," Yorke continued slowly, "resourceful, slashing sort of beggar . . . he ruffled it with a high hand. Bold and game as Sherman, or Paul Jones, but as ruthless as Graham of Claverhouse. He put the ever-lasting fear into the rebels of Oude--something like Cromwell did in Ireland. My old Governor served through the Mutiny--he's told me stories of him. My God!" He drew his fur coat closer round him. "Well!"--Redmond watched the sombre profile--"as I was saying . . . I 'muckered'. . . . Since then, with the years, I guess I've been climbing down the ladder of illusions till I'm right in the stoke-hole, and Old Nick seems to grin and whisper: 'As you were! my cashiered Sub.--As you were!' every time I chuck a brace and try to climb up again. How's that for a bit of cheap cynicism?"--the low, bitter laugh was not good to hear--"Man!"--the brooding eyes narrowed--"I've sure plumbed the depths--knocking around, with the right to live. Port Said, Buenos Aires, Shanghai. . . . I've certainly travelled. Some day I'll throw the book at you. Now--substance and ambition gone by the board long ago, and mighty little left of principle I guess--I am--what I am--everything except a prodigal, or a remittance-man--I never worried them at Home--that way. . . ." He spoke with a sort of reckless earnestness that moved his hearer more than that individual cared to show. Redmond felt it was useless to offer mere conventional sympathy in a case like this. He did the next best thing possible--he remained silently attentive and let the other run on. "You take three men now--stationed in the same detachment," resumed Yorke wearily, "by gum! they're thrown together mighty close when you come to think of it. It's different to the Post, where there's a crowd. Life's too short to start in explaining minutely just what that difference is. Fact remains! . . . to get along and pull together they've got to like each other--have something in common--give and take. Otherwise the situation becomes d----d trying, and trouble soon starts in the family." "By what divine right I should consider myself qualified to--to--Oh! shut up, you young idiot! . . ." Redmond, forehead pressed into the speaker's shoulder, giggled hysterically in spite of himself--"Shut up! d'you hear? or I'll knock your silly block off!" The two bodies shook, with their convulsive merriment. "You can't do it! old thing," came George's smothered rejoinder, "and you know darned well you can't--now! . . . Go on, you bloomin' Hodson!--proceed!" Yorke gave vent to a good-natured oath. "Hodson? . . . you do me proud, my buck! . . . Well now!--this 'three men in a boat' business! . . . I'll admit I 'rocked' it with Crampton. I virtually abolished him because--oh! I couldn't stick the beggar at all. I simply couldn't make a pal of him. He was fairly good at police work, but a proper cad, in my opinion. Always swanking about the palatial residence he'd left behind in the Old Country. He called it ''is 'ome' at that. Typical specimen of the middle-class snob. Followed Taylor. Thick-headed, serious-minded sort of fool. Had great veneration for 'his juty.' No real knowledge of the Criminal Code, and minus common sense, yet begad! the silly beggar tried to be more regimental that the blooming Force is itself. I systematically put the wind up to him 'till he got cold feet and quit." Redmond recalled the fact that Taylor had been his predecessor. "Followed!" he echoed mockingly, looking up at his handiwork. Yorke, with a twisted smile glanced down at the bruised, but debonair young face. Benevolently he punched its owner in the back. "Followed . . . a certain young fellow, yclept 'Nemesis'," he said, "I sized you up for one of these smart Alecks--first crack out of the box, and egad! I think I'm about right." Said Redmond, "How about our respected sergeant? we seem to have forgotten him." "Slavin?" ejaculated the senior constable; and was silent awhile. There was no levity in him now. Slowly he resumed, "I guess as much as it's humanly possible for two men to know each other--down to the bedrock, it's surely Burke Slavin and I. Should too, the years we've been together. The good old beggar! . . . We slang each other, and all that . . . but there's too much between us ever to resent anything for long." "I know," said Redmond simply, "he told me himself--last night." "Eh?" queried Yorke sharply. "My God! . . . Tchkk!" he clucked, and burying his hands in his face he gave vent to a fretful oath. "My God!" he repeated miserably, "I'd forgotten--last night! . . . I sure must have been 'lit' . . . to come that over old Burke. . . ." "You sure were!" remarked Redmond brutally. "Keats' 'St. Agnes' Eve'! . . . Oh, Lord!" . . . He drew in his breath with a sibilant hiss, "There seems something--something devilish about--" "I know! I know!" breathed Yorke tensely, "what . . . you mean." His haggard eyes implored Redmond's. "No! no! never again . . . I swear it. . . ." There came a long, painful silence. "See here; look!" began Yorke suddenly. He stopped and surveyed George, a trifle anxiously. "Mind! . . . I'm not trying to justify myself but--get me right about this now. Don't you ever start in making a mistake about Slavin--blarney and all. No, Sir! I tell you when old Burke runs _amôk_ in those tantrums he's a holy fright. He'd kill a man. Might as well run up against a gorilla." A vision of the huge, sinister, crouching figure seemed to rise up in Redmond's mind--the great, clutching, _simian_ hands. "In India," continued Yorke, "we'd say he'd got a touch of the 'Dulalli Tap.' The man doesn't know his own strength. I was taking an awful chance--getting his goat like that last night. It's a wonder he didn't kill me. He's man-handled me pretty badly at times. Oh, well! I guess it's been coming to me all right. Neither of us has ever dreamt of going squalling to the Orderly-room over our . . . differences. I don't think Burke's ever taken the trouble to 'peg' a man in his life. Not his way. 'I must take shteps!' says he, and 'I will take shteps!' and when he starts in softly rubbing those awful great grub-hooks he calls hands--together! . . . well! you want to look out." Lighting a cigarette he resumed reminiscently: "They were a tough crowd to handle up in the Yukon. The devil himself 'd have been scared to butt in to that 'Soapy Smith' gang; but, by gum! they were afraid of Slavin. He doesn't drink much now, but he did then--mighty few that didn't--up there--and I tell you, even our own fellows got a bit leery of him when he used to start in 'trailing his coat.' They were glad when he 'came outside.' That's one of the reasons why he's shoved out on a prairie detachment. He wouldn't do at all for the Post. He never reports in there more than he has to--dead scared of the old man, who's about the only soul he is afraid of on earth. The O.C.'s awful sarcastic with him at times, and that gets Burke's goat properly. He sure does hate getting a choke-off from the old man." He grinned guiltily. "That's why he prefers to wash the family linen strictly at home--what little there is. But, sarcasm and all, the O.C. gives him credit for being onto his job--and it's coming to him, too. He's quick acting and he's got the Criminal Code well-nigh by heart. Regular blood-hound when he starts in working up a case." He yawned, and rising stiffly to his feet stretched his cramped limbs. "We-ll! Reddy, my giddy young hopeful!--Now we've fallen on each other's ruddy necks and kissed and wept and had a heart-to-heart talk we'll--" "Aw, quit making game, Yorkey! Is it a go? You know what I said?" Strangely compelling, Yorke found that bruised, eager, wistful young face, with its earnest, honest eyes. "All right!" he agreed, with languid bonhomie. "You've certainly earned the office of Dictator, and, as I remarked--we really have quite a lot in common. Mind, though, you don't repent of your bargain. One thing!" the curved, defiant nostrils dilated faintly, "Seems the world always has use for us runagates in one capacity. It's just the likes of us that compose the rank and file of most of the Empire's military police forces. Who makes the best M.P. man, executing duty, say, in a critical life-and-death hazard? The cautious, upright, model young man, with a tender regard for a whole skin and a Glorious Future? Or the poor devil who's lost all, and doesn't care a d----n? We tackle the world's dangerous, dirty criminal work and--swank and all--Society don't want to forget it." He pointed to their horses who were playfully rearing and biting at each other in equine sport. "Look at old Parson and Fox tryin' to warm themselves? Bloomin' fine example we've set 'em. Well! _allons_! _mon camarade_, let's up and beat it." CHAPTER VI _A deed accursed! Strokes have been struck before By the assassin's hand, whereof men doubt If more of horror or disgrace they bore; But this foul crime, like Cain's, stands darkly out._ THOMAS TAYLOR Hastily dressing, the two policemen mounted and took the trail once more. Side by side as they rode along, in each man's heart was an estimate of the other vastly different from that with which they started out that memorable morning. Yorke, his spirits now fully recovered, became quite companionably communicative, relating picturesque, racy stories of India, the Yukon, and other countries he had known. George, in receptive mood, listened in silent appreciation to one of the most fascinating _raconteurs_ he had ever met in his young life. Incidentally he felt relieved as he noted his comrade now tactfully avoiding morbid egotism--dwelling but lightly upon the milestones that marked his chequered career. The bodily stiffness and soreness, consequent upon their recent bout, was now well-nigh forgotten, though occasionally they laughingly rallied each other as the sharp air stung their bruised faces. They were just surmounting the summit of a long, steep grade in the trail. Said Redmond dubiously: "See here; look! I'm darned if I like getting the freedom of the City of Cow Run sportin' such a pretty mug as this! How many more miles to this giddy burg, old thing?" Yorke grinned unfeelingly. "Hard on nine miles to go yet. We're about half way. _Isch ga bibble_! . . . open your ditty-box and sing! you blooming whip-poor-will." "A werry heart goes all the way, But a sad one tires in a mile a'; A--" The old lilt died on his lips. With a startled oath he reined in sharply and, shielding his eyes from the sun-glare, remained staring straight in front of him. They had just topped the crest of the rise. The eastward slope showed a low-lying, undulating stretch of snow-bound country, sparsely dotted with clumps of poplar and alder growth, through which the trail wound snake-like into the fainter distance. Southwards, below the rolling, shelving benches, lay the river, a steaming black line, twisting interminably between frosty, bush-fringed banks. No less startled than his companion, Redmond pulled up also and stared with him. Not far distant on the trail ahead of them they beheld a dark, ominous-looking mass, vividly conspicuous against the snow. Suddenly the object moved and resolved itself unmistakably into a horse struggling to rise. For an instant they saw the head and the fore-part of the body lift, and then flop prone again. Close against it lay another dark object. "Horse down!" snapped Yorke tersely. "Hell!" he added, "looks like a man there, too! come on quick!" Responding to a shake of the lines and a fierce thrust of the spurs, their horses leapt forward and they raced towards their objective. "Steady! steady!" hissed Yorke, checking his mount as they drew near the fallen animal and its rider, "pull Fox a bit, Red! Mustn't scare the horse!" Slackening into a walk, they flung out of saddle, dropped their lines, crouched, and crept warily forward. The horse, a big, splendid seal-brown animal, had fallen on its right side, with its off fore-leg plunged deep in a snow-filled badger-hole. The body of the man lay also on the off-side with one leg under his mount. The stiffened form was a ghastly object to behold, being literally encased in an armour-like shell of frozen, claret-coloured snow. At the approach of the would-be rescuers the poor brute whinnied pitifully and made another ineffectual attempt to rise. Yorke flung himself onto the head and held it down, while George dived frantically for the man's body, and tugged until he had got the leg from under. "Hung up! by God!" gasped the former, "his foot's well-nigh through the stirrup!" Redmond, ex-medical student, made swift examination. "Dead!" he pronounced with finality, "Good God! dead as a herring! The man's been dragged and kicked to death!" He made a futile effort to release the imprisoned foot. "No! no!" cried Yorke sharply, "no use doing that if he's dead. Coroner's got to view things as they are." The horse began to struggle again painfully. Peering down the badger-hole they could see the broken bone of its leg protruding bloodily through the skin. Yorke released one hand and reached for his gun. "Poor old chap!" he said, "we'll fix you. Quick Red! pull the body as far back as the stirrup-legadeiro'll go! That'll do! There, old boy! . . ." And with practised hand he sent a merciful bullet crashing through brain and spinal cord. The hind legs threshed awhile, but presently, with a muscular quiver they stiffened and all was still. Yorke, releasing his hold struggled to his feet, and the two men stared pityingly at what lay before them. What those merciless, steel-shod hoofs had left of the head and the youthful body indicated a man somewhere in his twenties. His ice-bound outer clothing consisted of black Angora goatskin chaps and a short sheepskin coat. "Can't place him--like this," muttered Yorke, after prolonged scrutiny, "but I seem to know the horse." Suddenly he uttered a sharp exclamation--something between a groan and a cry. Redmond, startled at a new horror apparent on the other's ghastly face, clutched him by the arm. "What's up?" he queried tensely. Yorke struggled to speak. "Fox!" he gasped presently--"this morning. . . . I never told you. My God!--You might have got hung up like this, too." "No! no! Yorkey!" Redmond almost shouted the disclaimer, "Slavin wised me up to that trick of his yesterday. I forgot. It was my own fault I got piled like that. Forget it, old man! I say forget it!" He shook the other's arm with a sort of savage gentleness. A look of vague relief dawned on Yorke's haggard face. "Ay, so!" he murmured, and paused with brooding indecision. "That's absolved my conscience some, but not altogether." They remained silent awhile after this. Presently Yorke pulled himself together and spoke briskly and decisively. "Well, now! we'll have to get busy. Blair's place is only about three miles from here--nor'east--they're on the long-distance 'phone. Doctor Cox of Cow Run's the coroner for this district. If I can get hold of him I'll get him to come out right-away--and I'll notify Slavin." Catching up his horse he swung into the saddle. "I'll be back here on the jump. You stick around, and say, Reddy, you might as well have a dekko at the lay of things while you're waiting. Where he came off the perch, how far he's been dragged, and all that. Be careful though, keep well to the side and don't foul up the tracks. And don't get too far away, either!" He galloped off and soon disappeared over a distant rise. Left to himself George mounted Fox and set to work to follow out the senior constable's instructions. "Well?" queried Yorke, swinging wearily out of his saddle an hour or so later, "How'd you make out? Find the place where he flopped? Rum sort of perch you've got there--you look like Patience on a monument!" George, seated upon the rump of the dead horse, nodded and grunted laconic response: "Sure. 'Bout two miles down the trail there. How'd you get along, Yorkey? Did you raise Slavin and the coroner?" "Got Slavin all hunkadory," said the senior constable briefly, "he should be here soon, now. Dr. Cox'd just left for Wilson's, two miles this side of Cow Run. They're on the 'phone, too; so I left word there for him to come on here right away." He seated himself alongside the other. Awhile they carried on a desultory, more or less speculative conversation anent the fatality, until they grew morbidly weary of contemplating the poor broken body. Yorke slid off the dead horse suddenly. "Wish Slavin were here!" he said, "let's take a dekko from the top of the rise, Reddy, see'f we can see him coming. I'm getting cold sitting here." Redmond, nothing loath, complied. Mounting, they turned back to the summit of the ridge. Reaching it, the jingle of bells smote their ears, and they espied the Police cutter approaching them at a rapid pace. "Like unto Jehu, the son of Nimshi!" murmured Yorke, "he's sure springing old T and B up the grade." Sergeant Slavin pulled up his smoking team along-side his two mounted subordinates. "So ho, bhoys!" was his greeting, "fwhat's this bizness?" Yorke rapidly acquainted him with all the details. At one point in his narration he had occasion to turn to George: "That's how it was, Reddy?" And the latter replied, "That's about the lay of it, Yorkey." The sergeant listened, but absently. To them it did not seem exactly to be an occasion for levity; but they could have sworn that, behind an exaggerated grimness of mien, he was striving to suppress some inward mirth, as his deep-set Irish eyes roved from face to face. "Yez luk as if yez had been hung up an' dhragged tu--th' pair av yez," he remarked casually. Remembrance smote the two culprits. They exchanged guilty glances and swallowed the home-thrust in silence. Slavin clucked to his team. "Walk-_march_, thin!" said he. Wheeling sharply about, they started down the trail again, the cutter following in their wake. If their consciences would have permitted them to glance back they would have remarked their superior's face registering unholy delight. Out of the corner of his mouth Redmond shot, tensely, "Dye think he--" "Oh!" broke in Yorke resignedly, sotto voce. "You can't fool him! . . . _Isch ga bibble_, anyway!" "Yorkey!" an' "Reddy!" that worthy was mumbling tu himself--over and over again, "_Yorkey_!" an' "_Reddy_!" "'Tis so they name each other--now! Blarney me sowl! 'Tis come about! Fifty-fifty, tu--from th' mugs av thim. Peace, perfect peace, in th' fam'ly at last! Eyah! I wud have given me month's pay-cheque for a ring-side seat." He sighed deeply. They reached the fatal spot. Slavin, his levity gone, stepped out of the cutter and, retaining the lines of his restive team, stared long at the gruesome spectacle before him, with a sort of callous sadness. "These tu must have lain here th' night," he remarked, indicating the frost-rimed forms, "have yez sized things up? Got th' lay av fwhere ut happened?" Redmond made affirmative response. "Can you place him, Sergeant?" queried Yorke. "Eyah! Onless I am vastly mishtuk. Whoa, now! shtand still, ye fules! Fwhat yez a-scared av? Here, Yorkey! hold T an' B a minnut!" He pushed over his lines to the latter and, producing a pair of leather-cased brand-inspector's clippers, he cropped bare a circular patch on the defunct horse's nigh shoulder. Shorn of the thick, seal-brown winter hair, the brand was now plainly visible. Enlightenment came to Yorke in a flash, as he peered over his superior's shoulder. "D Two!" he gasped, "I knew I'd seen that horse somewhere! It's 'Duster,' Larry Blake's horse. Tchkk! this must be him. My God!" "Shure!" snapped Slavin testily. "Wake up! Is yeh're mem'ry goin', man? One av yeh're own cases last month, tu!" He tenderly pocketed the clippers. "Yes! ye shud know him!"--dryly--"lukked troo th' bottom av a glass wid him often enough." "Let's see'f he's got any letters or anything in his pockets--to make sure!" began Redmond eagerly. Suiting the action to the word he bent down to investigate. But Slavin intruded a huge arm. "Hould on, bhoy!" he said, with all an old policeman's fussiness over rightful procedure. "Du not touch! That is th' coroner's bizness. Did they not dhrill that inta yeh at Regina?" He stared thoughtfully at the corpse. "Dhrink an' th' divil! eyah! dhrink an' th' divil!"--sadly. "Larry, me pore bhoy! niver more will ye come a-whoopin' ut out av Cow Run on yeh 'Duster' horse . . . shpiflicated belike an' singin' 'Th' Brisk Young Man." Austerely he glanced at Yorke, "'Tis a curse, this same dhrink!" "How do you know the poor beggar was drunk?" queried the latter, a trifle sulkily. "He may have been as sober as you or I." "Shpeak for yehsilf!" retorted Slavin dryly, "Ah! this must be Docthor Cox comin' now!" A cutter containing two men was approaching them rapidly. Presently it drew up alongside the group and a short, rotund gentleman, clad in furs, sprang out and came swiftly, bag in hand. He was middle-aged, with a gray moustache and kind, alert, dark eyes. Greeting the policemen quietly, he turned to the broken body. "Tchkk! good God!" He shook his head sadly. Redmond thought he had never seen a medical man so unprofessionally shocked. Presently he straightened up and turned to Slavin. "Can you identify him, Sergeant?" That worthy nodded. "Eyah! 'tis Larry Blake, I'm thinking Docthor. Best frisk him now an' see, I guess. Maybe he has letthers." Hastily diving into his bag the coroner produced a pair of long keen scissors and slit the short, frozen sheepskin coat. In the breast-pocket of the coat underneath, amongst other miscellany two old letters rewarded his search. He glanced at the superscriptions and handed them up to Slavin. "Larry Blake it is," he said. He felt the soggy, pulped head. "Skull's stove right in. Any one of these smashes would have sufficed to kill him." He clipped the hair around a ghastly gaping crevice at the base of the head. Suddenly he peered closely, uttered an exclamation, peered again and drew back. "Sergeant!" he said sharply, "D'ye see that?--No need to ask you what that is!" In an unbroken portion of the back of the skull he indicated a small, circular orifice. The trio craned forward and made minute examination. Slavin ejaculated an oath and glanced up at Yorke--almost remorsefully. "I take ut all back," he said. Meeting the coroner's blank, enquiring stare he added: "Booze, Docthor--we thought ut might be. . . . Yeh know Larry!" The physician of Cow Run nodded understandingly. Slavin bent again and made close scrutiny of the bullet-hole. "_Back_ av th' head, no powdher marks!" He straightened up. "Docther, are ye thru? All right, thin! Guess we'll book up an' start in." Methodically they all produced note-books and entered the needful particulars. The lanky individual who had driven the coroner out brought forward a tarpaulin and spread it on the ground. With some difficulty the over-shoed foot was disengaged from the imprisoning stirrup, the body rolled in the tarpaulin and deposited in the rear of the doctor's cutter. The saddle and bridle were flung into the Police cutter. They then rolled the dead horse clear of the trail. That night the coyotes held grim, snarling carnival. Slavin turned to Redmond. "Ye've located th' place, eh?" The latter nodded. "All right, thin, get mounted, th' tu av yez, an' lead on!" Keeping needfully wide of the broad, claret-bespotted swath in the snow, the party started trailing back. Yorke and George rode ahead. The latter glanced around to make sure of being out of earshot of their sergeant. "We-ll of all the hardened old cases! . . . Slavin sure does crown 'em!" he muttered to his comrade. "Hardened!" Yorke laughed grimly. "You should have seen him up in the Yukon! The man's been handling these rotten morgue cases 'till he'd qualify for the Seine River Police. He's got so he ascribes well-nigh everything now to 'dhrink an' th' divil.'" His face softened, "but I know the real heart of old Burke under it all." About two miles down the trail Redmond halted. "Here it is!" he said. And he indicated an irregular, blood-soaked, clawed-up patch in the snow where the sanguinary swath ended. They dismounted. Slavin drawing up alongside the coroner's cutter handed over his lines to the teamster. "Now!" said he, "let's shtart in! . . . Ye must have 'shpotted this on yeh way up, Docthor?" He pointed to the patch. The latter nodded. "Yes! we thought it must have happened here." For some few seconds, with one accord the party stared about them at their surroundings. The frozen landscape at this point presented a singularly lonely, desolate aspect. Flat, and for the greater part absolutely bare of brush; save where from a small coulee some half mile to the left of the trail the tops of a cotton-wood clump were visible. Far to the right-hand, more than a mile away, stretched the first of the shelving benches, where the high ground sloped away in irregular jumps, as it were, to the river. "Best ye shtay fwhere ye all are," cautioned the sergeant, "'till I size up th' lay av things a bit. I du not want th' thracks fouled up. H-mm! let's see now!" He remained in deep, thoughtful silence a space. "Thravellin' towards us," he muttered--"th' back av th' head!" Hands clasped behind bent back, and with head thrust loweringly forward from between his huge shoulders he paced slowly down the trail for some hundred yards. That grim, intent face and the swaying gait reminded Redmond of some huge bloodhound casting about for a scent. Halting irresolutely a moment, Slavin presently faced about and returned. "Wan harse on'y!" he vouchsafed to their silent looks of enquiry. "He had not company. Must have been shot from lift or right av th' thrail." He stared around him at the bare sweep of ground. "Now fwhere cud any livin' man find cover here in th' full av th' moon, tu get th' range wid a small arm? He wud show up agin' th' snow like th' ace av shpades an' he thried." Suddenly his jaw dropped and he stiffened. "Ah-hh!" His eyes rivetted themselves on some object and his huge arm shot out. "Fwhat's yon?" They all stared in the direction he indicated. Plastered with frosted snow, until it was all but undiscernible against its white background, lay an enormous boulder--a relic, perchance, of some vast pre-historic upheaval. It was situated at an oblique angle to the trail, about a hundred yards distant. With stealthy, quickened steps Slavin made his way towards it. Tensely they watched him. In each man's mind now was a vague feeling of certainty of something, they knew not what. They saw him reach the boulder, walk round it and stoop, peering at its base for a few moments. Then suddenly he straightened up and beckoned to them. "Thread in file," he called out warningly. Yorke led, and, treading heedfully in each other's foot-marks, they reached the spot. Slavin silently pointed downwards. There, plainly discernible on the surface of the wind-packed, hard-crusted snow, were the corrugated imprints of overshoed feet--coming and going apparently in the direction of the previously mentioned coulee. Redmond indicated two rounded impressions at the foot of the boulder, with two smaller ones behind. "Must have hunched himself on his knees behind, eh?" he queried in a low voice. Slavin nodded. The rays of the westering sun coming from back of a cloud glinted on something in the snow, a few feet away from the tracks. It caught Yorke's eyes and with an exclamation he picked it up. "_--gold, raw gold, the spent shell rolled--_" he quoted. "Here you are, Burke!" Slavin uttered a delighted oath as he examined the small, bottle-necked shell of the automatic variety. ".38 Luger!" he said. "A high-pressure 'gat' like that is oncommon hereabouts!" Passing it on to the coroner he whistled softly. "My God! Fwhativer sort av a gun-artist is ut that--even allowin' for th' moonlight--can pick a man off thru' th' head wid a revolver at this distance? . . . an' wan shell on'y? . . . 'Soapy Smith' himself cu'dn't have beat this!" He proceeded to sift some fine, crisp snow in one of the imprints, then, producing an old letter from his pocket, he flattened out the type-written sheets of foolscap therein. Placing the blank side of the sheet face-downwards upon the imprint he pressed down smartly. The result was a very fair impression of the footmark, which he immediately outlined in pencil. A strange ominous silence fell upon the group. Deep in wild, whirling conjecture, each man gazed about him. The desolate, sinister aspect of their surroundings struck them with a sudden chill. Yorke voiced the general sentiment. "My God!" he said in a low voice, "but it sure is dreary!" With a final, self-satisfying survey at his "lay av things" Slavin stepped well to the side of the incriminating foot-prints. "Come on!" he said "get in file behint me! We will follow this up!" Silently they obeyed and padded in his rear. "D----d big feet, whoever owns 'em," remarked Redmond to Yorke. Slavin heard him. "Ay!" he flung back grimly. "An' they will shtand on th' dhrop yet--thim same feet!" The tracks returning in the direction of the coulee presented a vast contrast to the approaching imprints. Where the latter denoted an even, steady stride, the former ran in queer, irregular fashion--sometimes bunched together, and at others with wide spaces between. "'On th' double!'" remarked Slavin observantly. "Must have got scairt!" "Ah!" murmured the coroner, reflectively, "though the Bible doesn't expressly state so, I guess Cain, too, got on the 'double' as you call it--after he killed Abel." They finally reached the coulee where the tracks, debouching from the steep edge, passed along its rim and presently descended the more shallow end of the draw. Their leader eventually halted at the foot of a small cotton-wood tree where the human foot-prints ended. There in the snow they beheld a hoof-trampled space, which, together with broken twigs, indicated a tethered horse. This served for comment and speculation awhile. The sergeant, producing a small tape measure dotted down careful measurements of the over-shoed imprints and their length of stride, also the size of the shod hoof-marks. Redmond drew his attention to blood-stains in several of the latter. "Shod with 'never-slip' calks, Sergeant!" he said. "Must have slipped somewhere and 'calked' himself on the 'coronet,' I guess?" "Eyah!" muttered Slavin approvingly, "Th' 'nigh-hind' 'tis, note, bhoy! . . . 't'will serve good thrailin' that. Well, let's follow ut on!" Wearily his companions plodded on in his wake. The tracks, after following the draw for a short distance, suddenly wound up a steep, narrow path on the left side of the coulee. Reaching the surface of the level ground, they circled until they struck into the main trail east again, about a mile below where the party had left their horses. Here, merged amongst countless others on the well-travelled highway, they became more difficult to trace, though occasionally the faint blood-stains proclaimed their identity. Slavin pulled up. "Luks as if he'd shtruck back tu Cow Run again," he said with conviction. "Must have come from there, tu--thracks was goin' and comin' an' ye noticed, fwhin we climbed out av th' coulee back there. We must luk for a harse wid th' nigh-hind badly 'calked.' Yorkey! yu' get back an' tell that Lanky Jones feller tu come on. Hitch yez own harses behint our cutter an' take th' lines." He squinted at the sun and pulled out his watch. "'Tis four o'clock, begob! Twill turn bitther cowld whin th' sun goes down." The coroner smiled knowingly. "Talking about 'calks'!" he remarked; and diving into the deep recesses of his fur coat he produced a comfortable-looking leather-encased flask. "A little 'calk' all round won't hurt us after that tramp, Sergeant!" he observed kindly. Their transport presently arriving, they proceeded on their way to Cow Run, Yorke and Redmond watching carefully for any tracks debouching from the main trail. Occasionally they dismounted to verify the incriminating hoof-prints which still continued eastward. In this fashion they finally drew to the level of the river, where the trail forked; one arm of it following more or less the winding course of the Bow River back westward. At this junction they searched narrowly until they found unmistakable indication of the blood-tinged tracks still heading in the direction of Cow Run. "What was that case of yours, Yorkey?" enquired Redmond. "You know--what Slavin was talking about?" "Mix-up over that horse," replied Yorke laconically, "disputed ownership. A chap named Moran tried to run a bluff over Larry that he'd lost the horse as a colt. They got to scrapping and I ran 'em both up before Gully, the J. P. here. Moran got fined twenty dollars and costs for assaulting Blake. Say! look at that sky! Isn't it great?" They turned in their saddles and looked westward. Clean-cut against a pale yellow-ochre background and enveloped in a deep purple bloom, the mighty peaks of the distant "Rockies" upreared their eternal snow-capped glory in a salute to departing day. Above, where the opaline-tinted horizon shaded imperceptibly into the deep ultramarine of evening, lay glowing streamers of vivid crimson cloud-bank edged with the gleaming gold of the sunset's after-glow. It was a soul-filling sight. Against it the sordid contrast of the sinister business in hand smote them like a blow from an unseen hand, as they resumed their monotonous scanning of the trail on its either side. Yorke presently voiced the impression in both their hearts. "My God'" he murmured "the bitter irony of it! 'Peace on Earth, goodwill towards men' . . . and this!--what?" CHAPTER VII _Oh! Bad Bill Brough, a way-back tough Raised hell when he struck town; With gun-in-fist met Sergeant Twist-- It sure was some show-down_. BALLAD OF SERGEANT TWIST Cow Run was reached in the gathering dusk. Seen under winter conditions the drab little town looked dreary and uninviting enough as the party negotiated its main street. A frame-built hotel, a livery-stable, a small church, a school-house, a line of false-fronted stores, and some three-score dwellings failed to arouse in George an enthusiastic desire to become a permanent resident of Cow Run. The corpse they deposited temporarily in an empty shack situated in the rear of the doctor's residence. From long usage this place had come to be accepted as the common morgue of the district. After arranging details with the coroner anent the morrow's inquest, and carefully searching the dead man, the sergeant and his two subordinates repaired to the livery-stable to put up their horses. Nicholas Lee, the keeper of this establishment greeted them with wheezy cordiality, apportioned to them stable-room and guaranteed especial care of their horses. In appearance that worthy would have made a passable understudy for the elder Weller, being red-faced, generous of girth and short of breath. In addition to his regular calling he filled--or was supposed to fill--the office of "town constable" and pound-keeper. A sort of village "Dogberry." Incidentally it might be mentioned that he also could have laid claim to be a "wictim of circumstances"; having but recently contracted much the same sort of hymeneal bargain as did the Dickensian character. The sympathy of Cow Run, individually and collectively, was extended to him on this account. From his somewhat garrulous recital of the day's events it was satisfactorily evident to his hearers that wind of the murder had not struck Cow Run as yet. For obvious reasons Slavin had enjoined strict secrecy upon Lanky Jones, Lee's stable-hand. "Ar!" wheezed Lee. "It's a good job yu' fellers is come. That ther 'Windy Moran's' bin raisin' hell over in the hotel th' las' two days. He got to fightin' ag'in las' night with Larry Blake--over that hawss. Bob Ingalls an' Chuck Reed an' th' bunch dragged 'em apart an' tol' Larry to beat it back to his ranch--which he did. Windy--they got him to bed, an' kep' him ther all night, as he swore he'd shoot Larry. He's still over ther, nasty-drunk an' shootin' off what he's goin' t' do." He rubbed his hands in gleeful anticipation, gloating deeply in his throat: "Stirrin' times! ar! stirrin' times! . . . Now--'bout that ther hobo, Sargint--" "Aw! damn th' hobo!" exploded Slavin impatiently. "Here, Nick! show me Windy's harse. Fwhat? Niver yeh mind fwhat for . . . now! Yu'll know all 'bout that later." His native curiosity balked, the old gossip, with a slightly injured air, indicating a big sorrel saddle-horse standing in a stall opposite the Police team. Slavin backed the animal out. It seemed to be lame. With fierce eagerness they examined its "nigh-hind" leg--and found what they sought for. For there--where the hair joins the hoof, technically known as the "coronet"--was a deep, jagged wound, such as is caused usually by a horse slipping and jabbing itself with sharp-pointed shoe-calks. The hoof itself was stained a dull red where the blood had run down. Slavin picked up a fore-foot and exhibited to them the round-pointed, screwed-in calks, commonly known as "neverslips." He took the measurements of the shoe and glanced at his note-book. Finally, with a significant gesture and amidst dead silence, he thrust the book back in his pocket. Handing over the horse to Lee he bade him tie it up again. Wordlessly, the trio exchanged mystified glances. "See here; look, Nick!" Slavin grasped the livery-man's fat shoulder and looked grimly into the startled, rubicund face. "I'm a-goin' tu put a question tu yeh, an' 'member now. . . . I want yeh tu think harrd! . . . Now--whin Larry Blake came in tu saddle-up an' pull out last night was that ther sorrel o' Windy's still in th' stable--or not?" "Eh?" gasped Lee at last, "I dunno! Me nor Lanky wasn't around when Larry pulled out. We was over t' th' hotel, Sarjint." Slavin released the man's shoulder with a testy, balked gesture. "Yes! enjoyin' th' racket an' dhrunk like th' rist, I guess! . . . 'Tis a foine sort av town-constable yez are!" Nick Lee maintained his air of injured innocence. "I came round here 'bout midnight, anyways!" he protested. "I always do--jes' t' see 'f everythin's all right. That hawss was in then, I will swear--'cause I 'member his halter-shank'd come untied and I fixed it. Ev'rythin' in th' garden was lovely 'cep' fur that 'damned hobo sneakin' round. He was gettin' a drink at th' trough an' I chased him. But he beat it up inta th' loft an'--I'm that scared of fire," he ended lamely, "I never lock up fur that." Slavin nodded wisely. "Yes! I guess he made his getaway from yu'--easy. Mighty long toime since yuh've bin able tu dhrag yeh're guts up that ladder--lit alone squeege thru' th' thrap-dhure. Bet Lanky does all th' chorin'." He glanced around him impatiently, "But this here's all talk--it don't lead nowheres. Hullo! this is Gully's team, ain't it?" He indicated a splendid pair of roans standing in a double stall nearby. "Yes!" said Lee, "he pulled in las' night t' catch th' nine-thirty down t' Calgary. He ain't back yet." "Fwas he--" Slavin checked himself abruptly--"fwhat toime did he get in here?" "'Bout nine." "Fwhat toime 'bout fwas ut whin this racket shtarted up betune Windy an' Larry?" "Oh, I dunno, Sarjint!--'bout nine, may be--as I say I--" "Come on!" said the sergeant, abruptly, to his men, "let's go an' eat. Luk afther thim harses good, Nick," he flung back in a kind tone. Outside in the dark road they gathered together, bandying mystified conjecture in low tones. "'Tis no use arguin', bhoys," snapped Slavin at last, wearily, "we've got tu see Chuck Reed an' Bob Ingalls an' Brophy av th' hotel. Their wurrd goes--they're straight men. If they had Windy corralled all night, as Nick sez . . . fwhy! . . . that let's Windy out." He was silent awhile, then: "That harse av Windy's," he burst out with an oath, "I thought 't'was a cinch. Somethin' passin' rum 'bout all this. There's abs'lutely no mistake 'bout th' harse. Somebody in this god-forsaken burg must ha' used him tu du th' killin' wid. Well, let's get on." Suddenly, as they neared the hotel, a veritable bedlam of sound fell upon their ears, apparently from inside that hostelry--men shouting, a dog barking, and above all the screeching, crazed voice of a drunken man. The startled policemen dashed into the front entrance, through the office and across the passage into the bar beyond, from whence the uproar proceeded. "Help! Murder! Pleece!" some apparently high-strung individual was bawling. A ludicrous, but nevertheless dangerous, sight met their eyes. A motley crowd, composed mainly of well-dressed passengers from off the temporarily-stalled West-bound train and a sprinkling of townsfolk, were backed--hands up--into a corner of the bar by a big, hard-faced man clad in range attire who was menacing them with a long-barrelled revolver. He was dark-haired and swarthy, with sinister, glittering eyes. One red-headed, red-nosed individual had apparently resented parting with the drink that he had paid for; as in one decidedly-shaky elevated hand he still clutched his glass, its whiskey and water contents slopping down the neck of his nearest unfortunate neighbour. "Mon!" he apologized, in tearful accents, "Ah juist canna help it!" "Pitch up!" the "bad man" was shrieking, "Pitch up! yu' ----s!--That d----d Blake--that d----d Gully! Stealin' my hawss away'f me an' gittin' me fined! I'll git back at somebody fur this! _Pleece_! yes!--yeh kin holler '_Pleece_!'--Let me get th' drop on th' red-coated, yelluh-laigged sons of ----! Ah-hh!"--His eyes glittered with his insane passion, "Here they come! Now! watch th' ----s try an' arrest me!" Fairly frothing at the mouth, the man, at that moment working himself into a frenzy, was plainly as dangerous as a mad dog. Drunk though he undoubtedly was, he did not stagger as he stepped to and fro with cat-like activity, his gun levelled at the policemen's heads. It was an ugly situation. Slavin and his men taken utterly by surprise hesitated, as well they might; for a single attempt to draw their sidearms might easily bring inglorious death upon one or another of them. We have noted that on a previous occasion Redmond demonstrated his ability to think and act quickly. He upheld that reputation now. Like a flash he ducked behind Slavin's broad shoulders and backed into the passage. Picking up at random the first missile available--to wit--an empty soda-water bottle, he tip-toed swiftly along the passage to a door opening into the bar lower down. This practically brought him broadside-on to his man. A moment he peered and judged his distance then, drawing back his arm he flung the bottle with all his force. At McGill he had been a base-ball pitcher of some renown, so his aim was true. The bottle caught its objective full in the ear. With a scream of pain the man staggered forward and clutched with one hand at his head, his gun still in his grip sagging floorwards. Instantly then, Yorke, who was the nearest, sprang at him like a tiger and, ranging one arm around his enemy's bull neck, strove with the other to wrest the gun from his grasp. It was a feat however, more easily imagined than accomplished--to disarm a powerful, active man. The tense fingers tightened immediately upon the weapon and resisted to their uttermost. Slavin and Redmond both had their side-arms drawn now, but they were afraid to use them, on Yorke's account. The combatants were whirling giddily to and fro, the muzzle of the gun describing every point of the compass. Taking a risky chance, Slavin, watching his opportunity suddenly closed with the struggling men and, raising his arm brought the barrel of his heavy Colt's .45 smashing down on the knuckles of the crazed man's gun-hand. Instantaneously the latter's weapon dropped to the floor. Bang! The cocked hammer discharged one chamber--the bullet ricocheting off the brass bar-rail deflected through a cluster of glasses and bottles, smashing them and a long saloon-mirror into a myriad splinters. But few of the company there escaped the deadly flying glass, as badly-gashed faces immediately testified. It all happened in quicker time than it takes to relate. "'Crown' him!" gasped Yorke, still grimly hanging onto his man, "'Crown' the ---- good and hard!" Redmond sprang forward, grasping a small, shot-loaded police "billy," but Slavin interposed a huge arm. "Nay!" he said sharply, and with curious eagerness, "Du not 'chrown' um bhoy! lave um tu me!" And he grasped one of the big, struggling man's wrists firmly in a vise-like grip. "Leggo, Yorkey!" The latter obeyed with alacrity, and stooping he picked up the fallen gun. He had an inkling of what was coming. "Ah-hh!" Slavin gloated gutterally, as he whirled his victim giddily around and brought the man up facing him with a violent jerk--"Windy Moran, avick!"--softly and cruelly--"me wud-be cock av a wan-harse dump!--me wud-be 'bad-man'! . . . Oh, yes! 'tis both shockin' an' brutil tu misthreat ye I know but--surely, surely yeh desarve somethin' for all this!" And he drew back his formidable right arm. Smack! The terrific impact of that one, terrible open-handed slap nearly knocked his victim through the bar-room wall. The head rocked sideways and the big body turned completely round. Eyes rushing water and one profile now resembling a slab of bloodied liver, the man reeled about in a circle as if bereft of sight. "Oh-hh!--Ooh!--No-o!--Ah-hh!" The wild, moaning cry for quarter came gaspingly out of puffed, blood-foamed lips. But there was no mercy in Slavin. He looked round at the wrecked bar, the glass-slashed bleeding faces of his men and the rest of the saloon's occupants. He thought upon many things--how near ignoble death many of them had been but a few minutes before--upon insult and threat flaunted at them by a drunken, ruffling braggadocio!--and he jerked the latter to him once more. But his two subordinates jumped forward and made violent protest. "Steady!" It was Yorke now who appealed for leniency--"Go easy, Burke! for God's sake! You've handed him one good swipe--if he get's another like that he'll be all in--won't be able to talk. Let it go at that!" The sergeant remained silent, breathing thickly and glaring at his prisoner with sinister, glittering eyes, and still retaining the latter's wrist in his iron grip. But eventually the force of Yorke's reasoning prevailed with him. Drawing out his hand-cuffs he snapped them on the man's wrists and haled him roughly out of the bar into the hotel office. The crowd, recovering somewhat from their scare, would have followed, but he curtly ordered them back and closed the door. "Brophy!" He beckoned the angry, frightened hotel-proprietor forward. "Is Bob Ingalls and Chuck Reed still in town?" "Sure!" replied the latter, "They was both in here 'bout half an hour ago, anyways." Slavin turned to Yorke. "Go yu an' hunt up thim fellers an' bring thim here!" he ordered. "Ravin'--clean bug-house! that's what he is!" wailed Brophy. "That bar o' mine! oh, Lord! Yu'll git it soaked to yu' this time, Windy, an' don't yu' furgit it!" The prisoner paid no attention to the landlord's revilings. Slumped down in a chair he had relapsed into a sort of sulky stupor, though he cringed visibly whenever Slavin bent on him his thoughtful, sinister gaze. Presently Yorke returned, bringing with him two respectable-looking men, apparently ranchers, from their appearance. Slavin nodded familiarly to them. "Ingalls!" he addressed one of them "I'm given tu undhershtand that yuh an' Chuck Reed there tuk charge av this feller--" he indicated the prisoner--"last night, whin he had that racket wid Larry Blake in th' bar? Fwhat was they rowin' over?" "That hawss o' Blake's mostly," was Ingalls' laconic answer. "Course they was slingin' everythin' else they could dig down an' drag up, too." He chewed thoughtfully a moment, "We had some time with 'em," he added. "Shore did!" struck in Reed. "We was scared fur Larry, so we told him to beat it home--which he did--an' then we got Windy up to bed an' stayed with him nigh all night." Slavin looked at Brophy interrogatively. "Yuh can vouch for this, tu, Billy? He's bin in yu're place iver since th' throuble smarted?" Brophy nodded. "Yes! d----n him! I wish he had got out before this bizness started. Yes! he's bin here right along, Sarjint! why?--what's up?" Slavin evaded the direct question for the moment. Silently awhile he gazed at the three wondering faces. "Now, I'll tell yez!" he said slowly. And briefly he informed them of the murder--omitting all detail of the clues obtained later. They listened with wide eyes and broke out into startled exclamations. The prisoner struggled up from the chair, his bruised, ghastly face registering fear and genuine astonishment. Redmond shoved him back again. "If any feller thinks--" Moran relapsed into maudlin, hysterical protestations of innocence, calling upon the Deity to bear witness that he was innocent and had no knowledge whatever of how Blake came to his death. Eventually silence fell upon all. Slavin cogitated awhile, then he turned to Brophy. "Who else was in, Billy? Out av town fellers I mean, fwhin this racket occurred betune these tu? Thry an' think now!" Brophy pondered long and presently reeled off a few names. Slavin heard him out and shook his head negatively. "Nothin' doin' there!" he announced finally, "Mr. Gully was in, yuh say? Did he see anythin' av this row?" "Cudn't help it, I guess," replied Brophy. "He just come inta th' office for his grip while it was a-goin' on. He beat it out quick for th' East-bound as had just come in. Said he was runnin' down to Calgary. He ain't back yet. Guess he wudn't want to go gettin' mixed up in anythin' like that, either--him bein' a J. P." Slavin looked at Yorke. "Let's have a luk at that gun av Moran's!" he remarked. "Fwhat is ut?" Yorke handed the weapon over. "'Smith and Wesson' single-action," he said. "Just that one round gone." "Nothin doin' agin'," muttered Slavin disappointedly. He broke the gun and, ejecting the shells put all in his pocket. He then turned to Moran. "D----d good job for yu'--havin' this alibi, Mister Windy!" he growled, "don't seem anythin' on yu' over this killin'--as yet! But yez are goin' tu get ut fwhere th' bottle got th' cork for this other bizness, me man!" And he proceeded to formally charge and warn his prisoner. "Give us a room, Brophy!" he said, "a big wan for th' bunch av us--an' lave a shake-down on th' flure for this feller!" Preceded by the landlord the trio departed upstairs, escorting their prisoner. Alone in the room they discussed matters in lowered tones; Slavin and Yorke not forgetting to compliment Redmond on his presence of mind--or, as the sergeant put it: "Divartin' his attenshun." The big Irishman scratched his chin thoughtfully. "I must go wire th' O.C. report av all this. Sind Gully comes back on th' same thrain wid Inspector Kilbride to-morrow. Thin we can go ahead--wid two J.P.s tu handle things. Yuh take charge av Mr. Man, Ridmond! Me an' Yorke will go an' eat now, an' relieve yuh later." CHAPTER VIII "The Court is prepared, the Lawyers are met, The Judges all ranged, a terrible show!" As Captain Macheath says,--and when one's arraigned, The sight's as unpleasant a one as I know. THE INGOLDSBY LEGENDS. "Orrrdher in Coort!" rang out Sergeant Slavin's abrupt command. It was about ten o'clock the following morning. The hotel parlour had been hastily transformed into a temporary court-room. A large square table had been drawn to one end of the room and two easy chairs placed conveniently behind it. Fronting it was a long bench, designed for the prisoner and escort. In the immediate rear were arranged a few rows of chairs, to accommodate the witnesses and spectators. The sergeant's order, prompted by the entrance of the two Justices of the Peace, was the occasion of all present rising to attention, in customary deference to police-court rules. One of the newcomers, dressed in the neat blue-serge uniform of an inspector of the Force, was familiar to Redmond as Inspector Kilbride, who had been recently transferred to L Division from a northern district. He had close-cropped gray hair and a clipped, grizzled moustache. Though apparently nearing middle-age he still possessed the slim, wiry, active figure of a man long inured to the saddle. The appearance of his judicial confrere fairly startled George. He was a huge fellow, fully as tall and as heavy a man as Slavin, though not so compactly-built or erect as the latter. Still, his wide, loosely-hung, slightly bowed shoulders suggested vast strength, and his leisurely though active movements indicated absolute muscular control. But it was the strangely sombre, mask-like face which excited Redmond's interest most. Beneath the broad, prominent brow of a thinker a pair of deep-set, shadowy dark eyes peered forth, with the lifeless, unwinking stare of an owl. Between them jutted a large, bony beak of a nose, with finely-cut nostrils. The pitiless set of the powerful jaw was only partially concealed by an enormous drooping moustache, the latter reddish in colour and streaked with gray, like his thinning, carefully brushed hair. His age was hard to determine. Somewhere around forty-five, George decided, as he regarded with covert interest Ruthven Gully, Esq., gentleman-rancher and Justice of the Peace for the district. The two Justices took their places with magisterial decorum, the witnesses seated themselves again, and, all being ready, the sergeant opened the court with its time-honoured formula. The inspector glanced over the various "informations" and handed them over to his confrere for perusal. A brief whispered colloquy ensued between them, and then the local justice settled himself back in his chair, chin in hand. Inspector Kilbride addressed the prisoner who had remained standing between Yorke and Redmond, and in a clear, passionless voice proceeded to read out the several charges. "Do you wish to ask for a remand, Moran?" he enquired, "to enable you to procure counsel?" "No, sir!" Moran's sullen, insolent eyes suddenly encountering a dangerous, steely glare from Kilbride's gray orbs he wilted and immediately dropped his belligerent attitude. "No use me hirin' a mouthpiece," he added, "as I'm a-goin' t' plead guilty t' all them charges." "Ah!" The inspector thoughtfully conned over the "informations" once more. "Sergeant Slavin," said he presently, "what are the particulars of this man's disorderly conduct?" He listened awhile to the sergeant's evidence, occasionally asking a question or two, but Mr. Gully remained in the same silent, brooding, inscrutable attitude which he had adopted at the commencement of the proceedings. Though apparently listening keenly, his shadowy eyes betrayed no interest whatever in the case. Of that face Yorke had once remarked to Slavin: "That beggar's mug fairly haunts me sometimes. . . . He's a good fellow, Gully,--but, you know--when he gets that brooding look on his face . . . he's the living personification of a western Eugene Aram." And Slavin, engaged in shredding a pipeful of tobacco had mumbled absently "So?--Ujin Airum!--I du not mind th' ould shtiff--fwhat was his reg'minthal number?" The sergeant finished his evidence; Kilbride swung round to his fellow-justice once more and they held a whispered consultation, the latter making emphatic gestures throughout the colloquy. This ending the inspector turned to the prisoner. "You have pleaded guilty to each of these charges. Have you anything to say?--any explanation to offer for your reckless, disorderly conduct?" The prisoner swallowed nervously and shuffled with his feet. "Guess I was drunk," he said finally, "didn't know what I was doin'." The inspector's grey eyes glittered coldly. "So?" he drawled ironically, "the sergeant's evidence is to the contrary. It would appear that you were not so very drunk. You were neither staggering nor incapable at the time. It was merely a rehearsal of a cheap bit of dime novel sort of bar-room, rough-house black-guardism that no doubt in various other places you have got away with and emerged the swaggering hero. Where do you come from? Whom are you working for now?" "Havre, Montana. I'm ridin' fur th' North-West Cattle Company." "Ah! well, let me tell you that sort of stuff doesn't go over on this side, my man." He considered a moment and picked up a Criminal Code. "In view of your pleading guilty to these charges, and therefore not wasting the time of this court unnecessarily, I propose dealing with you in more lenient fashion than you deserve. For being unlawfully in possession of firearms you are fined twenty dollars and costs. For 'pointing fire-arms,' fifty dollars and costs. On the charge of 'resisting the police in the execution of their duty' you are sentenced to six months imprisonment with hard labour in the Mounted Police Guard-room at Calgary. You are also required to make restitution for all damage caused as the result of your fracas." Moran squirmed and mumbled: "If I've got t' do time on the one charge I might as well do it on th' rest, an' save th' money fur t' pay fur th' damage." "Very good!" agreed the inspector coldly. He bent again to his confrere and they conferred awhile. Then he turned to the prisoner. "Thirty days hard labour then--on each of the first two charges--sentences to run concurrently." He paused a space, resuming sternly: "And let me tell you this, Moran: in view of certain wild threats uttered by you in public you have narrowly escaped being charged with the greatest of all crimes. It is indeed a fortunate thing for you that you have been able to produce a reliable alibi. All right, Sergeant! you can close the court. Make out that warrant of commitment and I and Mr. Gully will sign it later. We're going over to see the coroner." The two Justices arose and passed out, the few witnesses and onlookers drifting aimlessly in their wake. Slavin lowered himself ponderously into the chair just vacated by the inspector, lit his pipe, and, whistling softly, commenced to fill out a legal form. Yorke and Redmond also took the opportunity to indulge in a quiet smoke as they chatted together in low tones. The former good-naturedly tossed a cigarette over to the prisoner, with the remark: "Have a smoke, Windy--it's the last you'll get for some time." Moran, slumped in a tipped-back chair, blew a whiff of smoke from a lop-sided mouth. "Six months!" chanted he lugubriously, "an' they call this a free country!--free hell!-- "_Oh, bury me out on th' lone prair-ee, Where th' wild ki-oot'll howl over me,--_ "--might as well an' ha' done with it!" They all laughed unsympathetically. "'Tis mighty lucky for yuh thim sintences run concurrently instid av consecutively," was the sergeant's rejoinder, "or ut'd be eight months yez ud be doin' stid av six." The front legs of Moran's chair suddenly hit the floor with a crash. "Lookit here, boys," he said earnestly, "that ther big mag'strate--him as you call Gully--is that his real name? Wher does he come from? What countryman is he?" "English!" answered Yorke shortly. "Why? D'ye think an Englishman has to run around with a blooming alias?" "Well, now, yu' needn't go t' git huffy with a man!" expostulated Moran, with an injured air. "Th' reason I'm askin' yu' is this": He paused impressively, with puckered, thoughtful eyes. "That same man--if it ain't him--is th' dead spit of a man as once hit ---- County, in Montana 'bout ten years back. Dep'ty Sheriff--I can't mind his name now. It was a hell of a tough county that--then. Th' devil himself 'ud ha' bin scairt t' start up in bizness ther." He shook his head slowly. "But I tell yu'--when Mr. Man let up with his fancy shootin' it was th' peaceablest place in th' Union. Th' rough stuff'd drifted--what was left above ground. He dragged it too, later. I never heered wher he went." "Ah!" remarked Slavin pityingly, knocking out his pipe. "Th' few shots av hootch ye had tu throw inta yu' last night tu get ye're Dutch up must be makin' ye see double, me man. If th' rough stuff he run inta there was on'y th' loikes av yersilf he must have shtruck a soft snap." He arose. "Put th' stringers on him agin, Ridmond, an' take um upstairs an' lock um up! Yu'll be escort wid um tu Calgary whin th' East-bound comes in--an' see here, look! . . . I want ye tu be back here agin as soon as iver ye can make ut back. Tchkk!" he clucked fretfully, "I wish this autopsy an' inquest was thru', so's we cud git down tu bizness. Phew! this dive's stuffy--let's beat ut out a bit!" Standing on the sidewalk they gazed casually at the slowly approaching figures of Inspector Kilbride and Mr. Gully. The two latter appeared to be engaged in a vehement, though guarded conversation--stopping every now and again, as if to debate a point. "Here cometh Moran's 'dep'ty sheriff,'" was Yorke's facetious comment. "By gum, though!" Redmond ejaculated, "the beggar would make a good stage marshal, wouldn't he? . . . with that Bret Harte, forty-niner's moustache and undertaker's mug, and top-boots and all, what?" "And a glittering star badge," supplemented Yorke dramatically, "don't forget that! and two murderous-looking guns slanted across his hips and--" "Arrah, thin! shut up, Yorkey!" hissed the sergeant in a warning aside, "they'll hear yez. Here they come." Presently the five were grouped together. Inspector Kilbride's stern features were set in a thoughtful, lowering scowl. Mr. Gully's tanned, leathery countenance looked curiously mottled. "Sergeant!" The inspector clicked off his words sharply. "This is a bad case. We've just been viewing the body--Mr. Gully and I." With mechanical caution he glanced swiftly round. "Let's get inside and go over things again," he added. Seated in the privacy of the hotel parlour the crime was discussed from every angle with callous, professional interest. Kilbride and Slavin did most of the talking, though occasionally Gully interpolated with question and comment. He possessed a deep, booming bass voice well-suited to his vast frame. His speech, despite a slightly languid drawl, was unquestionably that of an educated Englishman. Yorke and Redmond maintained a respectful silence in the presence of their officer, except to answer promptly and quietly any questions put directly to them. Personal revenge they decided eventually could be the only motive. Robbery was out of the question, as the personal belongings of the dead man had been found to be intact, including a valuable diamond ring, about a hundred and fifty dollars in bills, and his watch, papers, etc. A jovial, light-hearted young rancher, hailing originally from the Old Country, a bachelor of more or less convivial habits, he had enjoyed the hearty good-will of the country-side, incurring the enmity of no one, with the exception of Moran, as far as they knew. The latter's alibi having established his innocence beyond doubt, no definite clues were forthcoming as yet, beyond the foot-prints, the horse, and the "Luger" shell. Moran, too, they ascertained had ridden in alone, and was not in the habit of chumming with anyone in particular. Slavin had prepared a list of all known out-going and incoming individuals on and about the date of the crime. This was carefully conned over. All were, without exception, well-known respectable ranchers, and citizens of Cow Run, to whom no suspicion could be attached. "No!" commented the inspector wearily, at length. "In my opinion this has been done by someone living right here in this burg--a man whom we could go and put our hands on this very minute--if we only had something to work on. You'll see . . . it'll turn out to be that later. Just about the last man you'd suspect, either. Cases like this--where the individual has nerve enough to stay right on the job and go about his business as usual--are often the hardest nuts to crack. You remember that Huggard case, Sergeant?" Many years previous he and Slavin had been non-coms together in the Yukon, and other divisions of the Force, and now, delving back into their memories of crime and criminals, they cited many old and grim cases, more or less similar to the one in hand. Yorke and Redmond listened eagerly to their narration, but Gully betrayed only a sort of taciturn interest. If he had any experiences of his own, he apparently did not consider it worth while to contribute them just then; though to Slavin and Yorke he was known to be a man who had travelled far and wide. "Ah!" remarked the inspector, a trifle bitterly. "If only some of these smart individuals who write fool detective stories, with their utterly impracticable methods, theories, and deductions, were to climb out of their arm-chairs and tackle the real thing--had to do it for their living--they'd make a pretty ghastly mess of things I'm thinking. It all looks so mighty easy--in a book. You can see exactly how the thing happened, put your hand on the man who did it, and all that, right from the start. And you begin to wonder, pityingly, why the police were such fools as Dot to have seen through everything right away." He paused a moment, continuing: "This is a law-abiding country. Crimes like this are exceptional. We're bound to get to the bottom of this sooner or later. When we do--there'll be quite a lot of things crop up in our minds that we'll be wondering we never thought of before. Let me have another look at that paper imprint of that over-shoe, Sergeant!" Silently, Slavin handed it over. Kilbride scrutinized it carefully, and again went over all notes and figures connected with the crime. "Must have been a tall man--possibly six feet, or over, from the length of the stride," he muttered, "and heavy, from the depth of the imprint." He noted the distance from the big boulder to where the body had first fallen. "Gad! what shooting! . . . The man must have been a holy fright with a revolver--to have confidence in himself to be able to kill at that range. I've never known anything like it. Well! . . . One sure thing"--he laughed grimly--"you can't go searching every decent citizen here for a Luger gun, or demanding to measure his feet--without reasonable suspicion. Why! It might be you, Sergeant--or Mr. Gully, here . . . you're both big men. . . ." Long afterwards, well they remembered the inspector's random jest--how Gully, with one hand slid into his breast, and the other dragging at his great drooping moustache (mannerisms of his) had joined in the general laugh with his hollow, guttural "Ha! ha!" The inspector's levity suddenly vanished. "That old fool of a livery-stable keeper, Lee, or whatever his name is . . . if only he, or someone had been around when the horse was brought back that night! D----n it! there must have been somebody around, surely. That's what this case hinges on." He looked at his watch. "Well! Work on that--to your utmost, Sergeant. Stay right with it until you get that evidence. You'll drop onto your man sooner or later, I know. That train should be in soon, now. I'll have to get back. The Commissioner's due from Regina, sometime today, and I've got to be on hand. Wire the finding of the inquest as soon as it's over, and send in a full crime-report of everything!" He glanced casually at the bruised faces of Yorke and Redmond. "You men must have had quite a tussle with that fellow, Moran!" he remarked whimsically. "You seem to have come off the best, Sergeant. You're not marked at all." "Some tussle all right, Sorr!" agreed that worthy evenly, his tongue in his cheek. "Yu' go git yu're prisoner, Ridmond, an' be ready whin that thrain comes in. Come back on the next way-freight west, if there's wan behfure th' passenger. We'll need yez." Gully murmured some hospitable suggestion to Kilbride, and the two gentlemen strolled into the wrecked bar. The train presently arrived and departed eastwards, bearing on it the inspector, Redmond, and his prisoner. "Strange thing," the officer had remarked musingly to Slavin, just prior to his departure, "I seem to know that man Gully's face, but somehow I can't place him. He introduced himself to me on the train coming up. Of course I'm familiar with his name, as the J.P. here, but I can't recall ever meeting him before." Sometime later, Slavin and Yorke, who had just returned from the gruesome autopsy and were busily making arrangements for the afternoon's inquest, heard a loud, cackling commotion out in the main street. They immediately stepped outside the hotel to see what was the matter. Advancing towards them, and puffing with exertion and importance, they beheld Nick Lee, haling along at arm's length an unkempt individual whom they judged to be the hobo who had disturbed his peace of mind. A small retinue of dirty urchins, jeering loafers, and barking dogs brought up the rear. The village "Dogberry" drew nigh with his victim and halted, as empurpled as probably the elder Weller was, after ducking Mr. Stiggins in the horse-trough. "Sarjint!" he panted triumphantly "I did clim up that ther ladder! I did git thru' th' trap-door! . . . an'--I did ketch that feller!" Suddenly his jaw dropped, and he wilted like a pricked bladder. "Why! what's up?" he queried with a crestfallen air, as he beheld Slavin's angry, worried countenance. "Damnation!" muttered the latter softly and savagely to Yorke. "This means another thrip tu Calgary--wid this 'bo'--an' me not able tu shpare ye just now. Fwhat wid all this other bizness I'd forgotten all 'bout him. An' we'd vagged him sooner Ridmond might have taken th' tu av thim down tugither. Da----." The oath died on his lips and he remained staring at the hobo as a sudden thought struck him. His gaze flickered to Yorke's face, and his subordinate nodded comprehensively. Slavin beckoned to Lee. "Take um inside the hotel parlour, Nick," he ordered, "fwhere we hild coort this mornin.' Yorkey, yu' go an' hunt up Mr. Gully. I don't think he's pulled out yet, has he, Nick?" He spoke now with a certain grim eagerness. The livery-man made a gesture in the negative, and Yorke departed upon his quest. Slavin ushered Lee and the hobo into the room. To the sergeant's surprise he beheld the justice sitting at the table writing. He concluded that that gentleman must have just stepped in from the rear entrance of the hotel, or the bar, during his own and Yorke's temporary absence. At the entrance of the trio Gully raised his head and, with the pen poised in his fingers, sat perfectly motionless, staring at them strangely out of his shadowy eyes. His face seemed transformed into a blank, expressionless mask. The sergeant leaned over the table and spoke to him in a rapid aside. "Ah!" murmured Mr. Gully, and he remained for a space in deep thought. "Sergeant," he began presently, "I'll have to be pulling out soon. Before we start in with this man . . . will you kindly step down to Doctor Cox's with these papers and ask him to sign them?" It seemed an ordinary request. Slavin complied. Returning some ten or fifteen minutes later he noticed Lee was absent. The magistrate answered his query. "Sent him round to throw the harness on my team," he drawled, as he pored over a Criminal Code, "he'll be back in a moment--ah! here he is." And just then the latter entered, along with Yorke. The hobo was sitting slumped in a chair, as Slavin had left him. With one accord they all centred their gaze upon the unkempt delinquent. Ragged and unwashed, he presented a decidedly unlovely appearance, which was heightened by his stubble-coated visage showing signs as of recent ill-usage. His age might have been anything between thirty and forty. The sergeant, a huge, menacing figure of a man, stepped forward and motioned to him to stand. "Now, see here; look, me man!" he said slowly and distinctly, a sort of tense eagerness underlying his soft tones, "behfure I shtart in charrgin' ye wid anythin' I'm goin' tu put a few questions tu ye in front av this ginthleman"--he indicated the justice--"He's a mag'strate, so ye'd best tell th' trute. Now--th' night behfure last--betune say, nine an' twelve o'clock . . . fwhere was ye?"--he paused--"Think harrd, an' come across wid th' straight goods." A tense silence succeeded. The hobo, the cynosure of a ring of watchful expectant faces, mumbled indistinctly, "I was sleepin'--up in th' loft o' th' livery-stable." "Did yeh--" Slavin eyed the man keenly--"did yeh see--or hear--any fella take a harse out av th' shtable durin' that time?" Gully moved slightly. With the mannerism he affected, his left hand dragging at his moustache and his right slid between the lapels of his coat, he leaned forward and fixed his eyes full upon the hobo's battered visage. Meeting that strange, compelling gaze the latter: stared back at him, his face an ugly, expressionless mask. He shuffled with his feet. "Why, yes!" he said finally, "I did heer a bunch o' fellers come in. They was a-talkin' all excited-like 'bout a fight, or sumphin'. They was a-hollerin', 'Beat it, Larry! beat it!' t' somewun, an' I heered some feller say: 'All right! give us my ---- saddle!' an' then it sounded like as if a horse was bein' taken out. I didn't heer no more after that--went t' sleep. I 'member comin' down 'bout th' middle o' th' night t' git a drink at th' trough. This feller come in then,"--he indicated Lee. "He hollered sumphin' an' started in t' chase me . . . so I beat it up inta th' loft agin'." He shivered. "'T'was cold up ther--I well-nigh froze," he whined. The sergeant exhausted his no mean powers of exhortation. It was all in vain. The hobo protested that he had neither seen nor heard anyone else taking out, or bringing in, a horse during the night. Slavin finally ceased his efforts and glowered at the man in silent impotence. "How come yez tu get th' face av yez bashed up so?" he demanded. "Fell thru' one o' th' feed-holes up in th' loft," was the sulky response. "Fwhat name du ye thravel undher?" "Dick Drinkwater." "Eh?" the sergeant glanced critically at the red, bulbous nose. "Fwhat's in a name?" he murmured. "Eyah! fwhat's in a name?" Glibly the tramp commenced an impassioned harangue, dwelling upon the hardness of life in general, snuffling and whining after the manner of his kind. How could a crippled-up man like him obtain work? He thrust out a grimy right hand--minus two fingers. He had been a sawyer, he averred. Slavin sniffed suspiciously. "Ye shtink av whiskey, fella!" he said sharply. "That nose, yeh name, an' a hard-luck spiel du not go well together. Fwhere did yu' get yu're dhrink?" The hobo was silent. "Come across," said Slavin sternly, "fwhere did ye get ut?" "I had a bottle with me when I come off th' train," said the other, "ther was a drop left in an' I had it just now." In the light of after events, well did Slavin and Yorke recall the furtive appealing glance the hobo threw at Gully; well did they also remember certain of Kilbride's words: "There'll be quite a lot of things crop up in our minds that we'll be wondering we never thought of before." The justice cleared his throat. "Sergeant" came his guttural, booming bass, "suppose!--suppose!" he reiterated suavely "on this occasion we--er--temper justice with mercy--ha! ha!" His deep hollow laugh jarred on their nerves most unpleasantly. "I need a man at my place just now," he went on, "to buck wood and do a little odd choring around. Times are rather hard just now, as this poor fellow says. If you insist--er--why, of course I've no other option but to send him down . . . you understand? I would not presume to dictate to you your duty. On the other hand . . . if you are not specially anxious to press a charge of vagrancy against this man I--er--am willing to give him a chance to obtain this work--that he insists he is so anxious to find." Slavin's face cleared and he emitted a weary sigh of relief. "As you will, yeh're Worship," he said. "T'will be helpin' me out, tu . . . yeh undhershtand?" His meaning stare drew a comprehensive nod from Gully. "I have not a man tu shpare for escort just now." He turned to the hobo. "Fwhat say yu', me man?" was his curt ultimatum, "Fwhat say yu'--tu th' kindniss av his Worship? Will yeh go wurrk for him? . . . Or be charged wid vagrancy?" The offer was accepted with alacrity. In the hobo's one uninjured optic shone a momentary gleam of intelligence, as he continued to stare at Gully, like a dog at its master. The gleam was reflected in a pair of shadowy, deep-set eyes, unblinking as an owl's. Gully arose and looked at Lee. "All right then! you can hitch up my team, Nick!" he said, and that rotund worthy waddled away on his mission. "Come on, my man" he continued to the hobo, "we'll go round to the stable." He turned to Slavin and Yorke, shedding his magisterial deportment. "Well, good-bye, you fellows!" he said, with careless bonhomie. He lowered his voice in an aside to Slavin. "Sergeant, I trust I shall see, or hear from you again shortly. I would like to hear the result of the inquest and--er--how you are progressing with the case." A few minutes later they heard the silvery jingle of his cutter's bells gradually dying away in the distance. Slavin aroused himself from a scowling, brooding reverie. "G----d d----n!" he spat out to Yorke, from between clenched teeth, "ther' goes another forlorn hope. 'Tis no manner av use worryin' tho'--let's go get that jury empannelled!" He uttered a snorting chuckle as a thought seemed to strike him. "H-mm! Gully must be getthin' tindher-hearthed! Th' last vag we had up behfure him he sint um down for sixty days." CHAPTER IX _Take order now, Gehazi, That no man talk aside In secret with his judges The while his case is tried, Lest he should show them--reason To keep a matter hid, And subtly lead the questions Away from what he did._ KIPLING. "Hullo!" quoth Constable Yorke facetiously, "behold one cometh, with blood in her eye! Egad! Don't old gal Lee look mad? Like a wet hen. I guess she's just off the train and Nick hasn't met her. There'll be something doing when she lands home." It was about ten o'clock on the following morning. The three policemen (Redmond had returned on a freight during the night) were standing outside the small cottage, next the livery-stable, the abode of Nick Lee and his spouse. After a casual inspection of their horses they were debating as to possible suspects and their next course of action. Yorke's remarks were directed at a stout, red-faced, middle-aged woman who was just then approaching them. She looked flustered and angry and was burdened down with parcels great and small. As she halted outside the gate one of the packages slipped from her grasp and fell in the mud. Unable to bend down, she gazed at it helplessly a moment. Yorke, stepping forward promptly, picked up the parcel, wiped it and tucked it under her huge arm. "Thank ye, Mister Yorke," she ejaculated gratefully, "'tis a gentleman ye are," she glowered a moment at the cottage, "which is more'n I kin say fur that mon o' mine, th' lazy good-fur-nothin', . . . leavin' me t' pack all these things from th' train!" Like a tug drawing nigh to its mooring--and nearly as broad in the beam--she came to anchor on the front steps and kicked savagely at the door. A momentary glimpse they got of Nick Lee's face, in all its rubicund helplessness, and then the door banged to. From an open window soon emerged the sounds as of a domestic broil. "Talk av Home Rule, an' 'Th' Voice that breathed o'er Eden'," murmured Slavin. "Blarney me sowl! just hark tu ut now?" From the cottage's interior came several high-pitched female squawks, punctuated by the ominous sounds as of violent thumps being rained upon a soft body, and suddenly the portal disgorged Lee--in erratic haste. His hat presently followed. Dazedly awhile he surveyed the grinning trio of witnesses to his discomfiture; then, picking up his battered head-piece he crammed it down upon his bald cranium with a vicious, yet abject, gesture. "Th' missis seems onwell this mornin'," he mumbled apologetically to Slavin, "I take it yore not a married man, Sarjint?" "Eh?" ejaculated that worthy sharply, his levity gone on the instant. "Who--me?" Blankly he regarded the miserable face of his interlocutor, one huge paw of a hand softly and surreptitiously caressing its fellow, "Nay--glory be! I am not." "Har!" shrilled the Voice, its owner, fat red arms akimbo, blocking up the doorway, "Nick, me useless man! ye kin prate t' me 'bout arrestin' hoboes. I tell ye right now--that hobo that was a-bummin' roun' here t'other mornin's got nothin' on you fur sheer, blowed-in-th'-glass laziness." "Fwhat?" Slavin violently contorting his grim face into a horrible semblance of persuasive gallantry edged cautiously towards the irate dame--much the same as a rough-rider will "So, ho, now!" and sidle up to a bad horse. "Mishtress Lee," began he, in wheedling, dulcet tones, "fwhat mornin' was that?" That lady, her capacious, matronly bosom heaving with emotion, eyed him suspiciously a moment. "Eh?" she snapped. "Why th' mornin' after th' night of racket between them two men at th' hotel. Th' feller come bummin' roun' th' back-door fur a hand-out--all starved t' death--just before I took th' train t' Calgary." She dabbed at the false-front of red hair, which had become somewhat disarranged. "La, la!" she murmured, "I'm all of a twitter!" "Some hand-out tu," remarked Slavin politely, "from th' face av um. . . . Fwhat was ut ye handed him, Mishtress Lee, might I ask?--th' flat-iron or th' rollin' pin?" "I did not!" the dame retorted indignantly. "I gave him a cup of coffee an' sumphin' t' eat--he was that cold, poor feller--an' I arst him how his face come t' be in such a state. He said sumphin 'bout it bein' so cold up in th' loft he come down amongst th' horses 'bout midnight--t' get warmed up. He said he was lyin' in one o' th' mangers asleep when a feller brought a horse in--an' th' light woke him up an' when he went t' climm outa th' manger th' horse got scared an' pulled back an' musta stepped on this feller's foot--fur th' feller started swearin' at him an' pulled him outa th' manger an' beat him up an'--" But Slavin had heard enough. With a most ungallant ejaculation he swung on his heel and started towards the stable, beckoning hastily to Yorke and Redmond to follow. "Yu hear that?" he burst out on them, with lowered, savage tones. "I knew ut--I felt ut at th' toime--that shtinkin' rapparee av a hobo was lyin'--whin he said he did not renumber a harse bein' brought back. We must go get um--right-away!" His grim face wore a terribly ruthless expression just then. "My God!" he groaned out from between clenched teeth, "but I will put th' third degree tu um, an' make um come across this toime! Saddle up, bhoys! while I go an' hitch up T an' B. Damnation! I wish Gully's place was on the phone!" Some quarter of an hour later they were proceeding rapidly towards Gully's ranch which lay some fifteen miles west of Cow Run, on the lower or river trail. A cold wind had sprung up and the weather had turned cloudy and dull, as if presaging snow, two iridescent "sun-dogs" indicating a forthcoming drop in the temperature. Yorke and Redmond, riding in the cutter's wake, carried on a desultory. Jerky conversation anent the many baffling aspects of the case in hand. Gully's name came up. His strange personality was discussed by them from every angle; impartially by Yorke--frankly antagonistically by Redmond. "Yes! he is a rum beggar, in a way," admitted Yorke, "not a bad sort of duck, though, when you get to know him--when he's not in one of his rotten, brooding fits. He sure gets 'Charley-on-his-back' sometimes. Used to hit the booze pretty hard one time, they say. Tried the 'gold-cure'--then broke out again"--he lowered his voice at the huge, bear-like back of the sergeant--"all same him. I don't know--somehow--it always seems to leave em' cranky an' queer--that. Neither of 'em married either--'baching it,' living alone, year after year, and all that, too." "Better for you--if you took the cure, too!" George flung at him grinning rudely. He neck-reined Fox sharply and dodged a playful punch from his comrade. "Yorkey, old cock, I'm goin' to break you from 'hard stuff' to beer--if I have to pitch into you every day." "You're an insultin', bullyin' young beggar," remarked Yorke ruefully. "I'll have to 'take shteps,' as Burke says, and discipline you a bit, young fellow-me-lad! I don't wonder the old man pulled you in from Gleichen. Come to think of it, why, you're the bright boy that they say well-nigh started a mutiny down Regina! We heard a rumour about it up here. Say, what was that mix-up, Reddy?" George chuckled vaingloriously. "All over old 'Laddie'," he said. "'Member that white horse? I forget his regimental number, but he was about twenty-five years old. You remember how they'd taught him to chuck up his head and 'laugh'? I was grooming him at 'midday stables.' Old Harry Hawker was the sergeant taking 'stables' that day. He was stalking up and down the gangway, blind as a bat, with his crop under his arm, and his glasses stuck on the end of his nose--peering, peering. Well, old Laddie happened to stretch himself, as a horse will, you know, stuck out his hind leg, and old Harry fell wallop over it and tore his riding-pants, and just then I said 'Laugh, Laddie!' and he chucked his old head up and wrinkled his lips back. Of course the fellows fairly howled and Harry lost his temper and let in to poor old Laddie with his crop. It made me mad when he started that and I guess I gave him some lip about it. He 'pegged' me for Orderly-room right-away for insubordination.' "I pleaded 'not guilty' and got away with it, too. Got all kinds of witnesses--most of 'em only too d----d glad to be able to get back at Harry for little things. Laddie was a proper pet of the Commissioner's. He used to go into No. Four Stable and play with the old beggar and feed him sugar nearly every day." Yorke laughed mischievously, and was silent awhile. "Gully's knocked about a deuce of a lot," he resumed presently. "Now and again he'll open up a bit and talk, but mostly he's as close as an oyster--and the way he can drop that drawl and come out 'flat-footed' with the straight turkey--why, it'd surprise you! You'd think he was an out and out Westerner, born and bred. He's a mighty good man on a horse, and around cattle--and with a lariat. I don't know where the beggar's picked it up. He claims he's only been in this country five years. Talks mostly about the Gold Coast, and Shanghai, and the Congo. A proper 'Bully Hayes' of a man he was there, too, I'll bet! He never says much about the States, though I did hear him talking to a Southerner once, and begad, it was funny! You could hardly tell their accents apart. "Oh, he's not a bad chap to have for a J.P. It's mighty hard to get any local man to accept a J.P.'s commission, anyway. They're most of 'em scared of it getting them in bad with their neighbours. Gully--he doesn't care a d----n for any of 'em, though. He'll sit on any case. It's a good thing to have a man who's absolutely independent, like that. I sure have known some spineless rotters. No, we might have a worse J.P. than Gully." "Oh, I don't know," rejoined Redmond thoughtfully, "may be he's all right, but, somehow . . . the man's a kind of 'Doctor Fell' to me--has been--right from the first time I 'mugged' him. Chances are though, that it's only one of those false impressions a fellow gets. What's up?" Yorke, shading his eyes from the cutting wind was staring ahead down the long vista of trail. "Talk of the Devil!" he muttered, "why! here the ---- comes!" Aloud, he called out to Slavin. "Oh, Burke! here comes Gully--riding like hell, I know that Silver horse of his." And, far-off as yet, but rapidly approaching them at a gallop, they beheld a rider. "Sure is hittin' th' high spots," remarked the sergeant wonderingly, "fwhat th' divil's up now?" Gradually the distance lessened between them and presently Gully, mounted upon a splendid, powerfully-built gray, checked his furious pace and reined in with an impatient jerk, a few lengths from the police team. Redmond could not help noticing that Gully, for a heavy man, possessed a singularly-perfect seat in the saddle, riding with the sure, free, unconscious grace of an _habitué_ of the range. He was roughly dressed now, in overalls, short sheepskin coat, and "chaps." He shouted a salutation to the trio, his usually immobile face transformed into an expression of scowling anxiety. "Hullo!" he boomed, his guttural bass sounding hoarse with passion, "You fellows didn't meet that d----d hobo on the trail, I suppose? . . . I'm looking for him--in the worst way!" He flung out of saddle and strode alongside the cutter. "About two hours ago--'not more, I'll swear--I pulled out to take a ride around the cattle--like I usually do, every day. I left the beggar busy enough, bucking fire-wood. I wasn't away much over an hour, but when I got back I found he'd drifted--couldn't locate him anywhere. "Then I remembered I'd left some money lying around--inside the drawer of a bureau in my bedroom--'bout a hundred, I guess--in one of these black-leather bill-folders. Sure enough, it's gone, too. Damnation!" He leaned up against the cutter and mopped his streaming forehead. "I was a fool to ever attempt to help a man like that out," he concluded bitterly. "It serves me right!" "Well," said Slavin, with an oath, "th' shtiff cannot have got far-away in that toime. I want um as bad as yuh, Mr. Gully. We were on th' way tu yu're place for um. See here; luk!" Gully heard him out and whistled softly at the conclusion of the narrative. "Once collar this man, Sergeant," said he, "and--you've practically got your case. Make him talk?"--the low, guttural laugh was not good to hear--"Oh, yes! . . . I think between us we could accomplish that all right! . . . Yes-s!" His voice died away in a murmur, a cruel glint flickered in his shadowy eyes, and for a space he remained with folded arms and his head sunk in a sort of brooding reverie. Suddenly, with an effort, he seemed to arouse himself. "Oh, about that inquest, Sergeant," he queried casually, "what was the jury's finding? I was forgetting all about that." "Eyah; on'y fwhat yuh might expect," replied the latter. "Death by shootin', at th' hand av some person unknown. I wired headquarthers right-away." He made a slightly impatient movement. "Well, we must get busy, Mr. Gully; this shtiff connot be far away. Not bein' on th' thrail, betune us an' yu', means he's either beat ut shtraight south from yu're place an' over th' ice tu th' railway-thrack, or west a piece, an' thin onto th' thrack. Yu'll niver find a hobo far away from th' line. He'd niver go thrapsein' thru' th' snow tu th' high ground beyant. Yuh cud shpot him plain for miles--doin' that--comin' along." "He's wearing old, worn-out boots," said Yorke, "got awful big feet, too, I remember. Of course this trail's too beaten up from end to end to be able to get a line on foot-prints. We might work slowly back to your place, though, Mr. Gully, and keep a lookout for any place where he may have struck south off the trail, as the Sergeant says." It seemed the only thing to do. The party moved leisurely forward, Gully riding ahead of the cutter, Yorke and Redmond in its wake, as before, well-spread out on either side of the well-worn trail. Here, the snow was practically undisturbed, affording them every opportunity of discovering fresh foot-prints debouching from the main trail. It was rather exacting, monotonous work, necessitating cautious and leisurely progress; but they stuck to it doggedly until sometime later they rounded a bend in the river and came within sight of Gully's ranch, about a mile distant. Presently that gentleman pulled up and swung out of saddle. "Half a minute," he said, "my saddle's slipping! I want to tighten my cinch." The small cavalcade halted. Slavin's restless eyes roving over the expanse of unbroken snow on his left hand, suddenly dilated, and he uttered an eager exclamation, pointing downwards with outflung arm. "Ah," said he grimly, "here we are, I'm thinkin'!" And he clambered hastily out of the cutter. Yorke and Redmond, dismounting swiftly, stepped forward with him and examined minutely the unmistakably fresh imprints of large-sized feet angling off from the trail towards the bank of the frozen river. "Hob-nailed boots!" ejaculated Yorke. "Guess that must be him, all right, Mr. Gully?" The latter bent and scrutinized the imprints. "Sure must be," he rejoined, with conviction. "A man walking out on the range is a curiosity. I can't think how I could have missed them--coming along. But I guess I was so mad, and in such a devil of a hurry I didn't notice much. I made sure of catching up to him somewhere on the trail." Slavin beckoned to Redmond and, much to that young gentleman's chagrin, bade him hold the lines of the restless team, while he (Slavin), along with Yorke and Gully, started forwards trailing the footprints. Arriving at the river's edge they slid down the bank and followed the tracks over the snow-covered ice to the centre of the river. Here was open water for some distance; the powerful current at this point keeping open a ten-foot wide steaming fissure. The tracks hugged its edge to a point about four hundred yards westward, where the fissure closed up again and enabled them to cross to the opposite bank. Clambering up this their quest led them across a long stretch of comparatively level ground to the fenced-in railway-track. Ducking under the lower strand of wire they reached the line. At the foot of the graded road-bed, Slavin, who was ahead, halted suddenly and uttered an oath. Stooping down he picked up something and, turning round to his companions exhibited his find. It was a small, black-leather bill-folder--empty. Gully regarded his lost property with smouldering eyes, and he uttered a ghastly imprecation. "Yes, that's it," he said simply, "beggar's boned the bills and chucked this away for fear of incriminating evidence--in case he was nabbed again, I suppose. The bills were mostly in fives and tens--Standard Bank--I remember." They climbed up onto the track to determine whether the foot-prints turned east or west; but further quest here proved useless, on account of its being a snow-beaten section-hand trail. Slavin balked again, swore in fluent and horrible fashion. For a space he remained in brooding thought, then he turned abruptly to his companions. "Come on," he jerked out savagely, "let's get back." In silence they retraced their steps and eventually reached their horses. Here the sergeant issued curt orders to his men. "'Tis onlikely th' shtiff can have got very far away--in th' toime Mr. Gully tells us," he said, "an' he cannot shtay out in th' opin for long this weather. Get yu're harses over th' ice, bhoys, an' make th' thrack. Ye'll find an' openin' in th' fence somewheres. Thin shplit, an' hug th' line--west, yu', Yorkey--as far as Coalmore--yu', Ridmond--back tu Cow Run. Yez know fwhat tu du. Pass up nothin'--culverts, bridges, section-huts--anywhere's th' shtiff may be hidin'. If yez du not dhrop onto um betune thim tu places--shtay fwhere yez are an' search all freights. 'Phone th' agent at Davidsburg if yez want tu get me. I'm away from there now--to wire east an' west. Thin--I'm goin' tu ride freight awhile, up an' down th' thrack. I can get Clem Wilson tu luk afther T an' B. We must get this man, bhoys." "Look here, Sergeant," broke in Gully good-naturedly, "as this is partly on my account I feel it's up to me to try and do what little I can do to help you in this case. There's not much doing at the ranch just now, so, if you've no objection, I'll put Silver along with your team and come with you. As you say--we've simply got to get this fellow, somehow." "Thank ye, Mr. Gully," responded Slavin gratefully, "betune th' bunch av us we shud nail th' shtiff all right." "Should!" agreed the magistrate, enigmatically, "'stiff's' the word for him." He glanced up at the lowering sky. "Hullo! It's beginning to snow again--you found those tracks just in time, Sergeant." Six days elapsed. Six days of fruitless, monotonous work. The evening of the seventh found the trio disconsolately reunited in their detachment. Their quest had failed. Slavin, not sparing himself, had worked Yorke and Redmond to the limits of their endurance, and they, fully realizing the importance of their objective, had responded loyally. Gully, apparently betraying a keen interest in the case, had gone out of his way to assist them--both on the railroad and in scouring the country-side. They were absolutely and utterly played out, and their nerves were jangled and snappy. No possible hiding-place had been overlooked--yet the hobo--Dick Drinkwater--the one man who undoubtedly held the key to the mysterious murder of Larry Blake--had disappeared as completely as if the earth had swallowed him up. The horses cared for, and supper over, Yorke and Redmond lay back on their cots and _blaguè'd_ each other wearily anent their mutual ill-luck. Slavin, critically conning over a lengthy crime-report on the case that he had prepared for headquarters, flung his composition on the table and leant back dejectedly in his chair. "Hoboes?" quoth he, darkly, and tongue-clucked in dismal fashion. "Eyah! I just fancy I can hear th' ould man dishcoursin' tu Kilbride av th' merry, int'restin' ways an' habits av th' genus--hobo--whin he get's this report av mine. . . . Like he did wan day whin he was doin' show-man round th' cells wid a bunch av ould geezers av 'humanytaruns.' I mind I was Actin' Provo' in charge av th' Gyard-room at th1 toime." He sighed deeply, folded up the report and thrust it into an official envelope. "Well, bhoys," he concluded, "we have done all that men can'--for th' toime bein' anyways." Yorke laughed somewhat mirthlessly and gazed dreamily up at his pictures. "Sure have," he agreed languidly; "from now on, though, I guess we'll just have to take a leaf out of Micawber's book--'wait for something to turn up,' eh, Reddy, my old son?" There was no answer. That young worthy, utterly exhausted, had drifted into the arms of Morpheus. CHAPTER X _A jest's prosperity lies in the ear Of him that hears it, never in the tongue Of him that makes it._ SHAKESPEARE. Number Six, from the East, drew up at the small platform of Davidsburg and presently steamed slowly on its way westward, minus three passengers. "Well, bhoys," said Sergeant Slavin to his henchmen, "here we are---back tu th' land av our dhreams wanst more. Glory be! But I'm glad tu be quit av that warrm, shtinkin' courthroom. Denis Ryan--th' ould rapparee, he wint afther us harrd--in that last case. Eyah! But I thrimmed um in th' finals. Wan Oirishman cannot put ut over another wan." He softly rubbed his huge hands together. "Five years! That'll tache Mishter Joe Lawrence tu go shtickin' his brand on other people's cattle! But--blarney me sowl! Ryan sure is a bad man tu run up agin when he's actin' for th' defence." The trio had just returned from a Supreme Court sitting where they had been handling their various cases. It was a gloriously sunny day in June. A wet spring, succeeded by a spell of hot weather, had transformed the range into a rolling expanse of green, over which meandered bunches of horses and cattle, their sleek hides and well-rounded bodies proclaiming abundant assimilation of nourishing pasture. To men who for the past week had of necessity been confined within the stifling atmosphere of a crowded court-room, their present surroundings appealed as especially restful and exhilarating. During their absence their horses had been enjoying the luxury of a turn-out in the fenced pasture at the rear of the detachment, where there was good feed and a spring. The murder of Larry Blake the previous winter still remained a baffling mystery. Locally it had proved, as such occurrences usually do, merely a proverbial nine days wonder. Long since, in the stress and interest of current events, it had faded more or less from the minds of all men, excepting the Mounted Police, who, though saying little concerning it, still kept keenly on the alert for any possible clue. Equally mystifying was the uncanny disappearance of the hobo--Drinkwater. So far that individual had succeeded in eluding apprehension, although minute descriptions of him had been circulated broadcast to police agencies throughout Canada and the United States. "Eyah!" Sergeant Slavin was wont to remark sagely: "'Tis an ould saying bhoys--'Murdher will out'--we'll sure dhrop onto it sooner or lather, an' thin belike we'll get th' surprise av our lives--for I firmly believe, as Kilbride said--'t'will prove tu be some lokil man who had a grudge agin' pore Larry for somethin' or another. So--just kape on quietly watchin'--an' listh'nin, an' we'll nail that fella yet." Just now that worthy was surveying his subordinates with a care-free smile of bonhomie. "Guess we'll dhrop inta th' shtore on our way up" suggested he, "see'f there's any mail, an' have a yarn wid ould MacDavid." Half way up the long, winding, graded trail that led to the detachment, the trio turned into another trail which traversed it at this point. Following this for some few hundred yards westward they reached the substantial abode of Morley MacDavid, who was, as his name suggested, the hamlet's oldest settler and its original founder. His habitation--combining store, post-office, and ranch-house--was a commodious frame dwelling, unpretentious in appearance but not wanting in evidences of prosperity. Its rear presented the usual aspect of a ranch, with huge, well-built barns and corrals. Although it was summer, many wide stacks of hay and green oats, apparently left over from the previous season, suggested that he was a cautious man with an eye to stock-feeding during the winter months. To neglect of the precaution of putting up sufficient feed to tide over the severe weather might be attributed most of the annual ranching failures in the West. The MacDavid establishment bore a well-ordered aspect, unlike many of the unthrifty, ramshackle ranches, of his neighbours. The fencing was of the best, and there were no signs of decay or dilapidation in any of the buildings. Dwarf pines were planted about and a Morning Glory vine over-ran the house, giving the place an air of restful domesticity. As they entered the store the trio noticed a saddle-horse tied to the hitching-rail outside. They were greeted jovially by MacDavid himself. Lounging behind his store-counter, with his back up against a slung pack of coyote skins, he was listening in somewhat bored fashion to a talkative individual opposite. He evidently hailed their arrival as a welcome diversion. In personality, Morley MacDavid was an admirable type of the western pioneer. A tall, slimly-built, but wiry, active man of fifty, or thereabouts, with grizzled hair and moustache. Burnt out and totally ruined three successive times in the past by the depredations of marauding Indians, the fierce, indomitable energy of the broken man had asserted itself and enabled him finally to triumph over all his mischances. Aided in the struggle by his devoted wife, who throughout the years had bravely faced all dangers and hardships with him, he had eventually accumulated a hard-won fortune. In addition to the patronage that he received from the local ranches, he conducted an extensive business trading with the Indians from the big Reserve in the vicinity. A man of essentially simple habits, through sentiment or ingrained thriftiness, he disdained to abandon the routine and the scenes of his former active life, although his bank-balance and his holdings in land and stock probably exceeded that of many a more imposing city magnate. The newcomers, disposing themselves comfortably upon various sacked commodities, proceeded to smoke and casually inspect the voluble stranger. He was a tallish, well-built man nearing middle-age, with a gray moustache, a thin beak of a nose, and a bleached-blue eyes. He was dressed in an old tweed suit, obviously of English cut, a pair of high-heeled, spurred riding-boots and a cowboy hat. Vouchsafing a brief nod to the visitors he continued his conversation with MacDavid. "Ya-as," he was drawling, "one of the most extraordinary shots you ever heard of, Morley! I was between the devil and the deep sea--properly. There was the bear--rushing me at the double and there was the cougar perched growling up on the rock behind me. I made one jump sideways and let the bear have it--slap through the brain, and . . . that same shot, sir, ricocheted up the face of the rock and killed the cougar--just as he was in the act of springing! By George, y'know, it was one of the swiftest things that ever happened!" A tense silence succeeded the conclusion of this thrilling narrative. MacDavid re-lit his pipe and puffed thoughtfully awhile. "Eyah," he remarked reminiscently, "feller does run up against some swift propositions now an' again. I mind one time I was headin' home from Kananaskis, an' a bear jumped me from behind a fallen log. The lever of me rifle jammed so, all I could do was to beat it--in a hurry--an' I sure did hit th' high spots, you bet! It was in th' early spring an' th' snow still lay pretty deep, but--I'd got a twenty yards start of that bear, an' I finally beat him to it an' made my get-away." The stranger whistled incredulously. "Wha-a-tt!" he almost shouted, "D'ye mean to tell me that bear got within twenty yards of you and couldn't catch you? Why, man! It's incredible!" "Fact," replied MacDavid calmly, knocking the ashes out of his pipe, "It was this way: It was near th' edge of th' bush where th' bear first jumped me, an'--just as we hit th' open ground--one o' them warm Chinook winds sprung up behind us, travellin' east. . . . "Man!" He paused impressively. "The way that wind started in to melt th' snow was a corker--just like lard in a fryin'-pan. But--I just managed to keep ahead of it an' while I had a good, hard surface of snow to run on, the bear--why he was sloppin around in th' slush in my wake--couldn't get a firm foothold, I guess. . . ." His keen blue orbs stared full into the bleached ones of his vis-à-vis. "I figure that there Chinook an' me an' th' bear must have been all travellin' 'bout th' same line of speed--kind of swift. After a mile or two of it, th' bear--he got fed up an' quit cold," he ended gravely. "Why--what's your hurry, Fred?" But that individual, feebly raising both arms with a sort of hopeless gesture, suddenly grabbed up his mail and beat a hasty retreat to his horse. The hoof-beats died away and MacDavid turned to the grinning policemen. "Fred Storey," he said, in answer to their looks of silent enquiry. "Runs th' R.U. Ranch, out south here. Not a bad head, but"--he sighed deeply--"he's such an ungodly liar. I can't resist gettin' back at him now an' again--just for luck. He's up here on a visit--stayin' with th' Sawyers." "H-mm!" ejaculated Yorke, "seems to me I've got a hazy recollection of meeting up with that fellow before--somewhere. In a hotel in High River, I think it was. Beggar was yarning about Cuba, I remember." "Bet it was hazy all right," was Redmond's sarcastic rejoiner, "like most of your bar-room recollections, Yorkey." He gave vent to a snorting chuckle. "That 'D'you know? Ya! ya!' accent of his reminds me of that curate in 'The Private Secretary.' I saw it played to Toronto, once." At this juncture the door opened, and a trio of Indians padded softly into the store with gaily-beaded, moccasined feet. Two elderly bucks and a young squaw. The latter flashed a shy, roguish grin at the white men, and then with the customary effacement of Indian women withdrew to the rear of the store. Squatting down, all huddled-up in her blanket, she peered at them with the incurious, but all-seeing stare of her tribe. George got an impression of beady black eyes and a brown, rounded, child-like face framed in a dazzling yellow kerchief. The two bucks, with a momentary gleam of welcome wrinkling their ruthless, impassive features, exchanged a salutation with MacDavid in guttural Cree, which language the latter spoke fluently. They were clothed in the customary fashion of their tribe--with a sort of blanket-capote garment reaching below the knee, their lower limbs swathed in strips of blanket, wound puttee-wise. Battered old felt hats comprised their head-gear, below which escaped two plaited pig-tails of coarse, mane-like, black hair, the latter parted at the nape of the neck and dangling forward down their broad chests. Slavin and Yorke hailed them familiarly. The elder buck rejoiced in the sonorous title of "Minne-tronk-ske-wan," but divers convictions for insobriety under the Indian Liquor Act, and the facetious tongue of Yorke, had contorted this into the somewhat opprobrious nickname of "Many Drunks." His companion was known as "Sun Dog." They now proceeded to shake hands all around. "How! Many Drunks!" shouted Yorke. Pointing to Redmond, he added "oweski skemoganish" (new policeman). With a ferocious grin, intended for an ingratiating smile of welcome, Many Drunks advanced upon George, with outstretched hand. In a rapid aside Yorke said: "Listen, Reddy, to what he says, he only knows six or seven words of English, but he's as proud as Punch of 'em--always likes to get 'em off on a stranger. Don't laugh!" Within a pace of Redmond that gentleman halted. "How!" he grunted, and, pausing impressively drew himself up and tapped his inflated chest, "Minne-tronk-ske-wan! . . . great man!--me--" And then Redmond nearly choked, as Many Drunks, with intense gravity, proudly conferred upon himself the most objectionable title that exists in four words of the English language--rounding that same off with a majestic "Wah! wah!" Turning, George beheld himself the target of covert grins from the others, who evidently were familiar with Many Drunks' linguistic attainments. Sun Dog merely uttered "How! Shemoganish." He did not profess ability to rise to the occasion like his companion. Yorke, who was evidently in one of his reckless, rollicking moods, proceeded to make certain teasing overtures to Many Drunks. His knowledge of Cree being nearly as limited as that worthy's knowledge of English, he enlisted the aid of MacDavid as interpreter. The dialogue that ensued was something as follows: "Tell him I'm fed up with the Force and am thinking seriously of going to live on the reserve--_monial nayanok-a-weget_--turn 'squaw-man'--'take the blanket.'" MacDavid translated swiftly, received the answer, and turned to Yorke. "He says '_Aie-ha_! (yes) You make good squaw-man.'" "Ask him--if I do--if he'll _muskkatonamwat_ (trade) me the young lady over in the corner there, for two bottles of _skutiawpwè_ (whiskey)." "He says '_Nemoyah_!' (no)--if he does that, you'll turn around and _kojipyhôk_ (arrest) him for having liquor in his possession." "Tell him--_Nemoyah_! I won't." "He says _Aie-hat ekwecè_! (Yes, all right) you can have her. Says she's his brother's wife's niece. But he says you must give him the two bottles of _skutiawpwè_ first, though." The object of these frivolous negotiations had meanwhile covered her head with the blanket, from the folds of which issued shrill giggles. Sun Dog, who had been listening intently with hand scooped to ear (he was somewhat deaf), now precipitated himself into the discussion. Violently thrusting his elder companion aside he commenced to harangue MacDavid in an excited voice and with vehement gestures of disapprobation of the whole proceedings. The trader translated swiftly: "He says _Nemoyah_!--not to give the bottles to Many Drunks, as when he gets full of _skutiawpwè_ he raises hell on th' reserve, an' there's no livin' with him. Says he beats up his squaw an' starts in to scalp th' dogs an' chickens." "Shtop ut!" bawled Slavin, "d'ju hear, Yorkey? . . . shtoolin' th' nitchie on tu commit a felony an' th' like, thataways!" He sniffed disgustedly. "_Skutiawpwè_ an' squaws! . . . blarney me sowl! but ye've a quare idea av a josh. 'Tis a credit y'are tu th' Ould Counthry, an' no error. I do not wondher ye left ut." "Sh-sh!" said that gentleman soothingly, "coarsely put, Burke! coarsely put! . . . Say Wine and Women, guv'nor! Wine and Women! If you were in India, Burke, they'd make you Bazaar-Sergeant--put you in charge of the morals of the regiment. Both items are all right--always providing you don't get a lady like Misthress Lee for a chaser. How'd you like to be in Nick's shoes? What 'shteps' would you take?" Slavin stared at his tormentor, blankly, a moment. "Shteps?" he ejaculated sharply, "fwhat shteps?" . . . He leant back with a fervent sigh and softly rubbed his huge hands together. "Long wans, avick! . . . eyah, d----d long wans, begorrah!" Many Drunks now realizing that he was merely the victim of a joke, scowled in turn upon Yorke. Muttering something to MacDavid he backed up against the wall and, squatting down, proceeded philosophically to fill his pipe. "What's that he said?" queried Yorke of the interpreter, "I couldn't catch it." The latter grinned. "He says--of all the white men he's ever met in his time, Stamixotokon[1] and my self are the only ones he's ever known to tell th' truth." "It's my belief the beggar'd flirt with Mrs. Lee, himself, if he only got the chance" said Redmond laconically, "d'you recollect that day he picked her parcel up for her--how nice she was to him?" "Eyah," said Slavin darkly, "I remimber ut! That man"--he darted an accusing finger at Yorke--"wud thry tu come th' Don Jewan wid anything wid a shkirrt on--from coast to coast. _Flirrt_? Yeh're tellin' th' trute, bhoy, yeh're tellin' th' trute! He'd a-made a good undhershtudy for ould Nobby Guy, down Regina." He settled himself comfortably and lit his pipe. "Eyah, th' good ould days, th' good ould days!" he resumed reminiscently, between puffs, "Hark now till I tell ye th' tale av ould Nobby!" "Is that the man they used to Josh about, down Regina?" enquired Redmond. "Used to say 'I'm a man of few words'?" Slavin nodded affirmatively. "That's him, Sarjint in charrge av th' town station he was--years back. This is--whin I was Corp'ril at headquarthers. A foine big roosther av a man was Nobby, wid a mighty pleasant way wid um--'specially wid th' ladies. Wan night--blarney me sowl! Will I iver forghet ut? Nobby 'phones up th' Gyard-room reporthin' th' Iroquois Hotel on fire, an' requestin' th' O.C. for a shquad av men tu help fight ut, an' kape th' crowd back. So down we wint, a bunch av us. It sure was a bad fire all right. No lives was lost, but th' whole shebang was burnt tu th' ground. Kapin' th' crowd back was our hardest job. Du fwhat we cud, we cud not make some av th' silly fules kape back clear av th' danger-zone--wimmin an' all, bedad! "By and by, a section av the wall tumbles an' quite a bunch av people got badly hurt--Nobby amongst thim. We dhragged thim out as quick as we cud an' laid them forninst th' wall av a buildin' near-by--awaithin' some stretcher-bearers. Nobby'd got his leg bruk, but he seemed chipper enough an' chewed th' rag wid us awhile. Next tu him was a wumman--cryin' something pitiful--she'd got her leg bruk, tu. Nobby rised him up on his elbow an' lukked at her. "Now, 'tis powerful dhry wurrk, bhoys, fightin' fire, an' may be Nobby--well, I cannot account for ut otherwise--him havin' th' nerve' tu du' fwhat he did--onless p'raps 't'was just th' natch'ril tindher-hearthedness av th' man--thryin' for tu comfort her. Afther that wan luk tho', Nobby he 'comes tu th' halt,' so tu shpake, an' 'marks time' awhile considherin'--for becod, she was a harrd-lukkin ould case--long beyant mark av mouth. "Presintly, sez he: 'I'm a man av few wurrds!--'tis of then I have kissed a _young_ wumman!'--an' he thwirls th' big buck moustache av um very slow--'fwhy shud I not kiss an ould wan? . . .'--_an' he did_. . . . "That's how th' man's throuble shtarted. Brought ut all on umsilf. Course at th' toime, fwhy! she slapped th' face av um an' called um all manner av harrd names--but, all th' same! she must have liked ut, for while they was convalescin' she was everlashtingly sendhin Nobby notes an' flowers an' such like. But for all that Nobby wud have no thruck wid her, for all she was a widder, well fixed--wid a house av her own an' lashuns av money. Whin they was both out av hospital she was afther urn again, an' du fwhat he cud he cud not shake that wumman. "Th' ind av ut was, Nobby reports sick, an' th' reg'minthal docthor, ould 'Knockemorf' Probyn, gives um th' wance over. He luks over some papers an' sez he: 'A change an' a rist is fwhat yu' need, Sarjint Guy. There's a dhraft leavin' next week for Herschell Island[2]--I think I will mark yu up fur ut.' "'_Herschell Island_?' sez pore Nobby, an' wid that he let's out a howl. "'Tut, tut!' sez ould Knockemorf, who was wise tu th' man's throuble. 'Tis safer off there'll yu'll be, man, than here, I'm thinkin'.' "He was shtandin' by th' Gyard-room gate that day-week whin th' dhraft marched out on their way tu enthrain--Nobby amongst thim. 'Good-bye, Docthor!' he calls out, tears in th' eyes av um, ''Tis sendhin me tu me grave y'are, God forgive yez!' "'Nonsince!' shouts Knockemorf. 'Say yeh prayers an' kape yeh bowils opin, me man, an' ye will take no harrm!' "Some sind-off! well!--time wint on, an' wan day I gets a letther from me ould friend, Ginger Johnson, who was stationed there tu, tellin' me all th' news. Nobby, sez he, was doin' fine, fat as a hog, an' happy as a coon in a melun patch. Wan day, sez he, a buck av th' name av Wampy Jones comes a runnin' inta th' Post, wid th' face av a ghost an' th' hair av um shtickin shtraight up. Said a Polar bear'd popped out forninst a hummock an' chased um--like tu th' tale av Morley, here. Nobby, sez Johnson, on'y grins at th' man, an' sez he: 'That's nothin'!' An' thin he shtarts in tellin' thim all 'bout this widder at Regina." [1] Note by Author--The late Colonel Macleod, who for many years was Commissioner of the R.N.W.M. Police. He was greatly respected and trusted by all the Indian tribes. [2] Note by Author--This island is in the Arctic Circle. The most northerly post of the R.N.W.M. Police. CHAPTER XI Methought I heard a voice cry, "Macbeth shall sleep no more!" MACBETH The sergeant's story evoked a general laugh from his hearers. He arose and knocked the ashes out of his pipe. "Come on, bhoys!" said he. "Let's beat ut. Morley here's a respectable married man--we've bin demoralisin' him an' his store long enough, I'm thinkin'." Pocketing his packet of mail he and his subordinates stepped to the door, MacDavid casually following them outside. Tethered to the hitching-post, they noticed, were the team of scare-crow cayuses belonging to Sun Dog and Many Drunks. "Poor beggars look as if a turn-out on the range wouldn't do them any harm," remarked Redmond. The thud of hoof-beats suddenly fell upon their ears and, turning, they beheld Gully on his gray horse loping past them, about twenty yards distant. Apparently in a hurry, he merely waved to them and rode on, heading in the direction of his ranch. And then occurred a startling, sinister incident which no man there who witnessed it ever forgot. Suddenly, with the vicious instinct of Indian curs, three dogs which had been sprawling in the shade of the dilapidated wagon-box sprang forward simultaneously in a silent, savage dash at the horse's heels. The nervous animal gave a violent jump, nearly unseating its rider, who pitched forward onto the saddlehorn. They heard his angry, startled oath, and saw him jerk his steed up and whirl about, then, quick as conjuring, came a darting movement of his right hand between the lapels of his coat and a pistol-barrel gleamed in the sun. The curs, by this time, were flying back to the shelter of the wagon-box, but ere they reached it--crack! crack! crack! three shots rang out in quick succession, and three lumps of quivering canine flesh sprawled grotesquely on the prairie. The startled spectators stared aghast. Startled--for, though all of them there were more or less trained shots, such swift, deadly gunmanship as this was utterly beyond their imaginations. Gully had made no pretence at aiming. With a snapping action of his wrist he had seemed to literally fling the shots at the retreating dogs. It was the practised whirl and flip of the finished gun-man. No less astounding was the uncanny legerdemain displayed in drawing from and replacing the weapon in its place of concealment. The Indians, attracted from the store by the sounds of shooting, began gabbling and gesticulating affrightedly, but when MacDavid spoke to them sharply in Cree they retreated inside again. Some distance away, glaring at the dead dogs, the justice sat in his saddle, and from beneath his huge moustache he spat a volley of most un-magisterial oaths, delivered in a snarling, nasal tone foreign to the ears of his listeners. A minute or so he remained thus, then his baleful eyes met the steady, meaning stare of the motionless quartette and his face changed to a blank, irresolute expression. He made a motion of urging his horse forward, then, checking it abruptly, he wheeled about, loping away in his original direction. The trader was the first one to find his voice. "Well, my God!" he ejaculated. "Did you ever see th' like o' that?" His companions remained curiously silent. "Gully!" he continued, with vibrating voice, "whoever'd a-thought that that drawlin' English dude could shoot like that? . . . Fred Storey should have been here. . . ." Still getting no response to his remarks he glanced up wonderingly. The three policemen were staring strangely at each other, and something in their expression startled him. "Eh! Why! What's up?" he queried sharply. Then Slavin spoke grimly. "Let's go luk at thim dogs," was all he vouchsafed. They stepped forward and inspected the carcasses critically. "Fifty yards away, if he was a foot!" said Redmond, "and he dropped them in one! two! three! . . ." "Slap through the head, too!" muttered Yorke. "Burke!"--he added suddenly. Slavin met his eye with a steady, meaning stare; then, at something he read in his subordinate's face, the sergeant's deep-set orbs dilated strangely and he swung on his heel. "Aye!" he ejaculated with an oath "I was forghettin' thim--come bhoys! let's go luk for thim. Shpread out, or we may miss the place." "Empty shells," explained Yorke to the others, "automatic ejection--you remember, Reddy! We may find them." Keeping a short distance apart, they sauntered forward, trying to recall the spot Gully had shot from. For awhile, with bent heads, they circled slowly about each other, carefully scrutinizing the short turf. Presently the trader uttered a low exclamation. "Here's th' place!" he said, pointing downwards. The others joined him and they all gazed at the cluster of deeply-indented hoof-marks, indicating where the horse had propped and whirled about. "Aha!" said Redmond, suddenly. "Got ut?" queried Slavin. For answer George dropped a small discharged shell into the other's outstretched palm. The sergeant made swift examination. A shocking blasphemy escaped him, and for an instant he jerked back his arm as if to fling the article away, then, recovering himself with an effort, he handed it to Yorke, who peered in turn. The latter made a wry face. "Hell!" he ejaculated disgustedly, "it's a 'Savage' this--thirty-two at that!" He lowered his voice. "The other was a thirty-eight Luger--what?" "Time an' agin," Slavin was declaiming in impotent rage and with upraised fist,--"Time an' ag'in--have we shtruck a lead on this blasted case--on'y tu find ut peter out agin. . . . Oh! how long, O Lord? how long? . . ." MacDavid stopped in turn. "Here's th' other two, Sarjint," he said. Slavin dropped the shells into his pocket and for a space he remained in deep thought. Then he turned to the trader. "Morley," he said quietly, "yu're not a talker, I know, but--anyways! . . . I ask ye now . . . ye'll oblige me by shpakin' av this tu no man--yet awhiles. . . . I have me raysons--onnershtand?" The eyes of the two men met, and question and answer were silently exchanged in that one significant look. MacDavid nodded brief acquiescence to the others request. "Aye!" he replied reflectively, "I think I do--now. . . ." The sergeant turned to his men. "Come on, bhoy!" he said. "Let's beat ut home. I'm gettin' hungry." They bid the trader adieu, and trudged away in the direction of the detachment. They had covered some quarter of a mile in silence when Slavin, who was in the lead, suddenly halted and whirled on his subordinates with a mirthless laugh. "Windy Moran, begod!" he burst out, "mind fwhat he said that day 'bout Gully an' that dep'ty sheriff bizness? . . . not so----'Windy' afther all, I'm thinkin', eh?" For some few seconds they stared at him, aghast. They had forgotten Moran. "Say, Burke, though?" ejaculated Yorke incredulously. "Good God! somehow the thing seems impossible . . . not the 'sheriff' business so much . . . the other--Gully!--a J.P.--a man of his class and standing! . . . Why! whatever motive--" "He may have two guns," broke in Redmond. "Eyah," agreed Slavin, grimly, "he may. . . . A Luger's a mighty diff'runt kind av a gun tu other authomatics . . . an' th' man that shot Larry Blake ain't likely tu be fule enough tu risk packin' ut around--for a chance tu thrip um up some day." For awhile the trio cogitated in silence; each man striving desperately to arrive at some logical solution to the extraordinary problem that now faced them. "Bhoys!" said Slavin presently, "there's no doubt there is . . . somethin' damnably wrong 'bout all this. But, all th' same, fact remains, ye cannot shtart in makin' th' Force a laughin' stock by charrgin' a man av Gully's position wid murdher--widout mighty shtrong evidence tu back ut. An' sizin' things up--fwhat have we got, afther all, . . . right now . . . tu shwear out a warrant on? . . . Nothin', really, 'cept that he's shown us he's a bad man wid a gun! A damned bad break that was, tho', an' I'll bet he's sorry for that same, tu. Mind how he kept on thravellin', widout comin' back tu shpake wid us?" He shook his head slowly, in sinister fashion, and stared at their troubled faces in turn. "See here; luk," he resumed solemnly, with lowered voice, "honest tu God, in me own mind I du believe he is th' man that done ut." He paused--"but provin' ut's a diff'runt matther. We must foller this up an' get some shtronger evidence yet--behfure we make th' break." Suddenly he uttered a hollow chuckle. "Kilbride!" he ejaculated. "Mind his josh that day--'bout it might be me, or Gully?--an how Gully laughed, tu, wid th' hand of um like this?" Napoleonic fashion he thrust his huge fist between the buttons of his stable-jacket. "Yes, by gad!" said Yorke reflectively. "I sure do, now. And I'll bet he had his right hand on his gun, too! Force of habit, I guess, if he's an ex-deputy-sheriff. From what little he's dropped he's sure knocked around some, I know. Hard to say where, and what the beggar hasn't been in his time. This accounts for him being so blooming close about the Western States. It's always struck me as being queer, that, because, say, look at the slick way he rides and ropes! He's never picked that up in five years over on this Side--and that's all he claims he's been in Canada." "Besides" chimed in Redmond, eagerly, "that yarn of his about that hobo swiping his dough, Sergeant! 'Frame-up,' p'raps, . . . gave it to him and told him to beat it? . . ." "Aw, rot!" said Yorke, disgustedly. He sniffed, with his peculiar mannerism, "that's dime-novel stuff, Red. D'ye think he'd be fool enough to risk that, with the chances of the fellow being picked up any minute and squealing on him?" He was silent a moment. "Rum thing, though," he murmured, "the way that hobo did beat us to it." "'Some lokil man,' sez Kilbride," remarked Slavin musingly. "Just th' last one ye'd think av suspectin'. An' Gully, begod, sittin' right there! . . . talk 'bout nerve! . . ." "But, good heavens!" burst out Yorke. "Whoever would have suspected him?" He laughed a trifle bitterly. "It's all very well for us to turn round now and say 'what fools we've been,' and all that. If we'd have been the smart, 'never-make-a-mistake' Alecks, like we're depicted in books, why, of course we'd have 'deducted' this right-away, I suppose? Oh, Ichabod! Ichabod! An Englishman, too, by gad! I'll forswear my nationality." "Whatever could he have on Larry, though?" was Redmond's bewildered query. "Say, that sure was a hell of a trick of his--using Windy's horse--while the two of them were scrapping--trying to frame it up on him!" "Eyah," soliliquised the sergeant sagely. "'Twill all come out in th' wash. Whin cliver, edjucated knockabouts like Gully du go bad; begob, they make th' very wurrst kind av criminals. They kin pass things off wid th' high hand an' kape their nerve betther'n th' roughnecks--ivry toime. "Think av that terribul murdherer, Deeming--an' thim tu docthors--Pritchard an' Palmer, colludge men, all av thim. An' not on'y men, but wimmin, tu. 'Member Mrs. Maybrick? All movin' in th' hoighth av society!" He was silent a moment, then his face fell. "I must take a run inta th' Post an' see th' O.C. 'bout this," he resumed. "Tis an exthornary case. There's just a possibility we may be all wrong--jumphin' at conclusions tu much. Th' ould man! . . . I think I can see th' face av um. He'll shling his pen across th' Ord'ly-room. 'Damn th' man! Damn th' man!' he'll cry. 'Go you now an' apprehend um on suspicion thin! Fwhy shud I kape a dog an' du me own barkin'?' An' thin he'll think betther av ut an' chunt 'Poppycock, all poppycock! . . . As you were, Sarjint'--an' thin he'll call in Kilbride. Eh! fwhat yez laughin' at, yeh fules?" he queried irritably. In spite of the gravity of the situation, the expression on their superior's cadaverous face just then--its droll mixture of apprehension and perplexity was more than Yorke and Redmond could stand. Awhile they rocked up against each other--a trifle hysterically; it was the reaction to nerves worked up to a pitch of intense excitement. "Yez gigglin' idjuts!" growled Slavin. "Come on, let's get home! No use us shtandin here longer--gassin' like a bunch av ould washer-wimmin full av gin an' throuble." In silence they trudged on to the detachment. "'Ome, sweet 'ome! be it never so 'umble!" quoth Yorke, as they reached their destination, "Hullo! who's this coming along?" Shading his eyes with his hand he gazed down the trail. "Looks like Doctor Cox and Lanky." The trio stared at the approaching buckboard which contained two occupants. "Sure is," said Redmond, "out to some case west of here, I suppose." They hailed the physician cheerily, as presently he drew up to the detachment. "Fwhere away, Docthor?" queried Slavin. "Will ye not shtop an' take dinner wid us, yu' an' Lanky? 'Tis rarely we see yez in these parts now." "Eh, sorry!" remarked that gentleman, climbing out of the rig and stretching his cramped limbs, "got to get on to Horton's, though. One of their children's sick. Thanks, all the same, Sergeant." Glancing round at his teamster he continued in lowered tones, "There's a little matter I'd like to speak to you fellows about." "Sure!" agreed Slavin, quickly. "Come inside thin, Docthor." The party entered the detachment and, seating themselves, gazed enquiringly at their visitor. For a space he surveyed them reflectively, a perturbed expression upon his usually genial countenance. His first words startled them. "It's about your J.P., Mr. Gully," he began. "This incident, mind, is closed absolutely--as far as he and I are concerned; but, under the circumstances, which to say the least struck me as being mighty peculiar, I--well! . . . I don't think it's any breach of medical etiquette on my part telling you about it. "For some time past now I've been treating Gully for insomnia. Man first came to me seemingly on the verge of a nervous breakdown through it. "I prescribed him some pretty strong opiates--strong as I dare--and for a time he seemed to get relief. But a couple of days ago he came around and--my God! . . . Say! if I hadn't known him for a man who drinks very little I'd have sworn he was in the D.T.'s." The doctor's rotund figure stiffened slightly in his seat, and his genial face hardened to a degree that was in itself a revelation to his audience. Without any semblance of bravado he continued quietly, "I hope I possess as much physical pluck as most men--I guess you fellows aren't aware of it, but many years back I too wore the Queen's uniform--Surgeon in the Navy. I served in that Alexandria affair, under Charlie Beresford. "Well, as I was saying, . . . Gully came into my surgery that day, raving like a madman. He's a big, powerful devil, as you know. I'll confess I was a bit dubious about him--watched him pretty close for a few minutes, for he acted as if he might start running amok. 'I can't sleep!' he kept yelling at me, 'I can't sleep, I tell you! . . . That dope you're giving me's no good. . . . Christ Almighty! give me a shot of cocaine, Cox, or morphine, and get me a supply of the stuff and a needle, will you? I'll pay you any amount!' "Naturally, I refused, I'm not the man to go laying myself open to anything like that. Well! Good God! The next minute the man came for me like a lunatic--clutching out at me with those great hands of his and with the most murderous expression on his face you can imagine. I backed away to the medicine cabinet and caught hold of a pestle and told him I'd brain him with it if he touched me. I threatened I'd lay an information against him for assault, and that seemed to quiet him down. He began to expostulate then, and eventually broke down and apologised to me--in the most abject fashion. Begged me to overlook his loss of control, and all that. Of course I let up on him then. A local scandal between two men in our position wouldn't do at all. I gave him a d----d good calling down, though, and finally advised him to go away somewhere for a complete rest and change. But he wouldn't agree to that--seemed worried over his ranch. Said he'd worked up a pretty good outfit and couldn't think of leaving his stock in somebody else's hands at this time of the year--couldn't afford it in fact. Anyway--that's his look-out. But, as a matter of fact, if that man doesn't take my advice, why . . . he's going to collapse. I know the symptoms only too well. That's the curse of men living alone on these homesteads--brooding, and worrying their heads off. It seems to get them all eventually in--" Breaking off abruptly he glanced at his watch. "Getting late!" he ejaculated, jumping up, "I must be getting on to that case." "Docthor!" said Slavin, reflectively, "'tis a shtrange story ye've been tellin' us. Ye'll be comin' back this way, I suppose--lather in th' day?" The physician nodded. "I'd like fur ye tu dhrop in agin, thin," continued the sergeant slowly, "if ye have toime? There's a little matther I wud like tu dishcuss wid yu'--'tis 'bout that same man." Doctor Cox glanced sharply at the speaker's earnest, sombre face. A certain sinister earnestness underlay the simple words, and it startled him. "Very good, Sergeant!" he agreed, "I'll call in on my way back. Well! good-by, all of you, for the time being!" They followed him outside and watched the rig depart on its journey westward. It was Redmond who broke the long silence. "Well, sacred Billy! What do you know about that?" he ejaculated tensely. And the trio turned and looked upon each other strangely, their faces registering mutual wonderment and conviction. "Sleep?" murmured Yorke, "No, by gum! . . . no more could Macbeth, with King Duncan and Banquo on his chest o' nights! . . . Well, that settles it!" But Slavin made a gesture of dissent. "As you were, bhoys!" was his sober mandate. "Sleeplishness's no actual proof . . . but it's a pointer. Th' iron's getthin' warrm--eyah! d----d warrm! . . . but we cannot shtrike yet." CHAPTER XII But a truce to this strain; for my soul it is sad, To think that a heart in humanity clad Should make, like the brutes, such a desolate end, And depart from the light without leaving a friend. Bear soft his bones over the stones! Though a pauper, he's one whom his Maker yet owns! "THE PAUPER'S DRIVE." They ate dinner more or less in silence. Slavin had relapsed into one of his fits of morose taciturnity. At the conclusion of the meal, Yorke and Redmond drew a bench outside, and for awhile sat in the sun, smoking. "He's got 'Charley-on-his-back' properly to-day," remarked the sophisticated Yorke, with a sidelong jerk of his head, "old beggar's best left alone, begad! when he' get's those fits on him." He sniffed the fresh air and gazed longingly out over the sunlit, peaceful landscape, flooded with a warm, sleepy, golden haze of summer. "Lord! but it's a peach of a day" he continued, "say, gossip mine, did you think to get that fishing-tackle at Martin's this morning?" George nodded affirmatively. Yorke rose and stepped indoors. "Say, Burke," he said persuasively, "there's not much doing this afternoon--how's chances for me and Reddy going down to the Bend for a bit? The water looks pretty good just now. You'll want to have a lone chin with the Doctor, anyway, no use us sticking around." The sergeant, engrossed in a crime-report, acceded gruffly to the request. "Run thim harses in first, tho'!" he flung after his subordinate, "an' du not yu' men get tu far away down-shtream, in case I might want yez." "That's 'Jake,'" was Redmond's comment, a moment later, "no use trying fly-fishing to-day, though, Yorkey--too bright. We'd better fish deep. Here, you get the rods all fixed up, and catch some grasshoppers, and I'll chase out in the pasture and run the horses in." Some half an hour later found them trudging down the long slope below the detachment that led to the nearest point of the Bow River. Here the river described a sharp bend southward for some distance, ere resuming its easterly course. Arriving thither, they fished for awhile in blissful content; their minds for the time-being devoid of aught save the sport of Old Izaak. Picking likely spots for deep casts, they meandered slowly down-stream, keeping about twenty yards apart. At intervals, their piscatorial efforts were rewarded with success. Four fine "two-pounders" of the "Cut-Throat" species had fallen to Yorke's rod--three to Redmond's. Then, for a time the fish ceased to bite. "Here!" said Yorke suddenly. "I'm getting fed up with this! I can't get a touch. There's a big hole farther down, just up above Gully's place. Let's try it! He and I pulled some good 'uns out of there, last year." Eventually they reached their objective. At this point the force of the current had gradually, with the years, scooped out a large, semicircular portion of the shelving bank. Also, a spit of gravel-bar, jutting far out into the water, had stranded a small boom of logs and drift-wood; the whole constituting a veritable breakwater that only a charge of dynamite could have shifted. In the shelter of this and the hollowed-out bank, a huge, slow eddy of water had formed, apparently of great depth. As Yorke had advertised it--it did look like a likely kind of a hole for big trout. "You wouldn't think it," said he now, "but there's twenty feet of water in that pot hole." He put down his rod and slowly began to fill his pipe. "You can have first shot at it, Red," he remarked, "I'll be the unselfish big brother. You ought to land a good 'un out of there. Aha! what'd I tell you?" Redmond's gut "leader" had barely sunk below the surface when he felt the thrilling, jarring strike of an unmistakably heavy fish. The tried, splendid "green-heart" rod he was using described a pulsating arc under the strain. He turned to Yorke gleefully. "By gum! old thing, I've sure got one this time," he said, "bet you he's ten pound if he's an ounce. Hope the line'll hold!" Simultaneously they uttered an excited exclamation, as a huge, silvery body darted to the surface, threshed the water for the fraction of a second, and then dived. "Look out!" cried Yorke. "Give him line, Red, give him line! Play him careful now, or you'll lose him!" The reel screeched, as Redmond let the fish run. Then--without warning--the line slacked and the rod straightened. George, giving vent to a dismayed oath, reeled in until the line tautened again, and the point of the rod dipped. "What's up?" queried Yorke, "he's still on, isn't he?" "Yes," growled Redmond miserably, "feels as if I'm snagged though. He's there right enough--I can feel him jumping. Damnation! That's the worst of stringing three hooks on your leader. One of 'em's snagged on something below, I guess. Here! hold the rod a minute, Yorkey!" The latter complied. George unbuttoned and threw off his stable-jacket and began taking off his boots. Yorke contemplated his comrade's actions in speechless amazement. "Why, what the devil?--" he began-- "I'm not going to lose that fish," mumbled Redmond sulkily, as he threw off his clothes, "I'll get him by gum! if I have to dive to the depths of Hell." "Say, now! don't be a fool!" cried Yorke, "that water's like ice, man! You'll get cramped, and then the two of us'll drown. We-ll, of all the idiots!--" George, by this time stripped to the buff, crept gingerly to the edge of the shelving bank. In his right hand he grasped--opened--a small pen-knife. "Aw, quit it!" he retorted rudely, "I'll only be under a minute--hold the line taut--straight up and down, Yorkey, so's I can see where to dive." He drew a deep breath, and then, with the poise of a practised swimmer, dived--cutting the water with barely a splash. For the space of a half-minute Yorke stared apprehensively at the swirling eddy, beneath which the other had vanished. The line still remained taut. Then he gave a gasp of relief, as Redmond's head re-appeared, and that young gentleman swam to the side. Extending a hand, the senior constable lugged his comrade to terra firma. "That's good!" he ejaculated fervently. "D----n the fish, anyway! I guess you couldn't make--" He broke off abruptly, and remained staring at the dripping George with startled eyes. The latter's face registered unutterable horror, and he shook as with the ague. Speech seemed beyond him. He could only mouth and point back to the gloomy depths whence he had just emerged. "Here!" cried Yorke, with an oath, "whatever is the matter, Reddy? Man! you look as if you'd seen a ghost!" Then his own face blanched, as the shivering George bubbled incoherently, "B-b-body! b-b-body! My God, Yorkey! th-there's a s-s-stiff d-down th-there! Ugh! I d-d-dived right onto it!" For a brief space they remained staring at each other; then, a strange light of understanding broke over Yorke's face, and he made a snatch at Redmond's clothes. "Come!" he jerked out briskly. "Get 'em on quick, Red, else you'll catch your death of cold--never mind about drying yourself--you can change when you get back." In shivering silence his comrade commenced to struggle into his underclothes and "fatigue-slacks." Yorke snapped the line and reeled in the slack. "Stiff!" he kept ejaculating "stiff! Yes, by gad! and I can make a pretty good guess who that stiff is! . . . Burke'll have all the evidence he wants--now. You beat it, Reddy, as soon as you're fit and get him. A run'll warm you up. The grappling-irons are back of the stable. And say! tell him to bring a good long rope. Lord, I hope Doctor Cox hasn't left yet. I'll stay here, Reddy. Hurry up!" An hour or so later, a morbidly expectant group gathered on the river-bank. Redmond, luckily, had reached the detachment just prior to the coroner's departure, and that gentleman now comprised one of a party. Slavin had hitched his team to a cotton-wood clump nearby, and was now busily rigging the double set of three-pronged grappling-irons. When all was ready, he motioned to his companions to stand back, and then, with a preliminary whirl or two, flung the irons into the pool, some distance ahead of the spot indicated by Redmond. Slowly and ponderously he began the dragging recover, with the muscular skill of a man long inured to the gruesome business. His first effort was unsuccessful--weeds and refuse were all he salvaged. He tried again, with the same result. Cast after cast proved futile. After the last failure he turned and glowered morosely upon Redmond. "'Tis either dhrunk or dhramin' ye must be, bhoy! There's nothin' there. I've a good mind," he added slowly "a d----d good mind tu shove ye undher arrest for makin' a friv'lus report tu yeh superior!" Yorke now came to his comrade's rescue. "By gum, Burke," he flashed out "if you'd seen his mug when he came up out of that hole you wouldn't have thought there was anything frivolous about it, I can tell you!" Poor George voiced a vehement protest, in self defense. "Good God, Sergeant!" he expostulated, "d'you think I'd come to you with a yarn like that? I tell you it is there. Have another try. Sling farther over to the right here!" Grumblingly, the latter complied, and began the slow recover. Suddenly, the rope checked. Slavin strained a moment, then he turned around to the expectant group. "Got ut'" he announced grimly. "I can tell by th' feel av ut. Tail on tu th' rope there, all av yez! Now! Yeo! Heave ho!" Like a tug of war team they all bowed their backs and strained with all their might; but their efforts proved futile. "Vast heavin!" said Slavin, breathing heavily. "'Tis shtuck somehow--I will have tu get th' team an' double-trees. Get a log off'n that breakwater, bhoys, so's th' rope will not cut inta th' edge av th' bank." He crossed over to the horses. "Now!" said he, some minutes later, as he backed up the team and made all fast to the double-trees. "Yu', Reddy, an' Lanky, guide th' rope over th' log. Yu', Yorkey, get th' feel av ut, an' give me th' wurrd. I du not want to break ut." Yorke leant over the edge of the bank, loosely feeling the rope. "All right!" he announced. Slavin, edging his team cautiously forward, and taking the strain to avoid a violent jerk, clucked to them. With a scramble, and a steady heave of their powerful hind-quarters, they started. With bated breath the watchers gazed at the rope--creeping foot by foot out of the discoloured water. "Keep a-going!" Yorke shouted to Slavin. "It's coming up, all right!" It came. Arising slowly and sullenly out of the depths they beheld a horrible, dripping, shapeless something that eventually resolved itself into a human body--clothed in torn rags and matted with river-refuse. Then, to the salvagers, came the most astounding and sinister revelation of all. Startled oaths burst from them as they beheld now what had retarded their first pull. Bound tightly to the body with rusted wire was a huge, hand-squared block of stone. The sergeant's last and successful cast had resulted in two prongs of the grappling-irons catching in the enveloping wire. Slowly and cautiously the whole hideous bulk was finally drawn up the shelving bank and over the log and onto dry ground. Yorke shouted, and Slavin, checking the horses, detached the rope from the double-trees. Handing the lines over to Lanky Jones he joined the others, who were critically examining their gruesome catch. To their surprise, although the features were unrecognisable, the corpse was not so decomposed as they had first imagined, the ice-cold water having preserved it to a certain extent. Still firmly hooked to the rags of clothing--a ludicrously grim joke--was the huge jumping, gasping trout which Redmond had struck and lost. Suddenly Yorke uttered a low exclamation. "Burke! Burke!" he said tensely, "there you are! . . . Look at the right hand'" The eyes of all were centered on the grimy, stiffened, clawlike fist. They saw that two of the fingers were missing. An exultant oath burst from Slavin. "By G----!" he said, with grim conviction, "it's him all right!--that pore hobo shtiff--Dick Drinkwater. Eyah! fwhat's in a name? Fwhat's in a name?" He pointed to the grinning jaws. "Luk at th' gold teeth av um, tu!" he added. The coroner was examining the almost fleshless skull. He gave a cry of anger and dismay. "Good God!" he gasped. "Look here, all of you! . . . This man's been shot through the head, too!" He indicated the small, circular orifice in the occiput, and its egress below the left eye. "Only an exceedingly powerful, high-pressure weapon could have done that," he continued significantly, "both holes are alike--bullet hasn't 'mushroomed' at all." "Eyah!" Slavin agreed wearily. "We know fwhat kind av a gun did ut. And luk here!" he added savagely, pointing to the bare feet, "here's another of Mr. Man's little jokes--no boots. If they'd have been lift on they'd have shtuck tighter'n glue--in that water. Reddy was 'bout right, Yorkey! Gully, d----n him! did frame us that day. Must have used thim himsilf tu make thim thracks wid--early in th' mornin'--behfure he met up wid us on th' thrail. Oh, blarney my sowl! Yes! Had us chasin' for a whole silly week, all for--" He broke off abruptly, choking with rage. For awhile, in silence, the party gazed at the pitiful, hideous monstrosity that had once been a man. Then the ever-practical Redmond proceeded, with the aid of a large pebble, to burst, strand by strand, the wire which bound the stone to the body. "That stone, too!" said the doctor darkly. "Sergeant, in view of what you've been telling me, there seems something very, very terrible about all this. I suppose there's absolutely no doubt in your mind now, who--?" The Irishman jerked out a great oath. "Doubt!" echoed he grimly, "doubt! So little doubt, Docthor," added he hoarsely, "that we go get 'um this very night." "Alas, poor Yorick!" said Yorke sadly. "Say, Burke!" he continued in an awe-struck voice "this is like a leaf out of O'Brien's book, with a vengeance. You remember him, that cold-blooded devil who Pennycuik nailed up in the Yukon--used to shoot 'em and shove their bodies under the ice?" Slavin nodded gloomily. "At Tagish, ye mane? Yeah! I 'member ut. Penny sure did some good wurrk on that case." Redmond had by this time completed his gruesome task. "There's lots of these blocks lying around Gully's," he remarked, "I've seen 'em. Place's got a stone foundation. Look at the notches he's chipped in this one--to keep the wire from slipping!" "Eyah!" said Slavin, with grimly-unconscious humour, "Exhibit B. We must hang on to ut, heavy as it us--an' th' wire, tu! Well, people, we'd betther shove this pore shtiff on the buckboard, an' beat ut." He turned to the doctor's laconic factotum. "Come on, Lanky!" he said briskly. "Let's go hitch up." Presently, when all was ready, Slavin took the lines and the coroner climbed up beside him. The rest of the party followed on foot. A sombre, strange little procession it looked, as it moved slowly westward into the dusky blaze of a blood-red sunset. In the hearts of the policemen grim resolve was not unmixed with certain well-founded forebodings, as they fully realized what a sinister, dangerous mission lay ahead of them that night. CHAPTER XIII 'Twas then--like tiger close beset At every pass with toil and net, 'Counter'd, where'er he turns his glare, By clashing arms and torches' flare, Who meditates, with furious bound, To burst on hunter, horse, and hound,-- 'Twas then that Bertram's soul arose, Prompting to rush upon his foes. SCOTT The old detachment clock struck nine wheezy notes. Yorke and Redmond, seated at a table busily engaged in cleaning their service revolvers, glanced up at each other sombrely. "Getting near time," muttered the former, "the moon should be up soon now. Lanky," he continued, addressing that individual who was sitting nearby, "what are you and the Doctor going to do? Going back to Cow Run tonight, or what?" "Don't think it," replied the teamster laconically. He glanced towards the open door and assumed a listening attitude. "Th' Sarjint an' him's out there now--chewin' th' rag 'bout it--hark to 'em!" Ceasing their cleaning operations for a space, the two constables listened intently to the raised voices without. "No! no! no!" came Slavin's soft brogue, in tones of vehement protest to something the coroner had said, "I tell yu' 'tis not right, Docthor, that yu' shud run such risk! Wid us 'tis diff'runt--takin' th' chances av life an' death--just ord'nary course av juty. . . ." "Oh, tut! tut! nonsense, Sergeant," was the physician's brisk response. "You forget. I've taken those same chances before, too, and, by Jove! I can take 'em again! All things considered," he added significantly, "seems to me--er--perhaps just as well I should be on hand." Yorke and Redmond exchanged rueful grins. "The old sport!" quoth the latter admiringly. "Damme, but I must say the Doc's game!" "It's the old 'ex-service spirit'," said Yorke quietly, "rum thing! Always seems to crop out, somehow, when there's real trouble on hand." Nonchalantly puffing a huge cigar, the object of their remarks presently strolled back into the room, followed by the sergeant. "Behould th' 'last coort av appeal,' Docthor," began Slavin majestically. With a whimsical grin he indicated his subordinates. "Bhoys," he explained, "contrairy tu my wishes, th' Docthor insists on comin' wid us this night. Now fwhat yez know 'bout that?" "Tried to shake me!" supplemented that gentleman tersely, waving his cigar at the last speaker. "What's this court's ruling?" A stern smile flitted over Yorke's high-bred features. "Appeal sustained," he announced decisively, "eh, Reddy?" For answer, his comrade arose and silently wrung the doctor's hand; then, without show of emotion, he resumed his seat and likewise his cleaning operations. Yorke, as silently, duplicated his comrade's actions. The ex-Naval surgeon said nothing; but his eyes glistened strangely as he dropped into an easy chair and proceeded to envelope himself in a cloud of smoke, Suddenly the nasal voice of the teamster, Lanky Jones, made itself heard. "How 'bout me?" he drawled, "ain't I in on this, too? I kin look after th' hawsses, anyways, fur yeh!" "Arrah thin! hark tu um?" said Slavin, in mock despair. "Docthor, 'tis a bad example ye're setting All right, thin, Lanky, ye shall come, an' ye wish ut. An' as man tu man--I thank ye! We will all go a 'moonlightin' tugither. Eyah!" he resumed reminiscently, "many's th' toime I mind me ould father--God rist him!--tellin' th' tales av thim days, whin times was harrd in Oireland, an' rints wint up an' th' pore was dhriven well-nigh desprit. How him an' his blood-cousin, Tim Moriarty, lay wan night for an' ould rapparee av a landlord, who'd evicted pore Tim out av house an' home. Tim had an' ould blundherbuss, all loaded up wid bits av nales an' screws an' such-like, wid a terribul big charrge av powther behint ut. Four solid hours did they wait for um--forninst a hedge on th' road he had tu come home by, from Ballymeen Fair. "By an' by they hears um a-comin . . . a-hollerin' an' laughin' tu umsilf, an' roarin' an' singin' 'Th' Jug av Potheen.' Full av ut, tu, by token av th' voice av um. Tim makes all ready wid th' blundherbuss. All av a suddint tho', th' tchune shtops, an' tho' they waits for um for quite a toime, he niver shows up. By an' by they gets fed up wid lyin' belly-down in th' soakin' rain. 'H-mm! mighty quare!' sez me father, 'I wonder fwhat's happened tu th' pore ould ginthleman?' 'Let us go luk for um?' sez Tim, wid blood in his oi, ''tis may be he's on'y shtoppin' tu take another dhrink out av th' jug.' "So, up th' road they goes a piece, till they comes tu a bog at th' side av ut. An' there they finds um--head-first shtuck in th' bog--just th' tu feet av um shtickin' out an' which boots Tim sez he can swear tu. 'Begorrah!' sez me father, 'that accounts for th' tchune shtoppin' so suddint! Let us luk for th' jug?' Well, they hunts around for th' jug awhile, but all they finds is his ould caubeen. So they shtuck that on wan of his feet, an' Tim, he pins th' warrant av evictmint tu ut, currsin' somethin' fierce th' whiles bekase he was done out av getthin' a shot at the 'ould rapparee wid th' blundherbuss." Slavin shook his head slowly at the conclusion of the story. "Eyah!" he said wistfully, "many's th' toime have I heard me father tell that same tale. They must have been shtirrin' times, thim!" In characteristic fashion his mood suddenly changed. His face hardened, as with upraised hand he silenced the burst of laughter he had provoked from his hearers. "Ginthlemen!" he resumed quietly, "we're none av us cowards here, but--no need tu remind yu'--fwhat sort av a man we are goin' up against this night." Unconsciously he drew himself up, with an air of simple, rugged dignity that well became his grim visage and powerful frame. In that hour of impending danger the brave, true, kindly heart of the man stood revealed--a personality which endeared him to Yorke and Redmond beyond any ties of friendship they had known. Slowly he repeated, "we are none av us cowards here, but--remimber Larry Blake, an' that pore hobo shtiff back in th' shed there. An' remimber thim dogs this mornin'. We du not want tu undherrate um. We du not want tu cop ut like did Wilde, whin he wint tu arrest Charcoal; or Colebrook, whin he tackled Almighty Voice. Maybe he'll just come a-yawnin' tu th' dhure, wid th' dhrawlin' English spache av um, sayin' 'Well, bhoys, an' fwhat's doin'?' An' yet again--may be he's all nerves afther th' bad break he made in front av us this mornin'--expectin' us--eyah!--waithin', watchin' belike, wid his gun in his fisht. Luk at th' way he acted afther his gun play--leery as hell. . . ." "Yes!" said Yorke thoughtfully, "egad! there was something darned queer in the way he acted, all right. Guess we'd better take carbines along, eh, Burke? . . . in case we get let in for a man hunt. For all we know, he may have beat it already. Another thing--he may start in bucking us about not having a warrant--just to gain time?" Slavin met the other's suggestion with a grim nod of acquiescence. "Shure! we'll take thim," he said, "but"--his jaw set ruthlessly--"if I wanst get my grub-hooks on um . . . why! 'tis all up!--carbines, or no carbines--warrant or no warrant. Section thirty av th' Code covers th' warrant bizness--in a case like this, anyways. Come on, thin, bhoys, saddle up! An' Lanky!--yu give me a hand wid th' team! we must be getthin'!" Presently all was in readiness, and the small, well-armed party left the detachment under the light of a brilliant three-quarter moon. Slavin led in the police buckboard, with the doctor seated beside him, and Lanky Jones crouched behind them. Yorke and Redmond rode in the rear, with their carbines slung at the saddle-horn. It was a hazardous mission they were bound on, as they all fully realized now, knowing the terribly ruthless character of the man they sought to apprehend. Descending the grade which led to the bend of the river they swung due east at a smart pace, following the winding Lower Trail. This last road ran past Gully's ranch, which lay some three miles distant. As they neared their objective the sergeant slackened his team down to a walking pace. Suddenly Redmond tongue-clucked to himself in absent fashion. The sound of it roused Yorke out of the sombre reverie into which he had fallen. "What's up, Red?" queried he waggishly, in a low voice, "dreaming you're taking that dive again, or what?" "No!" muttered George abstractly in the same key. "I was thinking what a rum, unfathomable old beggar Slavin is. Fancy him springing that comical old yarn at such a time as this?" "Ah!" murmured his comrade reflectively. "When you come to know Burke as well as I do you'll find he's generally got some motive for these little things--blarney and all. You laughed, didn't you? Guess we all of us gave the giddy 'ha! ha'.' Felt quite chipper after it, too, the bunch of us . . . well then?" "Sh-sh!" came the sergeant's back-flung, guarded growl, "quit your gab there! We're gettin' nigh, bhoys--here's th' brush forninst his place . . . must go mighty quiet an' careful now." Looming up dark and forbidding ahead of them they beheld the all-familiar sight of the huge, shadowy thicket of pine and Balm o' Gilead clumps that fringed the west end of Gully's ranch. Entering its gloomy depths, they felt their way slowly and cautiously along the stump-dotted trail. At intervals, from somewhere overhead, came the weird, depressing hoot of a long-eared owl, and, seemingly close at hand, the shrill, mocking "ki-yip-yapping" of coyotes echoed sharply in the stillness of the night. Stray patches of moonlight began to filter upon the party once more as they gradually neared the end of the rough-hewn avenue; the thick growth of pine giving place to scattered cotton-wood clumps. Arriving at the verge of the timber the party halted. There, some two hundred yards distant, upon a patch of open ground partially encircled by dense, willow-scrub, lay a ghostly-shadowed cluster of ranch buildings. The living habitation itself stood upon a slightly raised knoll, hard upon the river-bank. To their nostrils the night air brought the strong, not unpleasant scent of cattle, drifting up from the numerous recumbent bovine forms which dotted the ground all around the ranch. Awhile the party gazed speculatively at the habitation of him--the undoubted perpetrator of the deadly deeds--for whom they had sought so long. The peaceful aspect of their moonlit surroundings suddenly smote the minds of all with a strange sense of unreality, as full realization of the sinister import of their errand came home to them. In uncanny telepathy with their disturbed feelings sounded the owl's derisive hooting, and the persistent mocking raillery of the coyotes. It was Slavin who broke the long, tense silence. "Damn that 'Dismal Jimmy' owl!" he ejaculated testily, in a low tone--"an' thim ki-oots! . . . beggars all seem to be givin' us th' ha! ha! as if they knew. P'raps he has beat ut on us afther all? . . . 'Tis harrd tu say--we cannot shpot a glim from this side--winders all face east. Now! luk a-here, all av yez!" He turned to his companions with a grim, determined face, his deep-set eyes glittering ominously in the light of the moon. "Lets get things cut-an'-dhried behfure we shtart in," he whispered. "Whin he knows th' jig's up--that's if he is in--he may act like a man av sinse, an' agree tu come peaceable--but--" and Slavin shook his head slowly--"if he refuses . . . fwhy? . . . 't'wud be straight suicide tu attimpt tu rush um. There's on'y wan dhure. Hidin' in th' dark there, wid that Luger gun av his coverin' ut, we'd shtand no show at all. He'd put th' whole bunch av us out av business--in as many shots, behfure a man av us got a chance tu put fut inside. Now, let's see!" he murmured reflectively. "Fwhat is th' lay av th' shack agin? There's--" "The door and two of the windows face east," interpolated Yorke, softly--"living-room and kitchen--one window to the south--that's his bed-room." "Eyah! that's ut," whispered the sergeant, "now thin--Lanky--du yu' shtay right here wid th' harses. Kape yu're head--even if ye du hear shootin'. Du not shtir from here onless ye get ordhers from wan av us." Turning to the others he continued in a sibilant hiss, "Yu, Reddy, shlip along th' edge av th' brush here, an' over th' river-bank onto th' shingle. Kape well down an' thread careful ontil ye come forninst th' back winder. Thin pop yu're head up circumshpict an' cover ut wid yu're carbine. Use good judgmint tho'; none av us want tu shtart in shootin' onless we're forced tu ut. Ondher th' circumstances 'tis best we thry an' catch um alive." For a moment Slavin stared after Redmond's crouching form, as his subordinate disappeared in the gloom, "Thrust no harm comes tu th' lad," he muttered irresolutely, "quick as a flash is th' bhoy wid his head, eyah! but he's inclined tu be over rash at toimes." "Oh, he's all right," hissed Yorke reassuringly, "don't you get worrying over him making any bad breaks, Burke. He's as fly as they make 'em." Presently the sergeant faced round with a dreary sigh. "Come on thin, Docthor," he murmured heavily, "wid me an' Yorke." Making a wide detour they circled the ranch and wormed their way cautiously through the dense scrub on its eastern side. Suddenly, with a warning gesture to his companions, the sergeant halted. They had reached the verge of the scrub and the front of the ranch-house faced them--barely twenty yards distant. They could discern a faint light glimmering around the lower edge of one of the windows. "He is in!" whispered Slavin exultantly. "Blinds down though. 'Tis a quare custom av his. Come on thin, Yorkey, me bould second-in-command! In a mighty few short minuts we shall know"--his jaw dropped--"fwhat we shall know! . . . Arrah thin, Docthor!"--he silenced a violent protest from that adventurous gentleman, who made as though to accompany them--"if ye wud help us in best fashion--shtay right here, an' mark fwhat comes off. If we shud happen tu get ut in th' neck . . . just yu' beat ut back tu Lanky! Ye know fwhat tu du--thin. I'll lave me carbine here awhile." He stepped clear of the brush and, revolver in hand, advanced softly upon the low, one-story, log-built dwelling. Yorke followed a few steps in his rear, with his carbine held in readiness at the "port-arms." Reaching the door, the sergeant rapped upon it sharply. There was no response from within, but--the light vanished on the instant. Yorke stepped warily to the side and covered the door with his weapon. A few tense moments passed, and then Slavin rapped again. Heavy footfalls now sounded, approaching the door from the inside, halted, and then, through the panels came Gully's hollow, booming bass: "Who's there?" "Shlavin of th' Mounted Police, Gully. Opin up! we wud shpake wid ye." "What do you want? What's your business at this hour of the night?" "Fwhat do we want?"--the sergeant uttered mirthless chuckle--"fwhy 'tis yu' we want, Gully--for murdher! Come off th' perch, man, th' jig's up! There's a bunch av us here--we've got yu're shack covered properly--wid carbines--north, east, south, an' west--ye can pull nothin' off. Come now! will ye pitch up an' act reasonable? 'Tis no manner av use ye shtartin' in tu buck th' Force. Juty's juty--ye know that." "Have you got a warrant, Sergeant?" "Eyah!" came Slavin's sinister growl. "We've bin fishin', Gully, up in th' big pool beyant. _Well_ ye must know that pool. Fwhat we caught there is our warrant. Opin up now, will ye? else we bust yu're dhure in!" "Slavin--Sergeant! You and Yorke whom I've known all this time--good fellows"--the deep, imploring tones faltered slightly--"do not push me to it, man! You and your men go away and leave me in peace this night. Christ knows! I don't want to do it but--if you persist in forcing an entrance in here without a warrant--why! I'll pull on your crowd till there's not a man left." "Gully!" the sergeant's voice shook with passion at the other's threat, "ye bloody murdherin' dog! Ye dhirty back-av-th'-head gun-artist! Thryin' for tu come th' 'good-feller' over us av th' Mounted! There's on'y wan answer tu that, an' ye know ut. Now, will ye opin up this dhure, or I'll bust her down!" And, as if to enforce his command, Slavin set his huge shoulder against the door and gave a heave which caused the stout wood to crack ominously. "Look out, Burke!" cried Yorke suddenly. His right arm shot out and jerked the maddened Irishman violently towards him. His hasty action was only just in time. Bang! bang! Two muffled shots detonated within, and white splinters flew from a spot in the door covered a moment before by the sergeant's broad breast. With a startled oath Slavin flung up his gun, as if to fire back; but Yorke clutched his arm and arrested the action. "No, no, Burke!" he hissed warningly, "no use doing that! You bet he's not there now. Lying 'doggo' behind the logs, most likely. You'd only blow a hole in the door that he could pick us off through after. We're proper marks in the moonlight here! Let's back up, and keep the front covered." Slavin, balked of his prey, rumbled in his throat awhile, like some huge bear; then, adopting Yorke's suggestion, he slowly backed up with the latter to the sheltering brush, where they rejoined the expectant, anxious doctor. "Hit, either of you?" he enquired tersely. Yorke replied in the negative. "Mighty close shave for Burke here, though" he added, "lucky I heard Gully cocking that blasted Luger of his." He uttered a suppressed chuckle, "Burke's always one to go cautioning others, and then lose his temper and expose himself." For some few minutes they canvassed the situation in tense whispers, lying prone in the brush with their carbines covering their objective. "Sh-sh!" hissed the doctor suddenly. "Hark!" With all their faculties on the stretch, they held their breaths and listened intently. In the stillness they heard the unmistakable noise as of a window being cautiously lifted. The sound came from the southern end of the building. Then they heard Redmond's voice ring out sharply from the bank: "No use, Gully! I've got you covered! You can't make it from there! You'd better give in, man." There was an instant's silence, then--crack! came the crisp report of the Luger. It was answered by the deep, reverberating bang! of a carbine, and the crash of splintered glass and woodwork was followed by a boyish laugh. "Told you Reddy was there with the goods!" remarked Yorke, triumphantly, to his superior, "don't suppose he got him though--Gully's too fly--he'd duck into shelter the instant he'd fired. I'll bet he's doing some tall thinking just now. Beggar's between the devil and the deep sea--properly. He'll chuck up the sponge just now, you'll see." "Eyah!" agreed Slavin, with an oath, "he's up against it. But Reddy down there--I du not like th' idea av th' bhoy bein' all alone. Yorkey, yu' shlink thru' th' brush an' down th' bank an' kape um company awhile. Th' Docthor an' me'll kape th' front here covered." A few minutes later, Yorke, after first challenging Redmond cautiously, crept up beside his comrade below the sheltering river-bank. "Did you get him?" he queried in a tense whisper. "No, I don't think so," muttered Redmond disconsolately, "but--he d----d near got me--look!" He exhibited his Stetson hat. A clean bullet perforation showed in the pinched-up top. "I could have got him--easy," he added, "when he first opened the window. Wish I had, now--but you know what Burke said--about getting him alive--I only loosed off after he'd thrown down on me. I was scared for you and Burke, though! I could see you both backing up--after he'd shot through the door." Bang! A dull, muffled report detonated within the building. The ominous echoes gradually died away, and the stillness of the night settled over all once more. The crouching policemen stared at each other strangely. "Hear that?" ejaculated Redmond, with a startled oath, "By G----d! he's shot himself! must have--it sounded muffled. . . . All over! I'll bet his brains--" He broke off short and, shoving the barrel of his carbine over the edge of the bank, he commenced to clamber up. "Wait a second! . . . Good God, Red! don't do that!" snarled Yorke warningly. "He's as cunning as a blasted _lobo_. May be it's only a tr--" The entreaty died in his throat. Crack! A spurt of flame shot from the opened window, and Redmond, with a gasping exclamation of rage and pain, toppled backwards onto the shingle, his carbine clattering down beside him. Fearful of relaxing his vigilance even at this crisis, the maddened Yorke flung up his weapon and sent shot after shot crashing through the open casement. All could hear the smashing, rending sounds of havoc his bullets were creating within. "Doctor!" he shouted. "Oh, Doctor! Come on round quick!" In a hoarse aside he spat out feverishly, "Red! Red! my old son! . . . hit bad? Where'd you get it?" "Shoulder! Oh-h!" gasped poor Redmond, moaning and rolling on the shingle in his agony, "Oh, Christ, it hurts!" There came a crashing in the undergrowth on their right, and presently a crouching form came creeping rapidly towards them under cover of the sheltering bank. In a terse aside Yorke acquainted the doctor with the details of his comrade's mischance, keeping a wary eye meanwhile on the window. The ex-naval surgeon wasted no time in unnecessary question or comment, but with the grim composure of an old campaigner swiftly proceeded to render first aid to the wounded man. "Right shoulder--low down!" he presently vouch-safed to the anxious Yorke. "Trust it's missed the lung! . . . can't tell yet! . . . I must get him away the best way I can. No! . . . don't move, Yorke! You keep on your mark! I can pack him I think. I'll get him to the buckboard somehow. This is going to be a long siege, I'm thinking. You'll be getting reinforcements later. Slavin told me to send for them." Bang! crash! The crisp sounds of splintering woodwork on the east side of the shack denoted the fact of their quarry apparently attempting a second escape from the front entrance. Unaided, the doctor cleverly executed the professional fire-fighter's trick of raising, balancing on the back, and carrying an unconscious human body. With an overwhelming feeling of relief, not unmixed with admiration, at the other's gameness, Yorke watched him stagger away in the gloom, bearing poor George upon his bowed shoulders. His momentary lack of vigilance proved well-nigh his own undoing, also. Crack! spat the Luger again from the window. His hat whirled from his head, but he kept his presence of mind. It was not the first time by many that Yorke had been under fire. Ducking down on the instant, he moved swiftly three paces to his right, and then, finger on trigger, he suddenly jerked upright and sent two more shots crashing through the aperture. "Mark-er!" he called out mockingly. "Signal a miss, mark-er! Ding-dong! You'll get tired of it before we do, Gully! You'd better give up the ghost, man!" His grim sarcasm failing to draw further fire from his desperate opponent, the senior constable reloaded wearily and settled down to what promised to be a long, danger-fraught vigil. CHAPTER XIV He "went out," poor Gus, at the break o' day--- Oh!--his kindly ways, and his cheery face! But . . . the Lord gave, and hath taken away, Hark! sounds "The Last Post," Requiescat in Pace! "THE LAST POST" Slowly the night dragged through for the two grim, haggard sentinels. Thrice during their vigil had their desperate quarry exercised his marksmanship upon them with his deadly Luger. Seemingly only by a miracle did they escape each time. The sergeant had his hat perforated in similar fashion to his companions. Yorke had a shoulder-strap torn from his stable-jacket. Adroitly shifting their positions each time he fired, they greeted his shots with such withering blasts of carbine fire that they finally silenced their enemy's battery. Throughout he had remained as mute as a trapped wolf. Only an occasional cough indicated that so far, apparently, he was unharmed and, like them, still grimly on the alert. Relief came to the two besiegers with the first streaks of dawn. Dr. Cox, with almost superhuman efforts, had somehow managed to reach Lanky Jones and the buckboard with the wounded Redmond. Swiftly conveying the latter back to the detachment, the physician had immediately got in touch with the night-operator at the station, and also MacDavid. And now, guided by that old pioneer, Inspector Kilbride arrived upon the scene with an armed party from the Post. They had been rushed up by a special train, which had been flagged by MacDavid at the nearest objective point to Gully's ranch. Swiftly and warily they skirmished towards their objective. Half of the party, under a sergeant, crept along below the sheltering river bank where they soon joined the wearied, but still vigilant, Yorke. The rest, under the inspector, making a wide detour of the ranch, gained the brush on its eastern side. Among this last party were Hardy, McSporran and McCullough. In extended order they glided through the thick scrub and, reaching its fringe, flung themselves prone with their carbines held in readiness. The inspector gradually wormed himself up beside Slavin who, in a few tense whispers, acquainted his superior with all details of the situation. Full well, both men realized what a perilous spot it was, for all concerned, on the eastern front of the shack. Straining their eyes in the gray, ghostly gloom they could just discern an open casement. Apparently it was from this well-sheltered embrasure that Gully had previously attempted to pick off Slavin. With the coming of daylight their position would be absolutely untenable in the face of further fire from the enemy. On the other hand, if they retreated further into the scrub they would lose sight of their objective altogether. So much Kilbride intimated to the sergeant as they held whispered consultation. Also, he imparted reassuring news anent Redmond. The latter's injury, though serious, was not a mortal hurt, according to a report from MacDavid, who had left the doctor watching his patient closely at the detachment. Suddenly, a few paces to the right of where they lay, came the sound of one of the party stealthily clearing his throat. Poor fellow! his momentary lack of caution proved to be his death warrant. Crack! A spurt of flame leapt from the velvety-black square of casement. The horrid, unforgetable cry of a man wounded unto death echoed the shot, and the startled besiegers could hear their comrade threshing around amongst the dead leaves in his agony. "Steady, men! steady now! don't expose yourselves!" yelled the inspector. "Fire at that window, while I get to this man!--keep me covered!" His commands were eagerly obeyed. Sheltered by the roaring burst of carbine fire he wriggled sideways in feverish haste and eventually gained the stricken man. The latter's convulsive threshing of limbs had ceased and an instant's examination convinced the inspector that Gully's random shot had been fatal. For awhile the besiegers poured in brisk volleys upon the door and windows, until the inspector gave the command to "Cease Fire!" Suddenly--mockingly--hard upon the last shot, the echoes of which had barely died away, came again the vicious, whip-like crack of the Luger; this time from the southern end of the shack. The long-drawn, nerve-shattering scream of the first casualty was duplicated, and a carbine volley crashed from the river bank. Then up from the attacking party swelled an exceeding bitter, angry cry; the grim, deadly exasperation of men goaded to the point of recklessly attempting ruthless reprisal upon their hidden enemy. With a total disregard of personal safety many of them sprang up out of cover, as if to charge upon their hated objective. "As you were! Back, men! back!" rang out the deep, imperious voice of Kilbride. The stern command checked the onrush of maddened men. "D'you hear me?" he thundered, "Take cover again immediately--everyone. . . . I'll give the word when to rush him, and that's not yet." It said much for the discipline of the Force that his commands were obeyed, albeit in somewhat mutinous fashion. The inspector turned to Slavin with fell eyes. "Christ!" he said, "there's two men gone! I won't chance any more lives in this fashion! I'll give him ten minutes to surrender and if he don't give up the ghost then . . . . I'll do what an emergency like this calls for--what I came prepared to do, if necessary. Sergeant! take charge of this side until further orders; I'm going down the bank to the other party awhile." He stole away through the brush and presently they all heard his stentorian tones ring out from the river bank. "Gully! oh, Gully! It's Inspector Kilbride speaking. I'll give you ten minutes to come out and give yourself up. If you don't--well! . . . I've got a charge of dynamite here . . . and a fuse, and I'll blow you and your shack to hell, my man. It's up to you--now!" There was no response to the inspector's ultimatum. Amidst dead silence the prescribed time slowly passed. Fifteen minutes--then, a gasping murmur of excitement arose from those on the eastern front, as in the rapidly whitening dawn they saw Kilbride suddenly reappear around the northern and blank end of the building. For some few moments they watched his actions in awe-struck, breathless silence as, with bent back, he busied himself with his dangerous task. Presently he straightened up. "Now! Look out, everybody!" he bawled. He struck a match and applied it to something that immediately began to splutter, and then he retreated a safe distance northward. All eyes were glued, as if fascinated, to the deadly, sputtering fuse. Soon came the dull, muffled roar of an explosion. The walls of the building sagged outwards, the roof caved in, and the whole structure seemed to collapse like a pack of cards, amid a cloud of dust. For some few seconds the party gazed fearfully at the work of destruction; then a loud cheer went up, and with one accord all dashed forward, filled with eager, morbid curiosity as to what they might find buried beneath the ruins. Suddenly, midway between the brush and their objective they checked their onrush and halted, staring in speechless amazement. Pushing his way up, apparently from some hole beneath a pile of debris, appeared the figure of a huge man. In their excitement the attackers had overlooked the possibility of a cellar existing below the stone foundation of the dwelling. At this juncture the party from the river bank was rapidly approaching the ruins from its western side. The posse was in a dilemma. Neither party dare fire at its quarry between them for fear of hitting each other. Gully apparently either did not realize the situation or did not care. With face convulsed with passion, beyond all semblance to a human being, he crouched and rushed the party on the eastern side of his wrecked home, firing as he came. Badly hit, several of his assailants were speedily _hor de combat_, among them, Hardy and McCullough. The whole incident happened in quicker time than it takes to relate. Then, from out the startled crowd there sprang a man. It was Slavin. His hour had come. There was something appalling in the spectacle of the two gigantic men rushing thus upon each other. Suddenly, Gully tripped over a log and fell headlong, his deadly gun flying from his grasp. With a sort of uncanny, cat-like agility he scrambled to his feet and strove to recover his weapon. He was a fraction of a second too late. A kick from Slavin sent it whirling several yards away, and the next moment the opponents were upon each other. At the first onslaught the issue of the combat seemed doubtful. The ex-sheriff was no wrestler like Slavin, but he speedily demonstrated that he was a boxer, as well as a gun-man. Cleverly eluding the grasp of his powerful assailant for the moment, twice he rocked Slavin's head back with fearful left and right swings to the jaw. With a bestial rumbling in his throat, the sergeant countered with a pile-driving punch to the other's heart; then, ducking his head to avoid further punishment, he grappled with the murderer. Roaring inarticulately in their Berserker rage, the pair bore a closer resemblance to a bear and a gorilla than men. Once in that terrible grip, however, Gully, big and powerful man though he was, had not the slightest chance with a wrestler of Slavin's ability. Shifting rapidly from one cruel hold to another the huge Irishman presently whirled his antagonist up over his hip and sent him crashing to the ground, face downwards. Then, kneeling upon the neck of his struggling and blaspheming victim, he held him down until handcuffs finally imprisoned the enormous wrists, and leg-irons the ankles. The grim, long-protracted duel was over at last. But at lamentable cost. Two men killed outright, and five badly wounded had been the deadly toll exacted by Gully in his last, desperate stand. The rays of the early morning shone upon a strange and solemn scene. Gully, guarded by two constables, was seated upon the stone foundation that marked the site of his wrecked dwelling. Head in hands, sunk in a sort of stupor, his attitude portrayed that of a man from whom all earthly hope had fled. Some distance away lay the wounded men, being roughly, but sympathetically attended to by their comrades. All were awaiting now the arrival of the coroner, and also the means of transportation which the inspector had ordered MacDavid to requisition for them. Presently came those who reverently bore the dead upon hastily-constructed stretchers. Silently Inspector Kilbride indicated a spot near the fringe of brush; and there, side by side, they laid them down, covering the bodies with a blanket dragged from the debris of the shattered dwelling. Bare-headed, the rest of the party gathered around their officer. Long and sadly Kilbride gazed down upon the still forms outlined under their covering. Twice he essayed to speak, but each time his voice failed him. "Men!" he said at last huskily, as if to himself. "Men! is this what I have brought you into? . . . Is this--" He choked, and was silent awhile; then; "Oh!" cried he suddenly, "God knows! . . . under the circumstances I used the best judgment I--" But Slavin broke in and laid a tremulous hand on his superior's shoulder. "No! no! Sorr! . . . hush! for th' love av Christ! . . . Ye must not--" the soft Hibernian brogue sank to a gentle hush--"niver fear . . . for thim that's died doin' their juty! . . . 'Tis th' Peace, Sorr--th' Peace everlastin' . . . for Hornsby an' Wade. They were good men. . . ." Yorke bent down and, drawing back a fold of the blanket, exposed two still white faces. In the centre of Hornsby's forehead all beheld Gully's terrible sign-manual. Wade had been shot through the throat. "Hornsby!" gasped Yorke brokenly, "poor old Gus Hornsby!" . . . He turned a tired, drawn face up to Slavin's. "He was with us in the Yukon, Burke. Remember how we used to rag him when he first came to us as a cheechaco buck? But the poor beggar never used to get sore over it . . . always seemed sort of . . . patient . . . and happy . . . no matter how we joshed him. . . ." Gently he replaced the blanket, stared stupidly a moment at the grim, haggard face of his sergeant, then he burst out crying and wandered away from the sad scene. CHAPTER XV That very night, while gentle sleep The people's eyelids kiss'd, Two stern-faced men set out from Lynn, Through the cold and heavy mist; And Eugene Aram walk'd between, With gyves upon his wrist. "THE DREAM OF EUGENE ARAM" Slowly the memorable June day had drawn to a close, and now darkness had set in and the moon shone brightly down upon the old detachment of Davidsburg. It had been a strenuous day for Inspector Kilbride and his subordinates, as many details of the eventful case had to be arranged ere they could leave with their prisoner on the night's train for the Post. The inspector's first care, naturally, had been the slow and careful conveyance of the wounded men (Redmond included)--and the dead--down to the special train which still awaited them on the Davidsburg siding. The bulk of the party departed with them, the officer retaining Slavin, Yorke, and McSporran. A coroner's inquest, held that afternoon upon the remains of the unfortunate hobo, Drinkwater, had resulted in a verdict of "wilful murder" being returned against Ruthven Gully. Two days later, at the Post, similar verdicts were rendered in the cases of poor Hornsby and Wade. Throughout the day Gully had remained in a sort of sullen, brooding stupor. But now, with the coming of night, he seemed to grow restless--pacing within the narrow confines of his cell like unto a trapped wolf, his leg-shackles clanking at every turn. Seated outside the barred door, McSporran maintained a close and vigilant guard. It wanted four hours yet until train time and inside the living-room the inspector, Slavin, and Yorke were beguiling the interval in low-voiced conversation. "Strange thing, Sergeant," remarked Kilbride musingly, "I can't place him now, but I'll swear I've seen this man, Gully, before; somewhere back of beyond, I guess. I've been in some queer holes and corners on this globe in my time--long before I ever took on the Force. Seems he has, too, from what you and Yorke have told me. D----d strange! . . . I've got a fairly good memory for faces but--" He broke off and looked enquiringly at McSporran, who had silently entered just then. "What is it, McSporran?" "Gully, Sirr!" responded the constable, saluting. "He wad wish tu speak wi' ye, Sirr." The inspector's face hardened, and his steely eyes glittered strangely as he heard the news. For a brief space he remained, chin in hand, in deep thought; then rising, he sauntered slowly over to the prisoner's cell. "What is it you want, Gully?" he said quietly. "Kilbride--Inspector!" came the great rumbling bass through the bars. "If you keep me cooped up in this pen much longer . . . I tell you! . . . you'll have me slinging loose in the head--altogether!" He uttered a mirthless, wolf-like bark of a laugh. "My ears are keener than your memory--I heard you speaking just now. Listen!--" a curiously wistful note crept into his deep tones, for the inspector had made an angry, impatient gesture--"Listen, Kilbride! . . . I'm gone up--I know it--therefore, if I sing my 'swan song' now or later, it can matter little one way or the other; and I would rather sing it to you and Slavin and Yorke there than to anyone else. Before I am through, you all may--shall we say--p'raps judge me a trifle less harshly than you do now. Regard this as . . . practically the last request of a man who is as good as dying . . . that--I be allowed to sit amongst you once more . . . and talk, and talk, and ta--" His voice broke, and he left the sentence unfinished. For some few seconds the inspector remained motionless, with bent head, just looking--and looking--in deep, reflective silence at the doomed man who importuned him. "Am I to understand that you wish to make a statement, Gully?" he said, in even, passionless tones. "Remember!--you've been charged and warned, man--whatever you say'll be used in evidence against you at your trial." The other, hesitating a moment, swallowed nervously in his agitation. "Yes," he said huskily, "I know--but that's all right! . . . As I said before--it can make little or no difference . . . in my case. . . ." Turning, Kilbride silently motioned to McSporran to unlock the cell-door. The huge manacled prisoner emerged, and shuffled awkwardly towards the inner room, closely attended by his armed escort. Slavin and Yorke, seated together at one end of the table, arose as Gully entered. Standing curiously still, as if carved in stone, their bitter eyes alone betraying their emotions, silently they gazed at the huge, gaunt, unkempt figure that came shambling towards them. Gully halted and stared long and fixedly at the relentless faces of the two men whose grim, dogged vigilance had led to his undoing. Over his blood-streaked, haggard face there swept the peculiar ruthless smile which they knew so well; and he raised his manacled hands in a semblance of a salute. "_Morituri te salufant_!" he muttered in his harsh, growling bass--the speech nevertheless of an educated man. "Eh, fwhat?" queried Slavin vaguely. The classical allusion was lost on him, but Kilbride and Yorke exchanged a grim, meaning smile as they recalled the ancient formula of the Roman arena. McSporran pushed forward a chair, into which Gully dropped heavily. Chin cupped in hands, and elbows resting on knees he remained for a space in an attitude of profound thought. The inspector, resuming his chair at the table, motioned his subordinates to be seated, and reached forward for some writing materials. "All right, now, Gully!" he began, in a hard, metallic tone. "What is it you wish to say?" All waited expectantly. Apparently with an effort Gully roused himself out of the deep reverie into which be had sunk, and for a space he gazed with blood-shot eyes into the calm, stern face of his questioner. Then, with a sort of dreamy sighing ejaculation, he roused himself and, leaning back in his chair, began the following remarkable story. He spoke in a recklessly earnest manner and with a sort of deadly composure that startled and impressed his hearers in no little degree. "Listen, Inspector," he said. "A good deal of the story I'm going to tell you has no bearing on the--the--the--case in hand. There's no use in you taking all this down. I understand procedure"--he smiled wanly--"therefore, with your permission I'll go ahead, and you can construct a brief statement on your own lines afterwards, which I will sign." Kilbride bowed his head in assent to the other's request. "The name I bear now," began the prisoner,--"'Ruthven Gully'--is my real name, though knocking around the world like I've been since I was a kid of sixteen, and the many queer propositions I've been up against in my time, why--I've found it expedient to use various aliases. "For instance"--he eyed the inspector keenly--"I wasn't known as 'Gully' that time Cronje nailed us all at Doornkop, Kilbride, in 'ninety-six. . . ." Kilbride uttered a startled oath. Shaken out of his habitual stern composure he stared at the man before him in sheer amazement. "Good God!" he cried, "The 'Jameson Raid!' . . . Now I know you, man!--you're--you're--wait a bit! I've got it on the tip of my tongue--Mor--Mor--Mordaunt, by gad! . . . that's what you called yourself then. Ever since I sat with you on that case I've been turning it over in my head where in ever I'd fore-gathered with you before. It was your moustache which fooled me--you were clean-shaven then. . . Well, Well! . . ." He was silent awhile, overcome by the discovery. "Aye!" he resumed in an altered voice, "I've got good cause to remember you, Mor--Gully, I mean. You certainly saved my life that day . . . when we were lying in that _donga_ together. I was hit pretty bad, and you stood 'em off. You were a wonderful shot, I recollect. I saw you flop out six Doppers--one after the other." He turned to Slavin. "Sergeant!" he said quietly, "You'd better leave the leg-irons on, but remove his handcuffs--for the time-being, anyway. . . ." He addressed himself to the prisoner with a sort of sad sternness. "It's little I can do for you now, Gully . . . but I can do that, at least. . . ." Slavin complied with his officer's request. Gully's huge chest heaved once, and he bowed his head in silent acknowledgment of Kilbride's act of leniency. "All right! go ahead, Gully!" said the latter. The prisoner took up his tale anew. "As I was saying--I left the Old Country when I was sixteen. No need to drag in family troubles, but . . . that's why. . . . Well! I hit for the States. Montana for a start off, and it sure was a tough state in 'seventy-four, I can tell you. That's where I first learned to handle a gun. I knocked around between there and Wyoming and Arizona for about nine years, and during that time I guess I tackled nearly every kind of job under the sun, but I punched and rode for range outfits mostly. "Then I was struck with a fancy to see the South, and I drifted to Virginia. I'd been there about two years, working as an overseer on a tobacco plantation, when I got a letter from our family's solicitor recalling me home. My eldest brother had died, and the estate had passed on to me. Where, Inspector?--why, it was at Castle Brompton, a quiet little country town in Worcestershire. "Well! I'd had a pretty rough training--living the life of a roustabout for so many years, and I guess I kind of ran amuck when I struck home. I played ducks and drakes with the estate, and the end of it was . . . I got heavily involved in debt. There seemed nothing for it but to up-anchor, and to sea again in my shirt. So, my fancy next took me to Shanghai, where I obtained a poorly-paid Civil Service job--in the Customs. I stuck that for about a year, and then I pulled out--disgusted. The next place I landed up in was, if anything, worse--the Gold Coast. From there I drifted to the Belgian Congo. I was there for nearly two years doing--well! perhaps it's best for me not to enter into details--we'll call it 'rubber.' It's a cruel country that--one that a man doesn't exactly stay in for his health, anyway; for a bad dose of fever nearly fixed me. It made me fed up with the climate and--the life. So I pulled out of it and went down country to the Transvaal. That's how I came to get mixed up in 'The Raid,' Inspector. I was in Jo'burg at the time it was framed up, so I threw in my lot with the rest of you. "Suddenly I had an overwhelming desire to go back to the States and the range life again. I was properly fed up with Africa. So--back I went there--to Montana again. I punched for one or two cow-outfits awhile, and then came a time when a deputation of citizens came and put it up to me if I'd take on the office of Deputy-Sheriff for ---- County, where I happened to be working. I suppose the fact of my being a little more handy with a gun than most had impressed some of them. Things were running wild there just then, and for awhile I tell you, I was up against a rather dirty proposition. I and my guns certainly worked overtime for a stretch, till I got matters more or less ship-shape. I had the backing of the best people in the community luckily, and eventually I won out. "Then--when the inevitable reaction set in with the peaceable times that followed, somehow I managed to get in bad with some of them. They had no more use for me or my guns. I was like a fish out of water. I decided to pull out, for a strange hankering to see England and my old home again came over me. So I resigned my office and headed back to the Old Country. . . ." At this point in his narrative, Gully dropped his head in his hands and rocked wearily awhile ere continuing haltingly: "It was the mistake of my life--ever going back--to a civilized country. For a time I strove to conduct myself as a law-abiding British citizen--to conform to the new order of things, but--I had been amongst the rough stuff too long. I was out of my sphere entirely. "One day, in a hotel at Leeds, I got into a violent quarrel with a man--fellow of the name of Hammond. It was over a woman. He insulted me--in front of a crowd of men at that--and finally he struck me. Hitherto I'd taken no back-down from any man living, and I guess I forgot myself then and kind of ran amuck--fancied I was back in Montana again. Consequence was--I threw down on him in front of this crowd and shot him dead. "Of course I was arrested and charged with murder in the first degree; but as it was adduced at my trial that I'd received a certain amount of provocation, I was sent down for fifteen years. I'd done little over six months of my time in Barmsworth Prison when I and two of my fellow convicts framed up a scheme to escape. It takes too long to go into details how we worked it. I made my get-away, though I had to abolish a poor devil of a warder in doing so. The other two lost out. One got shot and the other was caught some days later--as I read in the papers. "Well! I managed to reach the States again, and eventually came over this side of the line. As I had been convicted and sentenced under the alias which I had adopted while in England--my real name never coming out--I resumed my name of Gully again when I settled down here. My relatives, what few I possess, have never known of my conviction and imprisonment. All the time I was in England on my second trip I was clean-shaven, but on returning to the States I let my moustache grow once more. As you said, Kilbride--it is a very effectual disguise. Will one of you give me a drink, please? My mouth's pretty dry with all this talking." Yorke got up and brought him a glass of water, and he drank it down with a murmur of thanks. "Now!" he said, continuing his narrative: "I'm coming to the worst part of all. You'll all wonder I've not gone mad--brooding; but I've got to go through with it. When I settled down here I honestly did struggle hard to live down my past and start afresh with a clean sheet. I borrowed some money from an old ex-sheriff friend of mine in Montana--which loan, by the way, I have paid all back--every cent--and bought"--he gazed gloomily at Kilbride--"what was my home. But somehow . . . Fate seems to have dogged me and tripped me up in the end. Until last January everything was going well with me. As Slavin and Yorke here can testify . . . I was conducting myself fairly and squarely with all men. "Then--one day Yorke brought that Blake and Moran case up in front of me. Both of these men I'd met before, but they didn't recognize me again--not absolutely. I usually contrived to keep pretty clear of them for reasons which will appear obvious later. I'm coming to that. Moran I recognised as a former Montana tough who used to hang around Havre--bronco-buster, cow-puncher, and tin-horn by turns. Many a time I've caught him sizing me up, in Cow Run and elsewhere--mighty hard, too, but he never seemed to be sure of me. Once he did chance a feeler, but I just twirled my moustache, à la Lord Tomnoddy, and bluffed him to a finish. "Larry Blake"--a ruthless gleam flickered momentarily in Gully's deep-set, shadowy eyes--"Larry Blake, I recognized as the son of the Governor of Barmsworth Prison--old Gavin Blake. Sometimes this young fellow used to come around with his father, when the old gentleman was making his daily tour of inspection. I well remember the first time I saw him--young Larry. I was chipping stone in the quarry, amongst a gang, with a ball and chain on. I'd been in about two months then. The Governor was showing some visitors around, and his son was with him. They were staring at us like people do at wild animals in a show. I was pointed out to them, and my recent crime mentioned. I remember young Blake eying me with especial interest. He came out to Canada and hit these parts about two years after I'd located here. "Well! now and again when we'd run across each other I'd find him looking at me in a queer, vague fashion, too; but I felt safe enough with him; like I did with Moran--until this case came up. After it was over, he and I happened to be alone, and, in a round-about way, he began asking me questions. He did it so clumsily, though, that my suspicions were aroused at once. Of course I bluffed him--or thought I had--easily for the moment, but one day I happened to be in the Post Office getting my mail when, amongst a bunch of letters on the counter I saw one addressed to 'Gavin Blake, Esq., Governor of Barmsworth Prison, England.' Old Kelly, the postmaster, having his back to me at the time, fumbling around the pigeon-holes, I promptly annexed this letter and slipped it into my pocket. "When I opened it up my suspicions were verified. Young Blake wrote to his father that he'd come across a man whom he could almost swear to as being one of the three convicts who'd broken out of Barmsworth some years back. He asked what steps he'd better take in the case--if the original warrant issued for me could be forwarded to the Mounted Police, and so on. He said his intentions were to try and gain further evidence, and in the meantime to confide in no one about his suspicions until he received definite instructions what steps to take. "I guess the devil must have got a good grip on me again after I'd read that letter. It seemed no use trying to redeem the past with outsiders like young Blake making it their business to butt in and lay one by the heels. Anyway, like Satan at prayers, I didn't feel like being coolly sacrificed when my years of honest effort were drawing near their reward in the shape of a fairly prosperous ranch--just at the whim of a lazy, profligate young busy-body. "From that hour Larry Blake was practically--'gone up.' I'd deliberately made up my mind to put him out of business on the first convenient opportunity that presented itself. That opportunity came on the night he was fighting with Moran in the hotel. I thought I could kill two birds with one stone. I'll admit it was a devilish idea, but I was desperate. Of course things didn't shape out as I'd planned--Moran's alibi for instance, or that hobo, Drinkwater. "I know to you it will only appear sheer nonsense on my part ever to start in attempting to justify my--my abolishment of him. But this--what I am going to tell you--is the absolute truth of what happened. In the first place--when he spotted me bringing Moran's horse into the stable that night--although I was mad and man-handled the poor devil at the time--I felt fairly easy in my mind later, thinking he would drift out of town next day, after the manner of his kind. But when he was brought up in front of me afterwards, I realized the serious predicament I was in." He turned to Slavin. "Sergeant!" he went on: "I'll admit I was feeling pretty queer when you were examining that man--especially about the smelling of drink business. I'd slipped him a snort of whiskey after you'd gone down to Doctor Cox's to get those papers signed. I told him to keep his mouth shut if he was questioned about any horse or man--and that I'd get him off if he obeyed my instructions. Of course he didn't know what all this was for. He had no opportunity of knowing--never did know, though I fancy he thought it was a case of horse-stealing. Anyway, my promises and the drink made him my ally at once. Only human nature for him to side with me against the Police. As you know, Sergeant, you can get more definite results from that class of man by a drink bribe than by all the threats and promises in the world. "My original intention in taking him out to my place was to slip him twenty dollars or so, and head him adrift westward, and so out of things. But after we got home and I put the proposition up to him, the beggar began to assert himself and get bold and saucy--tried to blackmail me for an unheard of amount--threatening he'd go and tell you everything if I didn't come across, and all that. Finally I lost my temper with him and gave him a good slap across the face. He happened to be outside the house bucking wood at the time, and, when I hit him, he came for me with the axe. I only jumped back just in time, as he struck. I threw down on him and put him out of business right-away then, realizing I was up against it." Gully halted for a space and leaned his head in his hands. "God!" he muttered presently, "what nights I've had! I've killed many men in my time, but those two--I hated framing up all that business on you fellows next day--those tracks and the bill-folder, and all that useless chasing for a week, but it seemed to me to be the only plausible bluff I could run on you, under the circumstances. Now, are there any more things you don't understand? Any questions you'd like to ask me?" "Yes!" queried Slavin. "How did you get to Calgary that night--after you'd missed the nine-thirty eastbound. Jump a freight, or what? You were seen to get on the train. . . ." "I know that," said Gully slowly, "I did it for a blind. I walked through the coaches and slipped out again at the far end of the platform--in the dark. No! I didn't jump a freight, Sergeant. I was tempted to; but on second thoughts the idea made me feel kind of uneasy. Perhaps you'll be dubious of this, but, as a fact, I took a 'tie-pass'--walked it all the way to Calgary on the track. I was about done when I made Shagnappi Point, beating my passage through all that snow. I bought a new pair of cow-puncher's boots while I was in town. You remember I was wearing them when I returned. I had the overshoes wrapped up as a parcel and packed them back to the ranch and burnt them--and Drinkwater's boots." "How about that Savage automatic?" said Yorke, "the one you shot those dogs with yesterday? We've got your Luger, but where's the Savage gun?" "Oh, yes!" replied Gully wearily, "of course I had two guns. I never used to pack the Luger around--afterwards, well! . . . for obvious reasons. You'll probably find the Savage in the cellar at my place--that's if it isn't buried, like I nearly was." There was a long silence, broken only by the scratch, scratch, of the inspector's pen, as he rapidly indited a formal statement for the prisoner to sign. Once during its composition he halted for a brief space and, leaning back in his chair, gazed long with a sort of dreary sternness at the huge, unkempt figure before him. "Gully," he said slowly, "whatever in God's name put it into your head to stand off the Police in the way you did? Shooting those two poor chaps and nearly putting the kibosh on five others! Whatever did you hope to gain by it? You must have known it was absolutely impossible for you to make your get-away from us. Why, man! we had you cornered like a wolf in a trap. It was worse than silly and useless and cruel for you to act in the way you did!" "Oh, my God! I don't know!" moaned Gully, rocking despondently with his head in his hands. "I must have gone clean mad for the time being. . . ." He gazed gloomily at Slavin and Yorke, muttering half to himself: "What little things do trip a man up in the end! The best laid schemes o' mice and men! But for my shooting those cursed dogs yesterday you'd never, never have suspected me. The whole thing would just have been filed and forgotten in time--would just have remained one of those unfathomable mysteries. Directly after I'd thrown down on those curs I realized what a d----d bad break I'd made--what my momentary loss of temper was going to cost me. I could tell by the way you all looked at me what was in your minds. . . ." "Yes, but how about that fishing expedition of ours, Gully?" said Yorke. "You seem to have forgotten that." And he related the story of Redmond's dive. "Ah!" retorted Gully, bitterly. "And yet you might have got snagged a hundred times there and only just cursed and snapped your line and reeled in, thinking it was a log or something. . . . Well, as I was saying, I realized the jig was up after that dog business, and directly I got home I began making preparations for my get-away last night. If you'd all only have come half an hour later than you did--That's what made me so mad--just another half hour later, mind you, and I would have been away--en route for the Coast by the night train." Presently Kilbride threw aside his pen and straightened up. "Now, listen, Gully!" he said. And he read out the confession that he had composed from the main facts of the prisoner's remarkable statement. "Yes!" muttered Gully thoughtfully, as the inspector finished. "Yes, that will do, Kilbride. Give me the pen, please, and I will sign it. . . ." He proceeded to affix his signature, continuing with a sort of deadly composure: "I have endorsed and executed many death-warrants in my time--in my capacity of Deputy-Sheriff--I little thought that some day I might be called upon to sign my own . . . which this document virtually is. . . ." He reared himself up to his huge, gaunt height, and with a sweeping glance at his captors added: "Nothing remains for me now I imagine, but to shake hands with--Radcliffe.[1] . . ." And his dreadful voice died away like a single grim note of a great, deep-toned bell, tolled perchance in some prison-yard. "_Eshcorrt_! Get ready!" boomed out Sergeant Slavin's harsh command. The party was on the station platform. Yorke and McSporran fell in briskly on either side of their heavily-manacled prisoner, and stood watching the distant lights of the oncoming east-bound train as it rounded the Davidsburg bend. One last despairing glance Gully cast about him at the all familiar surroundings, then he raised his fettered hands on high and lifted up his great voice: "I have striven! I have striven!--and now!--Oh! there is no God! Bear witness there is no God! No God! . . ." he cried to the heavens. The wild, harsh, dreadful blasphemy rang far and wide out into the night, floating over the nearby river and finally dying away a ghastly murmur up among the timber-lined spurs of Crag Cañon. And a huge, gaunt lobo wolf, lying at the crest of the draw, flung up his gray head and howled back his awful note--seemingly in echo: "There is no God! no God!" [1] Note by Author--Canada's official executioner at this period. CHAPTER XVI "Feel my pulse, sir, if you want to, but it ain't much use to try--" "Never say that," said the Surgeon, as he smothered down a sigh: "Chuck a brace, for it won't do, man, for a soldier to say die!" "What you say don't make no diffrunce, Doctor, an'--you wouldn't lie. . . ." "THE OLD SERGEANT" "Git there! Come a-Haw-r-r, then! Whoa!" With a flourish, Constable Miles Sloan, the Regimental Teamster, swung the leaders of his splendid four-in-hand and pulled up at the front entrance of the Holy Cross Hospital. Slewing around on his high box-seat he addressed himself to the drag's occupants, Slavin and Yorke. "I don't know whether they will let you see him, or not," he remarked doubtfully, "he's a pretty sick man." "We will chance ut, anyway," mumbled Slavin, as he and Yorke climbed out of the rig. "Ye'd best wait awhile, Miles! We shan't be long." Quietly--very quietly, Sister Marthe opened the door of room Number Fifty-six, and with list-slippered noiselessness stepped out into the corridor. "Oh, Mon Dieu!" she ejaculated, startled at the sudden apparition of two scarlet-coated figures standing motionless outside the door, "Oh, m'sieurs, 'ow you fright me!" and the expressive eyes under the white coif and the shoulders and supple hands of the French-Canadian Nursing-Sister made great play. Yorke saluted her with grave courtesy. "Sister," he said anxiously, "how is Constable Redmond doing? Can we see him?" She glanced irresolutely a moment at the handsome, imploring countenance of the speaker, and then her gaze flickered to his huge companion. The silent, wistful appeal she read in the latter's grim, cadaverous face decided her. "_Eheu_!" she said softly, "'e is a ver' seeck man . . . but come then, m'sieurs, if you wish it!" Cautiously they tip-toed into the room behind her. Yes! They decided, he was a "seeck" man all right! So sick that he could not raise his flushed, hollow-cheeked young face from the pillow to salute his comrades with his customary impious bonhomie. Now, gabbling away to himself in the throes of delirium, ever his feverish eyes stared beyond the hospital-walls westwards to Davidsburg. With his brow contracted with an expression of vague worry, he was living over and over again the memorable night in which he had gotten his wound. "Slavin!--Yorkey!" he kept repeating, in tones of such yearning entreaty that moved those individuals more than they cared to show. Yes, they were both of them there, standing by the side of his cot; but the poor sufferer's unseeing eyes betrayed no recognition. The deep sorrow that oppressed Slavin and Yorke just then those worthies rarely--if ever--alluded to afterwards. Passing the love of women is the unspoken, indefinable spirit of true comradeship that exists between some men. For one brief, soul-baring moment the comrades stared at each other, their self-conscious faces reflecting mutually their inmost feelings; then Yorke turned to Sister Marthe. "What does the Doctor say?" he whispered anxiously. The nurse was about to make answer when the door was softly opened and that gentleman entered the room, accompanied by Captain Bargrave and Inspector Kilbride. Involuntarily, from long habit of discipline, Slavin and Yorke, stiffened to "attention" in the presence of their superiors, until, with a kindly, yet withal slightly imperious gesture, the O.C. mutely signified them to relax their formal attitude. The Regimental Surgeon, Dr. Sampson, a tall, gray-moustached, pleasant-faced man, nodded to them familiarly and proceeded to make minute examination of his patient's wound. From time to time he questioned and issued low-voiced instructions to Sister Marthe. Perfectly motionless, the grave-eyed quartette of policemen stood grouped around the cot, silently awaiting the physician's verdict. Throughout, poor Redmond had continued to toss and rave incessantly. Much of his babbling was incoherent and fragmentary--breaking off short in the middle of a sentence or dying away in a mumbling, indistinct murmur. At intervals though, his voice rang out with startling clearness. "Ah-a-a! Here he is!" he cried out suddenly, "Gully!"--all eyes were centred on the flushed, unquiet face and restless hands. There seemed a curious, morbid fascination in watching the workings of that sub-conscious mind. "No use, Gully! You can't make it from there!"--the twitching hands made a motion as of levelling a carbine--"No use, man! I've got you covered. . . . You' better give in! . . ." He paused for a space, panting feverishly, then his eyes became wilder and his speech more rapid. "No! no! Gully!" he gasped out imploringly, "it's Yorkey, I tell you--oh, don't pick off Yorkey! . . . Drink? . . ."--the unnaturally bright eyes stared unseeingly at the motionless figure of the O.C., standing at the foot of the cot--"Not so much--now--since--looking after him. . . . Not a bad chap. . . . We fought once. . . . Yes, Sir! . . . had--hell of a fight! . . . Pax? . . . sure!--bless you!--buried ruddy hatchet--auld lang syne--Slavin. . . . St. Agnes' Eve! . . . How he sings--! Oh, shut up, Yorkey!--Sings, I tell you--! Hark! . . . that's him singin' now--Listen! . . . What? . . . it's Stevenson's 'Requiem'. . . . Burke! Burke! . . . the ----'s always singin' that . . . goes--" And the weak, fretful voice shrilled up in a quavering falsetto-- "_Under the wide--and--starry sky Dig--the grave, and--let me--lie; Glad did I--live, and--gladly die, And I laid--me down with--a w----_" The shaky, pitiful tones died away in vague, incoherent mumblings. Yorke uttered a queer choking sound in his throat, and turned his face away from the little group. Slavin, in silent comprehending sympathy, laid a huge hand on the other's shoulder to steady him. In customary British fashion, the O.C. and the Inspector strove to mask their emotions under an exaggerated grimness of mien, only their eyes betraying their feelings. The former, toying with his sweeping, fair moustache in agitated fashion, gazed drearily around the sick-room till his stern, yet kindly old eyes finally came to rest upon a framed scriptural quotation which was hanging on the wall above the head of the cot. In corpulent, garish, black, red and gold German text the inscription ran: _At even, when the sun was set, The sick, O Lord, around Thee lay; Oh in what divers pains they met! Oh in what joy they went away!_ Abstractedly, the old soldier read and re-read the verse till his eyes ached, and he was forced to lower them and meet the tell-tale ones of Kilbride. The Doctor, with a final satisfied scrutiny of his patient's wound, which he had laid bare, bade the nurse dress it afresh, then, beckoning to the others, he withdrew from the room, followed by the O.C. and his subordinates. The Doctor's first words reassured them in no little degree. "Oh, I've good hopes of him," he said. "He seems to be doing all right. He'll pull around--that is, unless any unforeseen complications set in. It's that journey down here yesterday that's upset him. Absolutely necessary under the circumstances, of course, but--terribly hard on a man in his condition. I think it'll be best for nobody to visit him--for awhile anyway . . . must be kept as quiet as possible. Well! let's have a look at the others!" The remaining wounded men occupied a large, semi-private ward lower down the corridor. Of these last Hardy's case was by far the most serious. He had been shot through the body; the high-pressure Luger bullet luckily missing any vital organ. McCullough had been drilled through the calf of his left leg, Davis through the arm, and Belt had had the knuckles stripped from his right hand. All of them were resting quietly, though weak from loss of blood and the train journey, The O.C. and Kilbride remained for a short time in the ward, manifesting much kindly sympathy for the injured men, then, deeming that perhaps the party was retarding the nurses' ministrations, the O.C. withdrew, beckoning his subordinates to follow him. Slavin and Yorke walked slowly down the hospital steps and climbed into the Police drag again. Sloan gathered up his lines and swung around on his high seat. "Hullo!" he remarked sleepily. "Here you are again, eh? Begun to think you were both in there for keeps! Well, did you see him?" "Yes!" answered Yorke tonelessly, avoiding the teamster's eyes, "We've seen him. Home, James!" Firm, measured footsteps sounded in the hospital corridor and halted with a jingle of spurs outside the door of room Number Fifty-six. "Come aboard!" came the clear, boyish voice of its occupant, in response to a knuckle-tattoo on the panel, and the visitors, Slavin and Yorke, entered. Redmond, sitting up in bed, comfortably propped with pillows, threw aside the magazine he had been reading and greeted the new-comers jovially and with a light in his eyes which did the hearts of those worthies good to see. A month's careful nursing and absolute quiet had transformed their wounded comrade into a somewhat different being from the delirious patient they had beheld when last they stood in that room. Allowing for a slight emaciation and the inevitable hospital pallor, he appeared to be well on the road to convalescence. "Sit at ease!" he said, with a fair semblance of his old grin. "Smoke up if you want to, they don't kick about it here. I've tried it but it tastes rotten as yet. Well! What's doin' in L?" (He referred to the Division.) "Hell, yu' mane," corrected Slavin grimly, as he and Yorke proceeded to divest themselves of their side-arms and unbutton their tunics. "Not much doin' now, but--later, p'raps. . . ." "Just got back from Supreme Court," explained Yorke. "Gully! . . . He's to be 'bumped off' this day-month. . . ." There came a long, tense silence. "G---d!" broke out Yorke suddenly, arousing Redmond out of the deep reverie into which he had sunk on receipt of the news--"the look on that Eugene Aram face of his when the jury filed in and threw the book at him! I can't forget it somehow." "Well! yeh want tu thin!" remarked Slavin bluntly. "Quit ut! . . . d'ju hear? . . . 'Tis no sort av talk, that, for a sick room. . . ." And hereafter they all avoided the sinister subject. Presently McCullough came limping in on his crutches, and ere long that wily individual succeeded with his customary ingenuity in inveigling the company into a facetious barrack-room argument. Later they commenced relating racy stories. Slavin's deep-set eyes began to twinkle and glow, as he unburdened himself of a lengthy narrative concerning a furlough he had spent in his native land many years back, in which Ballymeen Races, a disreputable "welshing" bookmaker, himself, a jug of whiskey and a blackthorn stick were all hopelessly mixed in one grand Hibernian tangle. "Beat ut, he did, over hedge an' bog an' ditch, wid all our money, th' dhirrty dog. But I cud run tu, in thim days, an' whin I caught up I shure did play a tchune on th' nob av um!" concluded the sergeant thoughtfully. In pursuance of his daily round of the wards, Dr. Sampson presently came swinging in amongst them and saluted the party with his usual breezy bonhomie. A universal favourite with the members of the Force his entry was acclaimed with delight. They promptly bade him sit down and contribute--à la Boccaccio--to their impromptu Decameron, which request he (sad to relate) complied with. Amid the roar of laughter that greeted the Doctor's last bon mot, that gentleman looked ruefully at his watch and prepared to depart. "Twenty past twelve!" he ejaculated, "and I've got four more patients to see yet. . . ! Behold the retarding influences of bad company!" "Say, Doctor," enquired Yorke, "how's Hardy doing? Is he bucking up at all? He was pretty down in the mouth last time I saw him." The Doctor's genial countenance clouded slightly. "Well, no!" he said, gravely, "he's not doing well at all. I've been rather worried over him lately. The man's relapsed into a curious state of inertia--seems incapable of being roused. Organically he's nothing to fear now; I'll stake my professional reputation on that. But when a man gets down like he is now, why, the mind often reacts on the body with serious results. If he was in a tropical climate he'd snuff out like a candle. That's all that's retarding his otherwise certain recovery now--if we could only----" Here, McCullough, who had been an interested listener broke in. "Rouse him, Doctor?" he queried, "you say he wants rousing? . . . Is that all? . . . All right then! . . . I know him better than you do--I'll bet you I'll rouse him!" he concluded a trifle brutally. And he swung off on his crutches and presently levered himself into the ward where Hardy lay. In actual bodily recovery the latter's physical condition fully equalled Redmond's, but the brooding, listless demeanor of the patient confirmed only too well the Doctor's diagnosis. Now, sunk in the coma of utter dejection, Hardy was lying back on his pillows like a man weary of life. Sometime earlier, in response to his earnest solicitations, he had been allowed to have his beloved parrot in hospital with him. All day long the disreputable-looking bird gabbled away contentedly as it climbed around in its cage, which had been placed on a small table alongside the cot. McCullough's first move was to resort to the never-failing expedient of arousing the parrot's ire by puffing tobacco-smoke into its cage. Mechanically the outraged bird responded with a shocking blast of invective, winking rapidly its white parchment-lidded eyes and swinging excitedly to and fro on its perch. Hardy admonished the joker--lethargically, but with a certain degree of malevolence in his weary tones. "Aw, chack it, Mac!" he drawled. "W'y carn't yer let th' bleedin' bird alone? Yer know 'e don't like that bein' done t'im. Jes' 'awk t'im tellin' yer as much!" McCullough turned on his crutches and leered awhile upon the speaker with a sort of mournful triumph, than he lifted up his voice in a very fair imitation of Hardy's own unmusical wail---- "Old soldiers never die, never die, never die, Old soldiers never die--they simply fade aw-ay." "I don't think!" he concluded _sotto voce_ to Davis, as that individual, sitting down on the next cot began preparing his wounded arm for the ministrations of Sister Marthe who had just entered the ward. "No use!" McCullough rambled on. "I tell yu' th' man's as good as 'gone up.' Harry. . . . Well! I'll have old Kissiwasti when he pegs out anyway. I won't half smoke-dry th' old beggar then! I'll teach him to swear. . . !" "Eh! . . . 'Ere, wot abaht it?" The cockney's voice held no trace of lethargy now. The sharply-uttered, vindictive query was matched by the blazing eyes which were regarding the farrier-corporal with undisguised hostility. "Wot abaht wot?" mimicked McCullough, though his heart smote him for the cold-blooded evasion. "Wot abaht wot you sed abaht me. . . ?" "Well, wot abaht it. . . ?" Speechless with rage, for a moment Hardy gazed into the other's nonchalant mask-like visage, then, with a gesture of maniacal impotence, he raised his clenched fists high above his head. Sister Marthe now judged it high time to intervene. During the enactment of this little tableau she had stood looking on in mute bewilderment. Despite her imperfect knowledge of English, and especially the vernacular, she had a shrewd intuition of what had passed between the two men. Seizing McCullough by the arm, despite his protestations of injured innocence, she gently, but firmly, escorted him out of the ward. "Vas! vas!--Now you go, M'sieu McCullough! . . . out of ze ward right-away! . . . Vat you say--vat you do--I do not know, but you 'ave excite 'im 'orrible! . . . Oh, _pardonnez-moi_, Docteur!" she ejaculated, as she bumped into that gentleman in the corridor. "Hullo!" said the latter inquiringly, as he remarked the little nurse's flushed, angry face. "What's up, Sister Marthe?" For answer, that irate lady pointed accusingly to McCullough. That worthy, his questionable experiment accomplished, was retreating up the corridor as fast as his crutches could carry him. "First, Docteur," began the nurse indignantly, "'e blow smoke in ze eye of ze parrot, then 'e turn roun' to _pauvre_ M'sieu 'Ardy an' 'e sing--oh, I 'ave not ze English, but 'e _blaguè_ 'im so-- "_Vieux soldats ne meurent! jamais! jamais! jamais! Vieux soldats ne meurent jamais!--ils simplement passent!_" "An' M'sieu 'Ardy 'e say: 'Vat about?' an' then 'e raise 'is two 'ands è Ciel--so! an' 'e tell Le Bon Dieu all about it. Oh, 'ow 'e pray! Ecoutez! Docteur! you can 'ear 'im now! . . ." And awhile Doctor Sampson listened, a grim smile lurking around the corners of his firm mouth, as he leaned against the open door of the ward. "Praying, Sister?" he ejaculated. "It's the queerest kind of praying I've ever heard. But is it him--or is it the parrot?" Two days later he remarked to the O.C. and Kilbride: "I'm glad to be able to report a decided improvement in that man Hardy's condition. His pulse is stronger, his appetite is increasing and--he's beginning to grouse. That old ruffian of a farrier-corporal, McCullough, was right, begad!--he knew the man better than I did. As a general rule I'm inclined to be rather sceptical of such drastic experiments, but in certain cases, er--" "Something of the sort might be beneficial if applied to young Redmond, too," remarked the O.C., testily. "He's down in the dumps now; though to give him his due . . . he tries hard not to show it whenever I happen to be in the hospital. Dudley, my Orderly-room sergeant, is leaving next month--time-expired--so I thought I was conferring a great favour on the boy by promising him the step-up--good staff appointment--give him a chance to recuperate thoroughly. But no!--my young gentleman courteously declines my munificent offer. Nothing must serve him but he must go back to me Irish 'ginthleman' and that d----d dissipated scamp of a Yorke." "It's the spirit of comradeship," remarked Kilbride quietly. "If I might suggest, Sir, . . . I think it would be better if you do decide to let him go back there. They pull well together and do good work, those three." "'Ullo, Reddy!" called out Constable Hardy, as he directed his wobbly steps towards the bench on the hospital balcony where George was seated, "'ow long 'ave you bin up 'ere? Th' O.C. an' Kilbride was round jes' now. You didn't see 'em, eh?" "No," answered Redmond listlessly. And thereupon he relapsed into moody silence. "Wy, wot's up?" enquired Hardy presently, scanning the other's downcast countenance. "Wot's th' matter wiv you, son? . . . you don't look 'appy! . . ." "You bet I'm not, either!" burst out George suddenly. "The Old Man's offered me Dudley's job, but I don't want a staff job. I want to go back to Davidsburg. Who cares to be stuck around the Post?" "Me for one!" retorted the old soldier grinning, "Jes' now, anyway. Listen, son! Th' Old Man 'e sez to me: ''Ardy!' 'e sez, 'you've bin 'it pretty bad and I find you deserve a softer class of dewty than goin' back t' prisoner's escort. I think I'll recommend you for Provo'-Sorjint, in charge o' th' Guard-room, w'en you're able t' return t' dewty,' 'e sez." With an effort Redmond roused himself to the point of congratulating the Cockney upon his prospective promotion. He had no desire to act as a wet blanket on such an auspicious occasion as this, his own troubles notwithstanding. "That ain't all," continued Hardy, with a gloating chuckle. "Th' Old Man, 'e sez 'Belt's bein' invalided, McCullough's gettin' 'is third stripe, an' Dyvis is goin' dahn t' th' Corp'ril's Class at Regina, but that there young Redmond worries me! I don't know wot t' do abaht 'im,' 'e sez--jes' like that--sorter kind-like--not a bit like th' O.C. o' a Division torkin' t' a buck private. "'Beg yer pardon, Sir!' I sez, 'but if you let 'im go back t' Dyvidsburg I fink 'e'll be quite contented. Seems like 'e wants t' be wiv Sorjint Slavin an' Constable Yorke agin.' "'Fink so?' sez 'e, pullin' 'is oweld moustache, 'I sure do, Sir,' I sez. 'So be it, then!' 'e sez, turnin' t' Kilbride, but th' Inspector 'e sez nothin':--'e on'y larfs. An' then they went away." Redmond, giving vent to a delighted oath, came out of his sulks on the instant. "Hardy!" he cried, "you're a gentleman! . . ." "Nay!" was the other's disclaimer. "A dranken oweld soweljer, son . . . that's all." But Redmond heard him not. With elbows resting upon the balcony-rail he was looking beyond the Elbow Bridge, beyond Shagnappi Point--westwards to Davidsburg, his face registering the supreme content of a man who had just attained his heart's desire. 
22220	----	Proofreading Team [Illustration: MOUNTED POLICE ROUNDING UP HORSE THIEVES. _From painting by C. W. Russell, Montana._ _Courtesy of the Osborne Coy., Toronto._] POLICING THE PLAINS BEING THE REAL LIFE RECORD OF THE FAMOUS ROYAL NORTH-WEST MOUNTED POLICE By R. G. MACBETH, M.A., Author of "The Romance of Western Canada." WITH ILLUSTRATIONS HODDER AND STOUGHTON, LTD. LONDON NEW YORK TORONTO MCMXXI CONTENTS I A GREAT TRADITION 7 II ENTER THE MOUNTED POLICE 25 III MOBILIZING 33 IV THE AMAZING MARCH 48 V BUSINESS IN THE LAND OF INDIANS 57 VI HANDLING AMERICAN INDIANS 78 VII THE IRON HORSES 93 VIII RIEL AGAIN 106 IX RECONSTRUCTION 126 X CHANGING SCENERY 141 XI IN THE GOLD COUNTRY 153 XII STIRRING DAYS ABROAD AND AT HOME 175 XIII MODESTY AND EFFECTIVENESS 206 XIV ON LAND AND SEA 233 XV GLORY AND TRAGEDY IN THE NORTH 255 XVI STRIKING INCIDENTS 266 XVII THE GREAT WAR PERIOD 281 XVIII GREAT TRADITIONS UPHELD 297 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Mounted Police Rounding Up Horse Thieves (_Frontispiece_) Sir John A. Macdonald 16 Hon. Alexander Mackenzie 16 Hudson Bay: R.N.W.M. Police with Dogs 17 Major-General Sir A. C. Macdonnell, K.C.B., C.M.G., D.S.O. 32 Major-General Sir Samuel B. Steele, K.C.B., etc. 32 Superintendent A. H. Griesbach 33 Inspector J. M. Walsh 33 Commissioner A. G. Irvine 48 Commissioner George A. French 48 Commissioner James F. Macleod 49 Commissioner Lawrence W. Herchmer 49 Sitting Bull 64 Colonel James Walker 65 Colonel T. A. Wroughton 112 Lieut.-Col. Aylesworth Bowen Perry, C.M.G. 112 Colonel Cortlandt Starnes 113 R.N.W.M. Police Wood Camp, Churchill River 113 Indian Tepee 128 Dog-Train 129 Yukon Rush: Summit, Chilcoot Pass 144 Group of Indian Children on Prairie 145 Chilcoot Pass: R.N.W.M. Police and Custom House 160 Klondyke Rush: Squaw Rapids, between Canyon and 161 White Horse Rapids, 1898 Supt. Constantine in Winter Uniform on the Yukon 176 Piegan Indians at Sun-Dance 177 Rev. R. G. Macbeth, M.A. 192 Group, R.N.W.M. Police, Tagish Post, Yukon 193 Fort Selkirk, Yukon 208 Esquimaux Family 209 Coronation Contingent, London, 1911 224 Indians Receiving Treaty Payment on Prairie 224 Fort Fitzgerald, Athabasca 225 Ice-bound Government Schooner 225 Herschell Island, Yukon Territory 240 Esquimaux Visiting R.N.W.M. Police Tent 240 Barracks at Fort Fitzgerald, Great Slave River 241 R.N.W.M. Police Shelter, Great Slave Lake 241 Cabin of Rev. Fathers Le Roux and Rouvier 241 R.N.W.M. Police Barracks, Churchill, Hudson Bay 256 Police with Dogs and Equipment on Split Lake, N.W.T. 257 Inspector Fitzgerald 272 Supt. Charles Constantine 272 Inspector La Nauze 273 CHAPTER I A GREAT TRADITION A few years ago I was away north of Edmonton on the trail of Alexander Mackenzie, fur trader and explorer, who a century and a quarter before had made the amazing journey from the prairies over the mountains to the Pacific Coast. We looked with something like awe and wonder at the site of the old fort near the famous Peace River Crossing, from which, after wintering there in 1792, he had started out on that unprecedented expedition, and we followed up the majestic Peace to Fort Dunvegan, past whose present location Mackenzie had gone his adventurous way. And during our trip we came across a little frontier encampment building itself into a primitive wooden town in view of the advent of a railway that was heading that way. It was a characteristic outfit with lax ideas in regard to laws which touched upon personal desires as to gambling, strong drink, Sunday trading and the rest. These men were out to make money as their type has been on most of the frontiers of civilization, and the unwary traveller or the lonely settler who ventured unduly was promptly fleeced of his possessions and turned out amidst a good deal of revelry in the hours of night. And then one day there rode into that shack-town a young athlete in a uniform of scarlet and gold, the rough-rider hat, the tunic of red, the wide gold stripe to the top of the riding boots and the shining spurs. He rode in alone from the nearest post some 60 miles away and, when he dismounted, threw off the heavy saddle and picketed his horse, a sudden air of orderliness settled on the locality. The young man, going around with that characteristic cavalry swing, issued a few warnings, tacked up a notice or two and then saddling his rested steed rode away at a canter over the plain. But the air of orderliness remained in that region after the horseman had disappeared over the horizon just as if he were still present. This was puzzling to a newcomer who was along, and he asked me what manner of man this young rider was that he was received with such deference and that his orders, so quietly given, were so instantly and so continuously obeyed. The answer was made out of a life-long acquaintance with the history and the real life of Western Canada: "Well, it is not the young constable himself that counts so mightily, though he is a likely looking fellow enough who could be cool anywhere and who could give ample evidence of possessing those muscles of steel which count in a hand-to-hand encounter. But you see he is one of that widely known body of men called the Royal North-West Mounted Police. They have patrolled and guarded and guided this whole North-West Country for the last forty years and more. During that period they have built up a great tradition which rests on a solid foundation of achievement. Their reputation for courage is unchallenged, their record for giving every man of whatever race or colour a square deal is unique, their inflexible determination to see that law is enforced is well known and their refusal to count the odds against them when duty is to be done has been absolutely proven again and again. All these elements and others have created the Mounted Police tradition to such an extent that the one constable you saw is looked on as the embodiment of the Empire which plays no favourites but which at the same time will stand no nonsense from anyone. And perhaps most wonderful of all is that part of their record which shows that they have done all this and more without any violence or repression, except as a last resort. They were always more ready and anxious to save human life than to destroy it." "All that is very interesting," said my friend; "I would like to hear more about these men, and would be glad if you would tell me something of their history." And out there under the open sky of the North Country, with the stars sparkling above us and the Aurora Borealis dancing and swishing over our heads in a wonderful panorama of colour and movement, we talked long into the night about the men in scarlet and gold. Their whole story could not be told in a night, but the eager interest of the listener and the creation of a new pride in things Canadian in his heart, led me to resolve that the history he was seeking should some day be published to the world. Many requests for the story have come since that night in the Peace River country, and now that one period of Police history is closing through the extension of the jurisdiction of the Force over the whole Dominion, East as well as West, accompanied by the word "Canadian" in their title instead of "North West," the time seems opportune for a real-life record of what these men throughout the years have meant to Canada. Such a record should cause every Royal Canadian Mounted Police recruit to realize that he has to be worthy of the tradition built up by the achievements of nearly half a century through valorous men, many of whom have now passed over the Great Divide. It will deepen in all men of sincerity a respect for authority in a restless age. And it will bring into the light facts hitherto unrevealed that will fill all men with pride in their country. I know that the men of the Mounted Police have been averse to saying anything about themselves. They have the usual British characteristic of reticence intensified. But though I have been brigaded with them on active service, I have not been a member of the corps, and hence do not feel bound by their policy of silence. Let the plain truth, which is always stranger than fiction, be told about these gallant riders as an inspiration to young Canadians and to men of the blood everywhere. With this purpose in view I am now keeping the resolution made that night in the North, as I am in this book extending and telling to a larger audience the story then unfolded to an individual. My humble hope is that the larger audience may be equally interested. THE WIDE WESTLAND In the year of Grace 1920, we, in the West, celebrated with enthusiasm the birthday anniversary of the Hudson's Bay Company, which has attained to the ripe old age of 250 years. Yet the eye of this ancient organization is not dimmed by time, nor does its power show signs of impairment. As it is around this old and honourable commercial and colonizing concern that the early history of Western Canada principally revolves, a few paragraphs on this subject seem to be necessary as we begin our story. We must have proper historical setting for the entrance of our famous police force on the stage of Western Canadian history. About the end of the first decade of the seventeenth century, Henry Hudson, the intrepid navigator who was looking for a North-West Passage by water through the North-American Continent to the Western Sea, discovered the great Bay which bears his name to this day. Marooned by a mutinous crew, he paid for the discovery with his life, after the manner of many pathfinders, but he had unlocked a new Empire for the human family. Then for years there was silence around the Bay which Hudson had opened at such great cost to himself. Away in the East, following the early explorations along the banks of the St. Lawrence in old Canada, adventurous hunters and trappers began to push their way westward and northward, past the Great Lakes to the prairie land beyond. This was about the middle of the seventeenth century, and at that period the New World was full of opportunity for the daring who saw visions beyond the sky-line. And so it came to pass about half a century after Hudson's time that two French adventurers, Radisson and Groseilliers, reaching out from the St. Lawrence to the wide north-west, came into contact with Indian tribes who told about the great bay to the north and the vast riches of the region in furs and skins. These adventurers went to see for themselves and they found that the half had not been told. And because, despite many theories, no one has ever discovered a way to carry on a big enterprise without capital, these hardy pioneers returned to the East and endeavoured to organize a trading company from amongst their French compatriots. But the enthusiasm of the men who had seen could not awaken response in the men who had not seen. The faculty of faith was not very highly developed in these French habitants by the St. Lawrence. But the zeal of Radisson and Groseilliers was unquenchable. They tried Boston in vain, and then betook themselves to France, where they were not any more successful, except that they got a letter of introduction to some men of leading in England. The Englishman generally loves a sporting chance for exploration and discovery, and so Prince Rupert, more or less a soldier of fortune who had lent his name and his sword to almost anything that offered a possibility of adventure or substance, took up the matter of the fur trade and was instrumental in sending out vessels with Radisson and Groseilliers to prospect on the shores of Hudson Bay. Once again the men who went and saw came back, not only with tales of an El Dorado in fur, but with the furs themselves, and the dashing Prince forthwith secured from the easy-going Charles II a monopolistic charter to trade and generally to control the whole vast region drained by rivers that emptied into Hudson Bay. The territory thus granted, with more added later by licences, extended generally speaking from the Great Lakes to the Pacific and from mid-continent to the North Pole. It was as large as half a dozen European Kingdoms and has become one of the greatest adjuncts of the British Empire, but King Charles did not know nor care much more about it than the French king who later on gave up Canada with a light heart, saying it was only "a few hundred acres of snow." It is not our duty in this book to follow the fortunes of "the Governor and Company of the Adventurers of England trading into Hudson Bay" as the Royal Charter described this little band of less than a score of men to whom had been handed over the control of half a continent. It is enough to say that the Hudson's Bay Company, as the popular habit of shortening long titles rendered it, held this vast region for two whole centuries. During that time the immense resources of the country tempted others to disregard the monopolistic provisions of the Royal Charter and to venture in upon forbidden ground. Companies such as the North-West Fur Company, formed by the Scottish merchants of Montreal, rushed to secure part of the rich harvest in trade that was being reaped by the English Company, whose employees, it may be said, were largely the hardy Scots from the Highlands and Islands. But the leaders of the Hudson's Bay Company, "stabbed broad awake" by this opposition and strengthened by the trustworthiness and endurance of their employees, held their ground and extended their operations till they by degrees absorbed all opponents and became in 1821 monarchs of all they surveyed. Meanwhile in the Old Land many things of world-wide interest and influence had been transpiring. The years around the opening of the nineteenth century were made stormy by the Napoleonic effort to subjugate Europe and while their men of military age were away fighting for the liberty of Europe against "the little giant of Corsica," certain areas in the north of Scotland were "cleared" of their inhabitants by heartless landlords who felt that sheep were more profitable for the owner of estates than human tenants. To these evicted crofters in the Highlands came that noble altruist and philanthropic colonizer, the Earl of Selkirk, who, having obtained from the Hudson's Bay Company an immense district principally in what is now Manitoba, offered the outcasts of a tyrannous land system homes in the great free spaces of Rupert's Land, as the Hudson Bay territory was called. The offer was accepted thankfully, and in the years from 1812 to 1815 these Selkirk colonists came to the Red River of the North. It is not part of this story to follow the fortunes of these famous colonists of whom I have written more particularly in _The Romance of Western Canada_. They encountered unaccustomed climatic obstacles, they were persecuted and hunted by the fur-trading opponents of their benefactor, they were tried by the disasters of floods and by plagues of devouring locusts, but with the dogged and stern determination of their race and creed they held on and demonstrated to the world the possibilities of a country which is now the granary of the Empire. And the world got to hearing of this Arcadian Colony of Scots in the new North-West. So when the old Provinces of the East were brought together under the name of the Dominion of Canada in 1867, the men of light and leading at Ottawa lost no time in looking westward to secure the vast western domain for the new Confederation. Despite the difficulty of travel, settlers had already begun to percolate from Eastern Canada through the States or the wilderness spaces west of the Great Lakes, into the Red River country made famous by the Selkirk Colony. And it had been becoming more and more apparent to the Hudson's Bay Company itself as well as to others that the great fur-trading and mercantile organization could no longer adequately administer an area which was soon to overflow with the human sea of an incoming population. For many years previous to Confederation the Hudson's Bay monopoly in trade had been more or less of a figment of the imagination and no one knew that better than the Company itself. It still retained its monopoly nominally, but it made very little effort to restrain the half-breed and other "free traders" who opened up stores and bartered for furs with the Indians. In any case in one form or other all the trade of the country practically came, in the last analysis, through the Hudson's Bay Company, who controlled the money market by having their own bills in circulation. But the wise old Company saw what was coming and began to get ready to let go its monopolistic fur-trading charter and adjust itself to the new conditions. Hence it was not a difficult matter to persuade the Company to give up its charter for a consideration. My father, who was a member of the Council of Assiniboia, a magistrate, and a close personal friend of Governor McTavish, who was in charge at Fort Garry on the Red River where settlement had begun, always used to say that the Hudson's Bay Company was glad to find a reasonable way of getting the responsibility for the government of the growing country off its hands. Accordingly, when the Canadian Government deemed the time was ripe, two members of that Government, the Hon. Sir George E. Cartier and the Hon. William McDougall, were sent to London to negotiate with the Imperial authorities for the transfer of the North-West to Canada. In view of the attitude taken by the Hudson's Bay Company, as stated above, the matter was not difficult to arrange. And after a brief discussion in London, the famous old fur-trading organization, which had held charter rights since the days of Charles II, relinquished those rights to the Imperial Government for £300,000 sterling, certain reservations around their trading posts, along with one-twentieth of the land in the fertile belt. Then, as previously understood, the Imperial Government was to transfer the vast North-West to Canada, which in turn undertook to respect and conserve the rights of the people in the area thus added to the Dominion. This arrangement was concluded in the spring of 1869, and it was then expected that the purchase money would be paid on the 1st of October following, and that probably on the 1st of December the Queen's Proclamation would issue, setting forth these facts and fixing the date of the actual transfer to Canada. So far all was well. The ideas leading up to the acquisition of this great domain were in every sense statesmanlike, and, if carefully carried out, were calculated to be of the greatest benefit to the people in the new territory and the Dominion as well. We should pay unstinted tribute to the men whose ideals were for an ever-widening horizon, and who felt that "no pent-up Utica should confine the powers" of the young nation just beginning to stretch out and exercise its potentially giant limbs. Once the older Provinces in the East were brought into Confederation it was wise to look forward to a Canada stretching from ocean to ocean, and to take the necessary legal steps to secure the broad acres of the West as part of the Dominion. But just when everything seemed to be going well a cog in the diplomatic equipment of the Canadian Government power-house slipped and taking advantage of the occasion, one Louis Riel, the son of the old hot-headed agitator on the Red River, threw a wrench into the machinery. The Canadian authorities who wisely carried through the negotiations with the Hudson's Bay Company and the Imperial Government seem to have blundered by overlooking the fact that the new territory had within its borders some 10,000 people, apart from the Indians, who ought to have been informed in some official way of the bargain that was being made, and of the steps that were being taken to conserve the rights and privileges of these early settlers. It is true that rumours of the transaction reached the Red River country through unauthoritative sources, but the main result was to produce a feeling of uneasiness amongst the people there. And especially was this the case when the rumours were given point by overt acts. Even before the transfer of the country had been legally completed men were sent out from the East to open roads from the Lakes into the settlements. Surveying parties entered the new territory and went hither and thither, driving their stakes and erecting their mounds, to the bewilderment of the people, and to cap all the indiscretions, a Governor, the Hon. William McDougall, was dispatched from Ottawa to the Red River before the Hudson's Bay regime was formally superseded and before a Queen's Proclamation, which would have been instantly recognized by all classes in the community, was issued. The Selkirk Settlers and other people of that class, however perplexed at the procedure, had the utmost confidence that the Canadian authorities would ultimately do substantial justice to all, and hence they awaited patiently though somewhat anxiously the developments of time. But the French half-breeds, more fiery and more easily excited, more turbulent of spirit and warlike in disposition, accustomed to more or less fighting on the plains, and withal, as a class, less well informed than their white brethren, were not content to wait. They felt that the course being followed by the Canadian authorities might lead to the loss of their rights, and so they rose in a revolt, that while accomplishing some of the objects that could have been reached by constitutional means, left its red stream across that early page of our history. But in the midst of all our statements let it be remembered, in mitigation of the attitude of the Canadian authorities, that communication between Ottawa and the West at that period was very difficult. There were no railways nor telegraphs and the mails were few and far apart. Though, on the other hand, that condition of things should have made all parties more tolerant and cautious. Strange that the two Louis Riels, father and son, should lead in agitations that were somewhat contradictory. The elder Riel was a famous antagonist of the Hudson's Bay Company regime with its apparent or alleged monopoly in trade, and the younger Riel, while no lover of the Company, opposed the Canadian Government which was to replace it. The truth seems that they were both temperamentally against authority and that they were both afflicted with a megalomania which led each to imagine that he was some great one. [Illustration: SIR JOHN A. MACDONALD. Who, while Premier, founded the Mounted Police. (_Photo, Pittaway Studios, Ottawa._)] [Illustration: HON. ALEXANDER MACKENZIE. Who, while Premier, organized the Mounted Police. (_Photo, Pittaway Studios, Ottawa._)] [Illustration: HUDSON BAY: R.N.W.M. POLICE WITH DOGS.] The younger Riel had the "bad eminence" of leading two rebellions in Western history before winding up his tragic career on the scaffold at Regina. He it was who opposed the entrance of Governor McDougall to the Red River in 1869. He it was who, after having stopped the Governor, rode down and captured Fort Garry in which he and his men fared sumptuously all that winter out of the Hudson's Bay Company store. He it was who imprisoned those who opposed him and ordered the shooting of Thomas Scott, a young Canadian prisoner--an act which estranged from the rebel chief the sympathy of many who believed that he had some grounds for protest against the incoming of authority without any guarantee of the settler's rights. But the reign of the rebel was not long. The Imperial authorities who have never forgotten the teaching of history in the loss of the American colonies, have more than once called the governments in free colonies to a sense of their duty and have followed up their advice with military backing if necessary. And both were forthcoming in this case. The hand of the good Queen Victoria is seen in the following dispatch from Earl Granville to Sir John Young, Governor-General of Canada: "The Queen has heard with surprise and regret that certain misguided persons have banded together to oppose by force the entry of our future Lieutenant-Governor into our territory in Red River. Her Majesty does not distrust the loyalty of her subjects in that settlement, and can only ascribe to misunderstanding and misrepresentation their opposition to a change planned for their advantage. "She relies on your Government to use every effort to explain whatever misunderstanding may have arisen--to ascertain the wants and conciliate the goodwill of the people of Red River Settlement. But in the meantime she authorizes you to signify to them the sorrow and displeasure with which she views the unreasonable and lawless proceedings which have taken place, and her expectation that if any parties have desires to express or complaints to make respecting their conditions and prospects, they will address themselves to the Governor-General of Canada. "The Queen expects from her representative that as he will be always ready to receive well-founded grievances, so will he exercise all the power and authority she entrusted to him in support of order and the suppression of unlawful disturbances." The closing paragraph of this fine message indicates the traditional British Empire position, that though grievances will be heard and remedied, there will be no quarter given to any nonsense on the part of rebels. And it was in keeping with this position that Colonel (later Field Marshal Sir Garnet) Wolseley was dispatched to the Red River country with regular troops, who arrived at their destination only to find that Riel and his forces had decamped before their arrival. Two regiments from Eastern Canada came later and remained on duty at Fort Garry for some time after the regulars under Wolseley had returned home. The Red River country was ushered into Confederation as the Province of Manitoba, and the Hon. Adams George Archibald, of Nova Scotia, was sent out from Ottawa in 1870 as Lieutenant-Governor. He took a rough census of the country and with the resultant crude voters' list the first regular Western Legislature was soon elected and at work. But west and north of this little Province of Manitoba, itself sparsely settled, lay an immense hinterland stretching nearly a thousand miles to the Rocky mountains and northward to the pole itself. This enormous area, then commonly called "The Saskatchewan," was unpeopled except for thousands of Indians, many groups of nomadic buffalo-hunters mostly half-breeds, a few scattered missions of various churches, and a large number of Hudson's Bay Company trading posts. Manitoba was under the oversight of a regularly constituted Government and Legislature. But out in the vast north-west hinterland it was a sort of interregnum time, in view of the fact that the Hudson's Bay Company, which had controlled the country for two centuries, had given up its charter and authority to the Dominion of Canada which had legally but not yet visibly taken possession. Or, to change the figure, the period was, governmentally speaking, a sort of "No man's land" with one party technically out of possession and the other not yet recognized by the traders or Indians as being in control. Such a situation gave a great deal of opportunity for lawlessness by warring tribes, horse-thieves, whisky peddlers, boot-leggers and all the rest of that ilk. And the proximity to the American boundary line making escape easy was an additional temptation to the lawlessly inclined. That this class did not allow the opportunity to go by unused soon became apparent to men who were upon the ground. Mr. Lawrence Clark, a noted Hudson's Bay officer, whom I remember in his later years, handsome, eager, alert and well-informed, said that both traders and Indians were learning the dangerous lesson that the Queen's orders could be disregarded with impunity. And it is now pretty well known that our good Queen and her advisers who had been shocked by the Riel outbreak in 1869 were concerned for the good government of the vast domain that had been recently handed over by the Imperial Government to Canada. It was not the British way to allow things to get out of hand, nor to permit wards of the nation, like the Indians, to become the victims of the lawless in trade and in morality. Hence the Governor-General of Canada received for himself and his responsible advisers more than one dispatch from the Headquarters of the Empire admonishing that steps should be taken to preserve peace in the vast new domain and to give all who would immigrate thither the proper British safeguards as to life and liberty and the pursuit of their lawful avocations. And, of course, the Canadian authorities, chagrined over the Riel outbreak and having some knowledge of the immense responsibilities they had assumed by taking over the North-West, were anxious to prevent anything that would make the new country unattractive to the people who were desirous of coming with their families to settle within its borders. As a result of all this, Governor Archibald, of Manitoba, within a few weeks after his arrival in Fort Garry, took steps to secure a report on conditions on "The Saskatchewan," outside the Province where he was the representative of the Crown. The fact that he did this so soon after assuming office and when matters in his own Province required special attention, indicates strongly the pressure that had been brought to bear upon the Canadian authorities by headquarters. And when a man was required for the special mission out over the far North-West he was there on the spot in the person of Lieutenant W. F. Butler of the 69th Regiment, afterwards famous as Sir William Butler, of South Africa. On account of his splendid powers of endurance, his great faculty for observation and his remarkable literary genius, he was a man with unique qualifications for the task--the difficult and delicate task--to which Governor Archibald called him. A person has to be sadly destitute in the religious sense to believe that Butler was on hand by accident. It is exceedingly interesting to find that another man, who afterwards became noted in South Africa, namely the bluff and valiant fighter, Redvers Buller, was in the Red River expedition with Wolseley and had been mentioned in connection with the mission to the North-West hinterland. Years afterwards in the Boer War time this same Redvers Buller, then commanding the British forces on the veld, said to Colonel Sam B. Steele, of Strathcona's Horse, who also had served under Wolseley: "I know Lord Strathcona very well: when I was at Fort Garry on the Red River Expedition he spoke to me about going out over the plains to investigate conditions, but I was recalled to my regiment and Governor Archibald sent Butler out instead, a good thing too; for he wrote a very good book on his journey which I could not have done." And this big-hearted, manly, generous reference by Buller properly indicated that he not only recognized his own limitations, but was glad to pay tribute to the literary genius who wrote that Classic _The Great Lone Land_ and the noble biography of General Gordon of Khartoum. But Butler had more than literary gifts. He had, as already stated, great powers of observation and that remarkable faculty for forecasting, which was exemplified, then, on Canadian prairies as it was later on the South African veld. In the book _The Great Lone Land_, to which allusion has been made, Butler tells us with manly frankness that in 1869 he had come to a standstill in his career as a soldier, because he had neither the means nor influence to secure any promotion in such a piping time of peace. And so, when news of the Riel Rebellion in the far West drifted to London, Butler cabled to Canada for an opportunity to serve in the Red River Expedition. He immediately followed his cablegram, but on his arrival found himself too late for a place. However he was given a special mission to go from Toronto to Fort Garry by way of the United States in order to find out how the people of that country along the boundary looked at matters on the Red River. Butler went on to Fort Garry, passed through the rebel zone, met Wolseley and with him entered Fort Garry, which had just been evacuated by Riel. As things quieted, Butler was going to leave for the East, when Governor Archibald got hold of him, as stated, and sent him out over the West to report on conditions and make recommendations. He left Fort Garry in October, 1870, treked 900 miles to the Rocky Mountains, then wheeled northward to Edmonton and down the Saskatchewan River to Lake Winnipeg, boxing the compass so far as the great hinterland of the plains was concerned. He heard much and saw more, witnessed the smallpox scourge lashing the Indian tribes, saw the general disquiet and disorder with no one in control. The steed of the far West was riderless, the reins had been thrown away and the country was running wild. Butler's report is graphic in the extreme and has many recommendations, but the one that mainly concerns us just now is that which advises the establishment of constituted authority with sufficient force to back it up, for it was that recommendation which led to the establishment, though delayed strangely for two years more, of the famous corps known originally to history as the North-West Mounted Police. The particular wisdom of Butler's recommendation lies in the fact that he advocated along with the civil government a material force which would be located "not at fixed points or forts." For he said that any force so located "would afford little protection outside the immediate circle of these points and would hold out no inducements to the establishment of new settlements." Wise man was Butler who saw that settlers must be secured to pour into this vast country and make it the granary of the Empire, and that a force movable enough to be readily at the call of scattered settlements would be absolutely necessary. The sequel has proven how well Butler forecasted events because settlers by the thousand soon desired to come and it was the presence of the Mounted Police that gave to these settlers the sense of security that made it possible for them to turn the vast plains into waving fields of grain and cause the wide areas of pasture land to shake under the tread of domestic herds. And the other special point in which Butler's wisdom in recommendation comes out in regard to the force to be established is where he states that such a force should be independent of any faction or party either in church or state. His wise hint in this regard was taken and followed, and hence all through their history the Mounted Police have gone their way, caring for nothing and for nobody in their intentness on doing their duty. It is quite well known to some of us that in many places on the plains, in the mountains and away in the land of the golden Yukon, the Police were often strongly urged to relax their vigilance in the interests of some political party or some business that was financially concerned. But all such temptations fell on deaf ears, and the scarlet-coated riders, looking on intimidation and efforts at bribery with contempt, pursued the even tenor of their way and gave every man a square deal according to his deserts no matter who he was or to what colour the sun and the wind had burned his skin. Such was the force which this wise recommendation of Butler called into existence. That such a force would have no sinecure and would have no room for "misfits or failures," Butler tells us in 1870 in that clause of his report in which he says, "As matters at present rest, the region of the Saskatchewan is without law, order or security for life or property; robbery and murder for years have gone unpunished; Indian massacres are unchecked even in the close vicinity of the Hudson's Bay Company posts and all civil and legal institutions are entirely unknown." It was high time for government control with an adequate material force to give it power. And because I have referred to Butler's foresightedness it would be unfair to his memory to close this section without quoting the magnificent paragraph with which he ended his report in March of 1871. It reads as follows: "Such, sir, are the views which I have formed upon the whole question of the existing state of affairs in the Saskatchewan country. They result from the thought and experience of many long days of travel through a large portion of the region to which they have reference. If I were asked from what point of view I have looked upon this question, I would answer--From that point which sees a vast country lying, as it were, silently awaiting the approach of the immense wave of human life which rolls unceasingly from Europe to America. Far off as lie the regions of the Saskatchewan from the Atlantic seaboard, on which that wave is thrown, remote as are the fertile glades which fringe the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains, still that wave of human life is destined to reach those beautiful solitudes, and to convert the wild luxuriance of their now useless vegetation into all the requirements of civilized existence. And if it be matter of desire that across this immense continent, resting on the two greatest oceans of the world, a powerful nation should arise with the strength and the manhood which race and climate and tradition would assign to it--a nation which would look with no evil eye upon the old motherland from whence it sprung; a nation which, having no bitter memories to recall, would have no idle prejudices to perpetuate--then surely it is worthy of all toil of hand and brain, on the part of those who to-day rule, that this great link in the chain of such a future nationality should no longer remain undeveloped, a prey to the conflict of savage races, at once the garden and the wilderness of the central continent." These great words were written nearly half a century ago. What has taken place in Western History within that time shows how this remarkable man "had his ear to the ground," as the Indians used to express it and that he was in effect saying, with Whittier: "I hear the tread of nations, Of Empires yet to be; The dull low wash of waves where yet Shall roll a human sea." CHAPTER II ENTER THE MOUNTED POLICE Great bodies are proverbially slow in their movements, and in this regard all governments seem to be great bodies. It may be that a healthy difference of opinion within a cabinet tends to cautious procedure, but that type of caution is rather trying on people whose nerves tingle for action. The first Government of Canada under that astute and tactful statesman, John A. Macdonald, was a sort of composite organization which needed careful handling to prevent explosions, and some vast new problems such as the construction of a transcontinental railway were in that day swinging into politics. So, despite Butler's urgent report in 1871 and the rumours more or less exaggerated of intertribal Indian fights with the accompaniments of massacre and scalping-knife torture, the Government took another year to think over it, and in 1872 sent Adjutant-General P. Robertson-Ross to make a general reconnaissance and bring back further expert opinion. And Colonel Ross, after many many months of travelling, brought in a quite pronounced series of suggestions pointing out the great need for such a force as Butler had suggested, and definitely advised the placing of detachments of "mounted riflemen" all the way from Manitoba to the Rockies, and for that matter from the boundary line to the Pole. It is interesting to note in this report of Colonel Robertson-Ross a reference to the matter of the uniform of the proposed force in the following paragraph: "During my inspection in the North-West, I ascertained that some prejudice existed amongst the Indians against the colour of the uniform worn by the men of the Rifles, for many of the Indians said, 'Who are these soldiers at Red River wearing dark clothes? Our old brothers who formerly lived there (meaning H.M.S. 6th Regiment) wore red coats,' adding, 'we know that the soldiers of our great mother wear red coats and are our friends.'" The Indians like the bright colour, but they also in this case connected it with the regular regiment that had come to the Red River to keep the peace. Referring to this same subject of uniform, Mr. Charles Mair, noted author and frontiersman, recently said: "There is a moral in colour as in other things, and the blind man who compared scarlet to the sound of a trumpet was instinctively right. It does carry with it the loud voice of law and authority so much needed in this disjointed time. It disconcerts the ill-affected and has no small bearing in other ways." The Hon. Frank Oliver, of Edmonton, who has known the West from the early days, wrote not long ago on this point: "For nearly half a century throughout Canada's great plains, the red coat of the Mounted Policeman was the visible and definite assurance that right was might. A red speck on the horizon was notice to both weak and strong, honest and dishonest, that the rule of law prevailed; while experience taught white men and red that 'Law' meant even-handed justice as between man and man without fear or favour." "The red coat was evidence that wherever the wearer was, he was there with authority. In any other colour he might have escaped hostile observation. Not so when clad in red." Following Colonel Ross' report in 1872 the Government at Ottawa was subjected to a sort of fusillade on the question from the floor of the House of Commons. Hon. Alexander MacKenzie (afterwards Premier), Hon. Dr. John Schultz (later Sir John, Governor of Manitoba, who had been imprisoned by Louis Riel and had escaped with a price on his head), an ardent Canadian, Hon. William Cunningham, a newspaper man from Winnipeg, Hon. Donald A. Smith, a Hudson's Bay Company man (who as Lord Strathcona was to have such a large share in the making of the West) and the Hon. Letellier de St. Just were some of the members who wanted to know what the Government was contemplating in view of all the reports received. Sir John A. Macdonald, who took special pride in the police in later years, and the Hon. Joseph Howe, whose office was to look after the West, said that the Government was fully alive to the situation and would act in due time. As a matter of fact the Government, especially Sir John, had been for some time in consultation with experienced service men, notably Major (later Colonel) Arthur Henry Griesbach, who was in Ottawa for many months advising in regard to the force of which he was afterwards to become one of the earliest and most honoured members. It also emerged later that Sir John and his associates had been making some study of such famous organizations as the Irish Constabulary, and that he had set his mind on having a force that would be distinguished for hardiness in service and readiness in response to calls of duty rather than for "fuss and feathers," as he expressed it in his favourite way. Finally, on May 3, 1873, the Premier moved for leave to introduce a bill dealing with the administration of justice and for the establishment of a police force in the North-West Territories. It was adopted by the House on May 20, and so the organization of the now famous corps was definitely on its way. An interesting fact was that this was to be a civil force in uniform, not a military organization subject to the Queen's regulations, but dependent for discipline upon the personality of the officers, the esprit de corps that would be generated and the _noblesse oblige_ idea that would emerge in the course of service. And all these things actually developed as we shall see in the process of this story. Having finally passed the Act, the legislators rested on their laurels a few months more, for it was not until September that actual enrolment of the new force began to take place. The process of enlistment was then hurried somewhat and later on some sifting was done in order to throw out any culls. But in the main the men measured up well to the demands of that most interesting and important clause in the Act, which says: "No person shall be appointed to the police force unless he be of sound constitution, able to ride, active and able-bodied, and between the ages of eighteen and forty years, nor unless he be able to read and write either the English or the French language." This was sane legislation, for these men were not going out on a picnic. They were going to patrol the widest and wildest frontier in the world. And that frontier has always said in the words of Robert Service: "Send not your foolish and feeble; send me your strong and your sane: Strong for the red rage of battle; sane, for I harry them sore. Send me men girt for the combat, men who are grit to the core. Them will I gild with my treasure; them will I feed with my meat; But the others--the misfits, the failures--I trample them under my feet." And in order that readers may have other testimony than that of the author on the question of the need for strong men, let me quote words written by the Hon. N. W. Rowell, who, as President of the Council and Governmental head of the force, had specially studied the history of the Police: "When the Canadian West first saw the scarlet jacket the prairies were in a transition stage which contained grave possibilities of danger. The old era, in which the Hudson's Bay Company and the Indians had dealt peaceably together, was breaking up, and the private trader, irresponsible and often not too scrupulous, was laying the seeds of trouble in a land where the Indians still were numerous and powerful. Tribe waged war against tribe, and formidable hosts, fresh from fighting against the American army, surged across the forty-ninth parallel." And the words also of the frontier statesman already mentioned, the Hon. Frank Oliver, of Edmonton: "Ordinarily speaking no more wildly impossible undertaking was ever staged than the establishment of Canadian authority and Canadian law throughout the Canadian prairies by a handful of Mounted Police. The population consisted chiefly of warring tribes of Indians, of whom the Blackfeet Confederacy was the most important, the most warlike and the most intractable. Next to the Indians in numbers were scattered settlements of half-breeds, who lived by the chase; no less warlike although more tractable than the Indian. Then a few white and half-breed traders and missionaries; and last and best, the commencement of white settlements at Prince Albert and Edmonton. An imaginary line separated Canada from the United States for a distance of 800 miles. South of that line, strategic points were garrisoned by thousands of United States soldiers; an almost continuous condition of Indian warfare prevailed; and the white population in large measure ran free of the restraints of established authority. There had been an overflow of 'bad men' from Montana into what is now Southern Alberta and South-Western Saskatchewan, who repeated in Canada the exploits by which they had made Montana infamous. In large measure, world opinion took for granted that lawlessness must accompany pioneer conditions. Canada's Mounted Police Force was the challenge to that idea." And as evidence of the way in which the police backed Canada's challenge nothing finer is written than the following in a letter to me some time ago from Governor Dr. R. G. Brett of Alberta, who has been on the frontiers for nearly forty years: "The manner in which so small a force kept down the liquor traffic, controlled the savage tribes of Indians, protected the lives and property of the settlers, affords an illustration of paternal administration that is probably without parallel in the world's history." These are tributes from men who know. And Governor Brett goes on to commend the idea of a history of the Police when he adds: "Every Canadian cannot but be a better citizen after reading the history of the lives of the modest heroes, whose devotion to duty and even-handed distribution of justice have commanded the admiration of the civilized world." From the beginning the officers of the force have been almost invariably of outstanding strength who won the respect of the men under their command by their willingness to share all the perils of the service and by being always ready to be in front of the troop when there was danger ahead. Not long ago a veteran hospital Sergeant of the Force, Dr. Braithwaite, of Edmonton, said finely, "I know of no officer in the force who would order any man to do any work at all, that the officer would not do himself. A man would not be asked to ride a refractory horse that his officer would not or could not ride. This is what has given the Force its reputation--the absolute confidence of the men in their leaders, and the complete esprit de corps that was always there." That the general spirit of the original legislation which insisted on good physique and respectable character in the men of the force was carried out in practice, those of us who have known these men in almost all circumstances and places can testify. To illustrate, I recall in Winnipeg seeing the men who were going over to form part of the Empire's tribute on the occasion of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee. After a stop-over for a couple of hours they fell in to the bugle call on the railway platform. The men looked like models for the statue of Apollo, and with the clear eye, bronzed faces and alert movement born of their clean and healthful outdoor life on the plains, they were goodly to behold. And when I remarked to Major (now Commissioner) Perry, who was in command, that it was generally looked on as rather a dangerous thing to let a body of men loose amid the temptations of a strange city, Perry replied: "That has no bearing on these men, even though there was a saloon on every corner. Every man feels that the honour and good name of the force depend on his individual conduct, and so he can be trusted." And when in London, the Mounted Police won golden opinions, not only for their splendid appearance, but for their gentlemanly bearing. Still another general remark may be made here. It will be remembered that Butler had recommended that the force to be organized in support of constituted authority be independent of any party or faction either in Church or State. And here also Butler's advice has been borne in mind. Governments have come and gone in regular cycle of years according as they were thought worthy or otherwise of the people's support. And partisan politics have played a considerable, and not always a creditable, part in Canadian history. But the Mounted Police force has never been in the game. Mounted Policemen have always been strictly non-partisan in politics and no interference with them by politicians of any party would be tolerated for a moment. These law-enforcers have always been absolutely independent of any local or other influences except the commands of their officers in the line of duty, and to this in large measure is due the remarkable reputation of the force for giving every man a square deal, regardless of race or creed or colour. Mounted Policemen have never been respecters of persons. They treat every one alike. Referring to political parties, for instance, it is recalled that the corps was scarcely organized when Sir John Macdonald was retired by the Canadian electorate and the Hon. Alexander Mackenzie was elevated to the premiership. But this made no change in the matter of the force which from the beginning has been the servant not of any political party but of the nation. It is historically correct to say that Sir John Macdonald started the organization, but it fell to Mr. Mackenzie's lot to perfect the organization, and start it definitely on its Western career. Governments may come and governments may go, but the Police have kept on the even tenor of their way throughout all the years. [Illustration: MAJOR-GENERAL SIR A. C. MACDONNELL. K.C.B., C.M.G., D.S.O., KNIGHTED FOR SERVICES TO THE EMPIRE.] [Illustration: MAJOR-GENERAL SIR SAMUEL B. STEELE, K.C.B., etc., KNIGHTED FOR SERVICES TO THE EMPIRE. _Photo. Elliott & Fry._] [Illustration: SUPERINTENDENT A. H. GRIESBACH. The first man to enlist in the Mounted Police. "The Father of the Force."] [Illustration: INSPECTOR J. M. WALSH. Who handled the Sitting Bull situation. _Photo. Murray, Brockville._] CHAPTER III MOBILIZING Perhaps the startling story of "The Massacre Ground" at Cypress Hills, some 40 miles north of the boundary line, and kindred stories were the last straws which, added to the weight of evidence for the necessity of an armed force in the West, moved the Dominion Government to active organization work. This Cypress Hills event is a gruesome story enough, but it is part of the setting for the entrance of the Mounted Police on the stage of Western life. It appears that a party of men--we call them men by courtesy as they were human beings of the male persuasion--crossed over from Montana on a trading expedition. They were white men, but perhaps of various races, for they were mostly adventurers who had served in the American Civil War and had not much regard for human life. These men deluged an Assiniboine Indian Camp with deadly whisky in return for every valuable thing the Indians had to trade. And when the Indian Camp was ablaze with the light of campfires and was a mad whirl of dancing drunkenness the miscreant traders from the South, in a spirit of utter wanton devilry, got under cover of a cut bank by the creek where the camp was, and proceeded to shoot the Indians who were defenceless in their orgy. A volley or two accounted for two score killed and many wounded, only a few escaping to the hills. And this carnival of bloodshed was witnessed by an American trader, Abe Farwell, who, being alone, was helpless to prevent, but who testified as to the frightful occurrence. Nor was this very far from the general order of the day. Bloods, Piegans, Blackfeet, Crees, Assiniboines and the other tribes maddened with doped liquor from outlaw traders, fought each other whenever they met. And some cases were known where Blackfeet and Crees, implacable enemies, happening to meet at some trading post, struggled with fierce brutality, while the Hudson's Bay trader in the fort had to barricade his gate and let them fight it out amongst themselves. I have myself seen Indian braves with half a score of scalps dangling from their belts, and others with no end of nicks in their rifle stocks to indicate the number they had slain. Buffalo-hunters from the white and half-breed settlements by the Red and the Assiniboine Rivers only ventured westward in large companies heavily armed. Explorers ran great risks, and the famous Captain Palliser had to hunt one whole winter with Old Sun, the Chief of the Blackfeet, that he might become as one of that fighting tribe and get leave to draw his maps. Communication was difficult, but the news of these events of frightfulness percolated through to Ottawa and the order went out in September, 1873, that officers already appointed should proceed to recruit in the Eastern Provinces and rush some part of the force to the far West, so as to be on the ground by the next spring. The principal recruiting officer seems to have been Inspector James Morrow Walsh, who became one of the noted men of the Force in later years. It is a somewhat remarkable coincidence and a decided testimony to the directness with which the Mounted Police when organized struck at the very heart of the lawlessness in the West, that Fort Walsh, called after this recruiting Inspector, was built as a Police post not many months later practically on "The Massacre Ground" in the Cypress Hills country. That Fort was a direct and visible challenge to every outlaw, white or red, who expected to have his own way in British territory. We shall meet Walsh from time to time in this story and his name simply occurs here as one of the earliest recruiting officers. I knew him at different stages in his career, but most particularly when he had retired from the Force and entered the coal business in Winnipeg. Later on he was the Civil Governor of the Yukon Territory. Clean-cut in figure, athletic, wiry and always faultlessly dressed, Walsh was a good-looking type and bore in his carriage the unmistakable stamp of his cavalry training. In Winnipeg he was popularly known as the man who had tamed Sitting Bull, the redoubtable Sioux of Custer Massacre fame, but others of the Police also had a hand, as we shall see, in that extraordinary experience. There was no difficulty in getting men to enlist in the Mounted Police. This was clearly not due to any mercenary motives on the part of men enlisting. The remuneration for both officers and men was small, as it remains comparatively speaking to this day, when we remember that the work has always called for an unusual degree of endurance, initiative, reliability and courage. But the Government no doubt placed considerable reliance on the fact that the spirit of adventure is strong in the hearts of young men and that the lure of a new land would draw them with compelling magnetism. In this the authorities were not disappointed. In fact, Colonel George A. French, a Royal Artillery Officer, then at the head of the School of Gunnery at Kingston (who died recently after much distinguished service to the Empire during which he rose to a Major-Generalship and a Knighthood with many decorations), and who was early given command of the Mounted Police with the title of Commissioner, saw the danger of a rush for places in the new Force and took steps to weed out undesirables. More than once in Toronto and again at Dufferin in Manitoba when the great venture of the march out into the unknown began, Colonel French put the matter before the men in a sort of forlorn-hope admonition. They were to be one of the few forces in the world constantly on active service and neither Garibaldi nor Bruce of Bannockburn ever warned men more distinctly of what possibly lay ahead of them. And the picture, as after events proved, was not overdrawn. These men were to face cold and hunger and the perils of drought in the various seasons of the year; they were to leave the comforts of civilization and live under the canopy of the sky amidst the storms of summer and the blizzards of winter; they were to be called to root out nests of outlaws who had no scruples about taking human life, and they, a mere handful of men, were to control and guide Indians whose brethren to the south of the boundary were engaging attention of thousands of soldiers in the endeavour to keep them in order. All this and more did French tell the new recruits. But only a very few dropped out and throughout the years the force has attracted a fine class of men both from Canada and the British Isles. Young men from the towns and farms of the old Provinces, University Graduates and younger sons of the nobility in the Mother Land, men of birth and breeding and social advantage have always been in the ranks. But once in the force there were no social distinctions sought or recognized. Genuine manhood was the only hall-mark allowed as a standard. The fine democracy of Robert Burns,-- "The rank is but the guinea stamp; The man's the gold for a' that,-- has had right of way. There was an intangible but real atmosphere in the corps which in some quiet but quite definite fashion, eliminated any man who did not measure up to the mark which the members felt they ought to reach. Mr. Charles Mair, the author and frontiersman, already quoted, says finely, "The average Mounted Policeman was an idealist regarding the honour of his corps; and if, as sometimes happened, a hard character crept into it, physically fit, a good rider or a good shot, but coarse, cruel and immoral, he fared ill with his fellows, and speedily betook himself to other employment." The men who first enlisted in the East, mainly in Ontario, in September, 1873, were sent away westward by the Great Lakes and the difficult Dawson Route to the Red River country in order to be on the ground and get down to work preparatory to the trek towards the setting sun. The Dawson Route, so-called after the designer of it, was a trail which utilized the water-stretches and on the whole was more suited to amphibious animals than human beings. Some of the men now coming over it with the police had travelled it with Wolseley a few years previously and would have vivid recollections of the flies and mud and portages and the need of manufacturing skidways over the bogs, but they would also recall the irrepressible and uproarious spirit in which they used to sing of their additional accomplishments in the rollicking "Jolly Boys" chorus: "'Twas only as a volunteer that I left my abode, I never thought of coming here to work upon the road." The Police, however, were coming in the fall of the year and escaped some of the plagues of the earlier seasons. They duly landed at Lower Fort Garry, the old Hudson's Bay post still romantically standing on the banks of the Red River some 20 miles north of the present city of Winnipeg. They came in three troops or divisions, "A," "B," and "C," of fifty men each, which was the number of the Force which the law-makers at Ottawa thought would be sufficient to patrol 300,000 square miles of territory where lawlessness was beginning to be rampant. In the meantime it was not very pleasant for the Police to land at the Fort near the beginning of winter and to learn a few days afterwards that their winter clothing had been commandeered by the weather and frozen in somewhere on the Dawson Route. But this too was accepted with good grace by the men who had declined to be sifted out of the Force by the warnings given them as to hardships ahead. These men at Lower Fort Garry had been on the pay-roll since their enlistment in September, but they were not actually on service till the 3rd of November, 1873, when they were sworn in by Lieut.-Colonel Osborne Smith, who was then in command of the Western Military District with headquarters at Winnipeg. It is not generally known that Colonel Osborne Smith, who had seen service in the Crimea and the Fenian Raid in 1866, was really appointed Commissioner of the Police so as to give him full authority until a successor was invested with the command. But I have before me as I write the elaborate parchment which so appointed Colonel Smith. It is dated September 25, 1873, and bears the signature of J. C. Aikins (afterwards Governor of Manitoba) as Secretary of State as well as that of Sir John A. Macdonald. Colonel Osborne Smith, whom I knew well in later days and under whom I served in the Winnipeg Light Infantry, brigaded in 1885 with some of the Police of this original troop, was an ardent Canadian Imperialist, and I imagine it was he who drew up the enlistment oath that was subscribed before him that day at the old Fort. In view of the fact that the word "Canadian" has been substituted in the name of the Force for the word "North-West" and that the jurisdiction of the corps has now been extended over the whole Dominion, it is suggestive of prophetic vision that the original oath should have borne the heading "Mounted Police of Canada." It is also interesting to note in connection with this oath, which pledges faithful performance of duty and the protection and due care of their equipment and other public property, that the first signature is that of Arthur Henry Griesbach, who was then Regimental Sergeant-Major, but who later on became one of the ablest Superintendents. He has already been referred to as the special adviser of Sir John A. Macdonald in Ottawa for some months prior to the organization of the Police, and on this account shares with Sir John the designation of the "Father of the Force." Griesbach's signature was witnessed by Samuel B. Steele, who was then Troop Sergeant-Major, and who, after very notable service in the Police and the Militia, was promoted to a Major-Generalship and Knighted. Amongst other well-known signatures is that of John Henry McIllree, then a Sergeant who, with much excellent work in the Force to his credit, became Assistant Commissioner and is now retired with the rank of Colonel and the Imperial Service Order. The list of men on that first roll holds the signatures of many whose names became household words in Western Canada and whose contribution to the Empire was of far-reaching value. They were the real originals of a corps which was looked on by many as an experiment in the beginning. But their work set such a high standard for those who came after them that men who joined in later years felt the pressure of prestige to which they must live up if they were to hold their place in the organization. The result has been that the reputation of this remarkable corps has grown with the years and any writer of their history would be sadly lacking in the historical sense if he did not see how profoundly they have influenced for good the trend of life west of the Great Lakes. It is worth while at this point to emphasize and illustrate this statement for the sake of readers who may not know the history of the West as some of us do who have lived in the country all our days and have witnessed the developments throughout the passing years. Nothing could be a greater mistake than to look upon the Mounted Police as a body separate from the elements that have gone to the making of the Canadian West. As a body, it is true, they were aloof from partisan political strife, from class struggles in the social order and from the activities of commercial endeavour, but their influence was felt constantly on the pulse of the growing country which, like a boisterous growing boy, needed restraint and guidance in reaching the fullness of its powers. They were not party men, politically or socially, but they saw that every person and every organization that was sane and law-abiding and constructive, got fair play without interference from anyone. The Police did not as a body engage in commercial activities themselves, but they made it possible for the settler and the miner and the railroad-builder and others in all lawful occupations to go about their work in peace and develop the country under the shield of police protection. In brief, the record of this famous corps is woven into Western history to such a degree that without the fibre of that record the present great fabric of a new land, strong, sound and unbreakable, would have been impossible. Two things specifically might be said here in this regard. Butler, in the famous report already quoted, dwelt eloquently, it will be remembered, on the necessity for the organization of a force that would be a protector and guide to the settlers who would flow into the West. It is rather a curious coincidence that when the first of the Mounted Police contingent came over the Dawson Route they assisted families on the way to the Red River country who would probably never have got through without the help of these kindly giants. And that was just a prophecy of what was to be the rule. Settlers did not hesitate to go where there was Mounted Police protection and the occasional patrol to remote homesteaders to see whether there was anything required made the lot of many a lonely household much more carefree and happy than it would otherwise have been. There is absolutely no doubt that the tide of humanity flowed freely into the vast new frontier land by reason of the fact that the scarlet-coated riders had made the wilderness a safe abode and a place of opportunity for the law-abiding and the industrious. Thus did the Police fulfil the vision of Butler and make the settlement of the great areas not only possible but speedy. Another impressive way in which the Mounted Police made history was their extraordinary handling of the Indian tribes who were the original possessors of the soil. History, both ancient and modern, is full of the bitter tragedies created by the way in which incoming people have treated original inhabitants of the lands they were coming to possess. In our own day just across the border, owing to mishandling by some unfaithful Government agents and other causes, there was war for decades between the Government and the Indians, who looked upon the cavalry and other military bodies in that country as their enemies. This was never the case with our Western Country. The first business our Mounted Police did was to stand between the Indians and the vile creatures who would give them drink and rob them of all they possessed. So that some two years after the scarlet tunic had made its appearance in the foothill country, Crowfoot, the famous Chief of the warlike Blackfeet, referring to the Police, said in his beautiful imagery, "They have protected us as the feathers protect the bird from the frosts of winter." The Indians knew that they could not commit crime and go unpunished any more than the white man, but the Indians also knew that the Police would see that every man, whether red or white, got fair play. Hence the Indians recognized the Police as their friends and not as their enemies. With thousands of Indians, accustomed to almost constant war, thrown upon their hands, the Police never had any real revolt on the part of the Indians to deal with save only when the mad Riel inveigled a few of them on the war-path by cunning guile. And with some personal knowledge of that whole affair we venture to say that had the warning given by Superintendent Crozier and other Policemen months before the outbreak been taken, and had the Police Force been doubled and given a free hand, there would have been no rebellion and no bloodshed. But when the outbreak did come we are also ready to affirm, as amongst those who took part in its suppression, that but for the missionaries and the Police the rebellion would have been far more widely spread. And equally are we ready to declare that the Police were the backbone of every brigade in which they served, and this we say without any desire to minimize the arms of the service to which we belonged. It was the swearing in of the "originals" of the Mounted Police that led to the writing of these special reflections. For on looking back over the years of this West that I have known from childhood, it seems to me that the day of that first enlistment oath was a pivotal point around which much of the destiny of Western Canada would turn for the rest of recorded time. Hence it is at this stage of the story that the formative day at Lower Fort Garry should be noted. That winter in the old stone-walled fort was a busy one for the new recruits. After they were sworn in by Colonel Osborne Smith, that officer returned to his duties at Upper Fort Garry. He had done a good day's work, and if he addressed the men in the crisp, incisive style I have often heard him use on patriotic occasions, then he had made additional contribution to the considerations that inspired the Police to determined endeavour. On his leaving Superintendent W. D. Jarvis, who had seen service in Africa and became a very popular officer, took over the duties of Adjutant and Riding Master, Griesbach took charge of discipline and foot-drill, while S. B. Steele, popularly known in the West to the close of his days as Sam Steele, looked after the breaking of the broncos and gave instruction in riding, which latter proved to be highly necessary. There were no eight-hour days, the only limit being the daylight each way. Steele drilled five rides a day in the open, and the orders were that, unless the thermometer dropped beneath 36 degrees below zero, a rather cool temperature, the riding and breaking were to proceed. The broncos were of the usual exuberant type, given to every device to throw a rider, and falls on the frozen ground were not infrequent, but by spring the men knew how to handle broncos so as to become the pioneers of fine horsemanship amongst the riders of the plains. Lieut.-Colonel French came in November, 1873, and assumed his command. It did not take him long to see that a handful of 150 men, however gallant, would be totally inadequate for the gigantic undertaking ahead of them. The Force has always been too small in numbers, but at the outset the proposed strength was absurdly below the mark. Fortunately the news of the lawlessness that was abroad in the far West made it possible for Colonel French to get the proposed number doubled and brought up to the 300 which Constable T. A. Boys made famous in his well-known poem "The Riders of the Plains," from which we quote the following verses: "We muster but three hundred In all this Great Lone Land, Which stretches from Superior's shore To where the Rockies stand; But not one heart doth falter, No coward voice complains, Tho' all too few in numbers are The Riders of the Plains. "Our mission is to raise the Flag Of Britain's Empire here, Restrain the lawless savage, And protect the Pioneer; And 'tis a proud and daring trust, To hold these vast Domains, With but three hundred Mounted Men, The Riders of the Plains. "And though we win no fame or praise But struggle on alone To carry out good British rule, And plant old England's throne; Yet when our task is ended, And Law and Order reigns, The peaceful settler long will bless The Riders of the Plains." Meanwhile down in Eastern Canada the left wing of the Force was being recruited and, permission being obtained from the United States, three divisions, rather over strength, left Toronto on June 6, 1874, and came west via Chicago and St. Paul to the end of steel at Fargo in North Dakota. Colonel French had gone back East to come out with them. It was a motley outfit that dumped itself out of the train on that Dakota plain. The men were a carefully selected and fine appearing lot, and the horses were of the handsome Eastern type; but the wagons in pieces to be assembled, and the saddles shipped from England in parts, were strewn over the ground for acres. The Fargo people rather enjoyed the idea of these men with their interesting mission being amongst them for a week or so getting ready for the trail. But to the amazement of those townsfolk the Police starting at four o'clock in the morning and working in four-hour relays "hit the trail" within twenty-four hours and pulled out their cavalcade for the trip to Canadian Territory. It had taken two weeks from Toronto, including the rather testing experience for men of a day off in Chicago and St. Paul, so that we like Colonel French's note at this point saying, "I must say I felt a great load off my shoulders at again being on Canadian soil." But the Police had begun early to create a good impression, and he adds, "The conduct of the men had been most exemplary, their general appearance and conduct invariably attracting the favourable notice of the railway officials and others _en route_." In preparation for the march westward to the foothills of the Rockies the three divisions "A," "B," and "C" that had been quartered for the winter at Lower Fort Garry left that point on June 7, 1874, and were at the rendezvous at Dufferin near the boundary line to greet the Commissioner and the three divisions "D," "E," and "F," which had come through as related from Toronto. Just before leaving Lower Fort Garry with the original divisions, Inspector James Farquharson McLeod had been appointed Assistant Commissioner of the Force. Thus one of the noted figures in the after history of Western Canada came upon the scene of his future work and triumphs. McLeod had served as Assistant Brigade Major in Wolseley's Red River expedition and for his services then received the brevet rank of Lieut.-Colonel and the C.M.G. He was originally from Calgarry in Scotland (hence the name of the city of Calgary in Alberta in his honour) and had all the judicial faculty of the Scot coupled with the ardour of his Highland ancestry. His absolute reliability and fearless fairness gave him an influence over the Indians in later days that can only be described as extraordinary, and the time came when that commanding power over the warlike Blackfeet stood Canada in good stead. Commissioner French lost no time in getting his men into shape at the rendezvous. From the divisions he brought with him he drafted fifty men to bring the original divisions up to strength. He arranged the night camp with the Eastern horses inside the zariba of wagons, and the Western horses, mostly broncos, on the outside--an arrangement that turned out well in view of a stampede that took place. The occasion of the stampede (and there is nothing more fearful than a stampede of maddened animals) was a terrific thunderstorm, which transformed the prairie into a sea of electric flame and sent bolts crashing into the zariba amidst the horses that were tied to the wagons. Sergt.-Major Sam B. Steele (that was then his rank), who was riding near this enclosure, thus vividly described the scene: "A thunder-bolt fell in the midst of the horses. Terrified, they broke their fastenings, and made for the side of the corral. The six men on guard were trampled under foot as they tried to stop them. The maddened beasts overturned the huge wagons, dashed through a row of tents, scattered everything, and made for the gate of the large field in which we were encamped. In their mad efforts to pass they climbed over one another to the height of many feet. I had full view of the stampede, being not more than 50 yards from the horses as they rushed at the gate and attempted to pass it, scrambling and rolling over one another in one huge mass." Inspector (now Colonel) Walker leaped on a passing horse and went out with them into the night. He pursued the frightened animals for some 50 miles across the boundary, and helped to round them up and bring them back twenty-four hours after they had stampeded. Colonel Walker says: "The horses did not get over their fright all the summer, and had to be watched closely as any unusual noise would stampede them." This was truly an exciting introduction to prairie life. Commissioner French, who had been sworn into his office on December 16, 1873, was handling the situation with the thoroughness and ability of a trained soldier. He believed in discipline and showed independence by declining to tolerate any outside interference with the work of the Force. Perhaps it was French who laid the foundations for the non-partisan character of the Police by resisting anything which bore the resemblance of using political pull to secure place and promotion in the corps. He stood strongly for merit as the basis for preferment. Evidence is not lacking to show that Ottawa was rather too much disposed to run the Force by long-range activity on behalf of some favourites. Dispatches came from the seat of Government, showing pronounced lack of knowledge of local circumstances and requirements. To some of these French replied so forcibly that interference with the internal management of the Force largely ceased in time. In one case, amongst French's books of letters, I found this recently: "Sub-Constable ---- has not as yet shown the necessary qualification to justify his promotion to the position of Acting Constable, much less to that of a Commissioned Officer." In another case he wrote: "I beg to point out that if the members of this Force are encouraged to communicate with the Department direct, thereby ignoring all those supposed to be placed in authority over them, it will be very difficult to maintain anything like proper discipline in the Force." Wise man, who saw a dangerous tendency, and courageous man to point it out with frankness. At another time some wise person suggested to pay by cheque, to which French replied, "Who will cash them in the wilderness?" Similarly, he objected to members of the Force being encouraged to write of their grievances to the newspapers. That French looked carefully into details for the sake of the men's comfort is evidenced by letters in his book which protest against an inferior kind of tea being sent out for use in the Force, and that he was very watchful against the class of people who, on various pretexts, try to get some of the Government property, is attested by the following letter to a man whom I remember well to be of that shark type: "In answer to your letter of the 28th of August, I beg to say that I do not see the necessity of giving you a Government wagon, because, through some carelessness in your business arrangements, you have lost one of your own." There is wit as well as rebuke in that communication. On the whole we repeat that, though he had a task of unusual difficulty, French laid the foundation of the Force, and gave the superstructure a trend that affected for good the after history of the famous corps. It was this man who was now to lead his column on the longest march in history for a column carrying its own supplies. He was leading it "out into the unknown," but though many prophesied disaster, he was not to fail. CHAPTER IV THE AMAZING MARCH That thunderstorm, with the resultant stampede at Dufferin, along with some blood-curdling prophecies of attacks by the scalp-gathering Sioux Indians, had the good effect of weeding out the few non-adventurous spirits who, up to now, had thought that the hardships and dangers of the expedition had been painted in too lurid a colour. This suited Colonel French, as he had no desire to venture into the wilderness with any but the very best of men. A very necessary part of Police equipment, namely their revolvers, did not arrive from England till early in July, but once they had come French, who was impatient of delay in beginning so tremendous a trek, gave orders on July 8 for a "pull out," or what the old traders used to call "a Hudson's Bay start." The idea of a "pull out" before the real journey began was to shake the line of the caravan into shape, take out any kinks that might need straightening, and generally see that everything was working satisfactorily. With field guns and mortars, seventy-three wagons, and 114 of the wooden prairie conveyances, known as Red River carts, new harness and other equipment that needed testing, the "pull out" in this case was highly desirable, but every care had been taken, and after a 2-mile test, camp was pitched for a day or so till the real trip, across the 1,000-mile plain, was commenced on July 10, 1874, a red-letter day in Western history. The prairie had witnessed many a remarkable outfit striking out over the plains with dog-trains in winter and carts and buffalo-runners in summer, but it had never seen anything so business-like and highly picturesque as this Police marching-out state. The six divisions or troops of the mounted men, with the convenient alphabetical designation from "A" to "F," had been given horses of distinctive colour, so that in order there came for the start, dark bays, dark browns, light chestnuts with the guns, greys, blacks and light bays. After these came wagons, carts, cows and calves, beef cattle, and a general assortment of farming implements. Meat would be necessary when the buffalo were not available, and it would keep better "on the hoof." Posts would have to be supplied with food, and haying, ploughing and reaping would be necessary if men and horses were to live at some of the remote points. So they took the necessaries along as far as they could. Of course, the impressive order of march at the beginning could not be maintained throughout the gruelling expedition. A thousand miles across swamp and _coulées_ and rivers, over areas of waste and desolate prairie, where fires had swept every vestige of grass away, through sections where flies and drought and excessive heat, turning into cold as the autumn approached, played the inevitable havoc. All these elements combined to throw that ordered line into confusion at times. Here and there cattle died, oxen gave out and quit, horses broke down through lack of food and water, men, hardy as they were, took ill sometimes, but none succumbed, and as Colonel French observed in concluding his first report to Ottawa: "The broad fact is apparent that a Canadian force, hastily raised, armed and equipped, and not under martial law, in a few months marched vast distances through a country for the most part as unknown as it proved bare of pasture and scanty in the supply of water. Of such a march, under such adverse circumstances, all true Canadians may well be proud." And so say we all. [Illustration: COMMISSIONER A. G. IRVINE.] [Illustration: COMMISSIONER GEORGE A. FRENCH.] [Illustration: COMMISSIONER JAMES F. MACLEOD.] [Illustration: COMMISSIONER LAWRENCE W. HERCHMER.] It would be impossible to follow that amazing march in detail--that would take a whole volume, but the main outlines are within our reach. The officers who led in that remarkable episode in Canadian history deserve mention, for it has always been a Police tradition that officers would never ask men to go anywhere where they were not prepared to go themselves. Personally, or by reputation, at one time or another, I have known practically all of these officers, and they would all measure up to requirements, though some would excel others in initiative and activity. They were Lieut.-Colonel George A. French, Commissioner; Major James F. MacLeod, C.M.G., Assistant Commissioner; Staff-Dr. J. G. Kittson, Surgeon; Dr. R. B. Nevitt, Assistant Surgeon; W. G. Griffiths, Paymaster; G. Dalrymple Clark, Adjutant; John L. Poett, Veterinary Surgeon; Charles Nicolle, Quarter Master. Division "A": W. D. Jarvis, Inspector; Severe Gagnon, Sub-Inspector. Division "B": G. A. Brisebois, Inspector; J. B. Allan, Sub-Inspector. Division "C": W. Winder, Inspector; T. R. Jackson, Sub-Inspector. Division "D" (Staff Division): J. M. Walsh, Inspector; J. Walker and J. French, Sub-Inspectors. Division "E": J. Carvell, Inspector; J. H. McIllree and H. J. N. LeCaine, Sub-Inspectors. Division "F": L. F. N. Crozier, Inspector; V. Welsh and C. E. Denny, Sub-Inspectors. These were the originals amongst the officers, and the originals always attract our special notice. The Force has been as a whole, wonderfully fortunate in its officers. Here and there, as in the rank and file, there have been some throughout the years who were less strenuous and able than others, but their uniformly high character, and their incorruptibility at the hands of men who were ready to pay large sums if the Police would look the other way, have never been questioned. Many of these officers throughout the years might have become wealthy had they either neglected their duty to take business investments on the frontier, or had they been susceptible to anything like bribery. It stands to their credit that those of them who have passed on, died in comparative poverty, and that those who survive have nothing but their not too generous pay, or the still less generous pension allowance. The original officers above named set a high standard in that famous march across the wilds in 1874, and they were supported by as gallant and hardy a body of men as ever crossed the plains. Most of them were young men from the Eastern Provinces, who had no experience in the life of the prairies, and hardly any conception of the difficulties to be met and overcome, but they faced situations as they arose, and with the same initiative, resource and courage that have characterized Canadians on other fields of service, they persevered and won. Broadly speaking, the aim of the Police expedition was to strike at the lawlessness which was specially defiant and open in the foothills of the Rockies, where the proximity of the international boundary line made it easy for outlaws of all types to evade the consequences of their crimes and depredations on both sides in turn. Besides that it was proposed, by a sort of triangular distribution of the 300 Police, to cover the whole North-Western territory, and in that way give visibility to authority in all localities. To fulfil these aims and reach these objectives, the main body of the Police was to be sent on this march out to the Bow and Belly Rivers, near the Cypress Hills, made infamous by the massacre already described, and countless other criminalities. Another detachment, separating from the main body, was to go northward to Edmonton, by way of forts Ellice and Carlton, while a third, under the charge of the Commissioner, was to return to the proposed headquarters at Fort Pelly or Swan River, on the north-west boundary of Manitoba. These objectives were all reached after many serious hardships, the only modification in the places being in regard to the Swan River. On returning to that point in the beginning of winter, Colonel French found that the barracks were not ready for occupation, some wiseacre having started to build them amid granite boulders on a hill. Moreover, prairie fires had burned the hay intended for the Police, and the Hudson's Bay Company, having lost their supply also, could not assist. Consequently the Commissioner left only one division there, under that very competent officer, Inspector Carvell, and with the rest he pushed on to Winnipeg and the original starting-point at Dufferin, where he arrived in 30 degrees below zero, November weather, after a total march for his contingent of nearly 2,000 miles. We shall look at these three movements of the Force briefly. The whole column kept together as far as La Roche Percée, or the pierced rock, on the banks of the Souris, a distance of nearly 300 miles from the starting-point at Dufferin. Near here the Commissioner established what he called Cripple Camp for the maimed and halt, both of man and beast, for already the hardship of the route had begun to take its toll. But there was no time to lose, and French throughout was insistent on getting forward, for the way was long, and it was necessary to get out to the Cypress Hills country, get some shelters erected for the men and horses, and lay in some stores of provisions. By the end of August they were pretty well to their destination. In the meantime, Colonel French had gone over the line to Fort Benton, Montana, the nearest telegraphic point in those days, secured some stores and learned from Ottawa that after arrival at the foot-hill points, he was to leave Assistant Commissioner MacLeod in charge and return himself with "E" and "D" Divisions to Fort Pelly or Swan River, as the headquarters of the Force. While Colonel French was in Montana for a few days several half-breed buffalo-hunters visited the Police camp and told some ferocious stories about the desperadoes who were entrenched out in the cattle-stealing and boot-legging belt waiting to dispute possession with the new-comers. The scarlet-coated men took in all they said and smiled. Forts "Whoop-Up," "Stand-off" and the rest, with some of the outlaws in garrison, would have been a welcome diversion after the hardships they had experienced. Perhaps the leading incident of this particular part of the big trek was the discovery by the Commissioner of Jerry Potts, a short, heavy-set, taciturn man, half Scot and half Piegan, a wonderful plainsman, skilled in the language of the Indian tribes and a past-master in all the lore of the prairies. His father was an Edinburgh Scot, who was killed in Missouri by an Indian, and it is said that Jerry, though a mere boy, followed the Indian into camp and shot him. Anyway, Jerry Potts became a splendid help to the Police, a trainer of scouts, a matchless diplomat with the Indians, an incomparable interpreter, and a highly respected guide who, without consulting maps, seemed to know the way by instinct either in summer or winter. He began to be useful as soon as he took service with the Force in that fall of 1874. He guided them to the best feeding-places for the horses and cattle, and to the watering-places which were so constantly needed. And when, a few days after he came, the column struck herds of innumerable buffalo, it was Jerry Potts who warned against shooting at certain times, lest the bisons would stampede and trample the whole cavalcade under foot. Potts remained with the Police as interpreter till his death in 1906, making a long service of twenty-two years. We shall meet his name here and there in this story--a diamond in the rough, entitled to a niche in the hall of the men who helped to shape the early years of our history. Shortly after this trip to Montana, Colonel French, with the divisions above named, left the foothill country, and, coming back by way of Qu'Appelle, Fort Pelly and Swan River, he reached Dufferin, as already mentioned, in the 30 degrees below zero weather, he and the men with him having travelled about 2,000 miles since leaving there in July. The third party already mentioned as leaving La Roche Percée was a small detachment under Inspectors Jarvis and Gagnon. With sick and played-out horses, a lot of cattle, and not much general provision, and hardly enough men to keep up the rounds of duty, the lot of this detachment starting out on a march of 850 miles was not very enticing. The detachment left La Roche Percée on August 3, and reached Edmonton, by way of Fort Ellice and Carlton, on the 27th of October. Pasture was poor, water was scarce and, except where they struck Hudson's Bay posts or, as in one case, met a caravan of traders from whom some rations in the shape of pemmican were purchased, the outlook all the way was hazardous. When the weather began to get cold the weakened horses often had to be lifted in the morning and their joints rubbed, before they could proceed on the journey. During the last 25 miles it seemed as if the enterprise would collapse near the goal, as the cold had so stiffened the half-starved horses that they could not travel over the hard-frozen and icy ground. They had to be lifted and rubbed hour after hour. No wonder Inspector Jarvis said after reaching Edmonton, "Had these horses been my own property I should have killed them, as they were mere skeletons." However, the detachment got through finally, and were warmly welcomed by Mr. Hardistry, the Hudson's Bay factor, who, in addition to his own open-hearted nature, had joy in exercising to the full that generous hospitality for which the old Hudson's Bay men have been famous for two and a half centuries. They had ruled in a benevolently autocratic way throughout the years, and one would almost imagine that they would have looked askance at the scarlet-coated men who were representing the powers that were superseding them. But the Mounted Police had no more loyal friends and helpers than these grand men of the old Company, who were of enormous assistance to the Government and the Police in the critical days when there was a change of rulers taking place and the problem of the Indians had to be peaceably and satisfactorily settled. Inspector Jarvis, who was a gallant and popular officer, has this notable paragraph in his report to Colonel French: "In conclusion, I may state, on looking back over our journey, I wonder how we ever accomplished it with weak horses, little or no pasture, and for the last 500 miles with no grain, and the latter part of it over roads impassable. We made them, that is to say, I kept a party of men ahead with axes and, when practicable, felled trees and made corduroy over mudholes, sometimes 100 yards long, and also made a number of bridges and repaired the old ones. We must have laid down several miles of corduroy between Fort Pitt and here. Streams which last year when I crossed them were mere rivulets, are now rivers difficult to ford. _And had it not been for the perfect conduct of the men and real hard work_, much of the property must have been destroyed." Loyal men were those splendid pathfinders, who would do their utmost to conserve the equipment which belonged to their Sovereign. They had a keen sense of honour and a fine appreciation of the trust reposed in them. It is highly interesting to find emerging occasionally in these reports the names of men who afterwards became outstanding figures in the Force. Constable Labelle is especially singled out for mention by Inspector Jarvis, because of his special attention to the horses which were pulled through largely by his assiduous care. A man of that kind wins our respect and appreciation. A horse is perhaps the most sensitive animal in the world, and the West is full of stories of the positive attachment which grew up between the men on the frontier and the faithful animals to whose endurance and courage in storm and blizzard the troopers often owed their lives. And Inspector Jarvis mentions another in his first report from Edmonton when he says, "Sergt.-Major Steele has been undeviating in his efforts to assist me, and he has also done the manual labour of at least two men." That Steele, whom we shall meet more than once in this story, could do the manual labour of at least two men we can well believe. Years after the date on which this tribute was written by Jarvis I met Steele in the foothills of the Rockies, and in his tall, powerful figure, deep-chested proportions and massive shoulders, he suggested prodigious strength to the onlooker. And that Steele not only could but would do two men's work if it seemed his duty, goes without saying to those who knew him. Lieut.-Colonel J. B. Mitchell, of the 100th Grenadiers in Winnipeg, one of the original '73 men of the Mounted Police, tells us that when he went to Kingston to take an artillery course, before the Police Force was organized, he was told by Battery Sergt.-Major John Mortimer that some of the sergeants might try to take advantage of him, as he was new at the business but Mortimer added, "You can always rely on Sergeant Sam Steele." And the certificate of that grizzled old Sergt.-Major never had to be cancelled. And thus we have seen the Mounted Police come upon the stage and take their positions at the end of extraordinary marches. It will be our place and privilege to follow them as they play their large and serious part in nation-building in Western Canada. CHAPTER V BUSINESS IN THE LAND OF INDIANS Orders from Ottawa had disposed the Mounted Police into four different locations, although, as we have seen, the fourth had become only necessary at Dufferin, because there was neither shelter nor adequate provision for headquarters at Fort Pelly. But, when we look back into the situation, we can readily see that the Assistant Commissioner, Colonel MacLeod, had the most difficult and dangerous situation of all. They had all reached their destination after tremendous hardships, the Edmonton detachment perhaps most of all. But the three detachments, namely those at Edmonton under Jarvis, Fort Pelly under Garvell, and Dufferin under the Commissioner, had shelter and reasonable provision. But MacLeod was out in the open with the winter coming on and no shelter from the blizzards that blow at times even across that foothill country. He was hundreds of miles away from any possibility of help in men or substance from Canadian sources, and he had only three troops of fifty men each in the midst of a turbulent gang of outlaw whisky-peddlers and horse-thieves. He was completely surrounded by thousands of the most warlike of Western Indians, with some thousands still more warlike just over the line. Perhaps it was well that he hailed from the land where they say, "A stout heart to a stey brae," because, if a figure of speech from the sea is permissible on the prairie, he and his men knew that they had "burned their ship behind them," and that they must hold their ground or perish. They proved equal to their task, but a sketch or two from the reports of that period reveal the situation even to those who do not know the country. Colonel MacLeod decided that he could not hope to pull the horses and cattle through the winter in the locality where he was making his headquarters, so he dispatched Inspector Walsh and the weakest of the horses and cattle to Sun River, some 200 miles to the south. Walsh was evidently on the look out for service, for MacLeod says, "Walsh was anxious to be sent, and he deserves great credit for the way in which he is performing this service." In another place MacLeod says about November 1: "We had a severe snowstorm, with high wind and extreme cold, the thermometer going to 10 degrees below zero. When the storm broke I had all the horses driven into the shelter of the woods near by; every one blanketed and fed with oats and corn. Then I was extremely anxious about them, and glad they got through so well." The righteous man is merciful to his beast, even though the beast is Government property. And then we come across this fine human touch in which the emotional nature of the Highlander breaks through: "I hope soon to have ample accommodation for all if another storm breaks out. I have made up my mind that not a single log of men's quarters shall be laid until the horses are provided for, as well as a few sick men." If the dumb animals cannot speak for themselves, the Colonel speaks for them. If the men who are laid aside cannot plead their own cause they will not suffer, for the Colonel does not forget them. And MacLeod is early teaching his officers that he will have no "carpet knights," who claim immunity from hardship because of their rank, for he goes on to say, "Then the men's quarters will be proceeded with, and after that the officers'." We think the officers would all say amen to this, and that is why they always had the confidence of their men. By the time it was 20 degrees below zero they had got the men inside buildings with enough chimney to allow a fire to be kindled. But officers were still on the waiting list, for the report says in December, "Winder, Jackson and the doctor are in a tent in the woods." With officers and men of that stamp we hear no whining about being unable to enforce the laws of the country. And it was no easy place to enforce laws of certain kinds. The whole region around Fort MacLeod, as the necessarily crude outpost was called, being conveniently near the boundary line, had been for years the favourite stamping ground of the whisky-peddler. There had been no one to interfere with his activities. The Hudson's Bay Company regime, never very active in that locality, had been out of commission for four years, and nothing had taken its place. For Canadian authority, governing in a long-distance fashion, had not yet impressed itself visibly on the vast plains. Hence the outlaw trader had gone his riotous way, and as a result the poor Indian, who had an insatiable thirst for stimulant, had lived riotously to his own great detriment. And so, busy as the Police were in trying to build some shelter for their horses and themselves, Colonel MacLeod lost no time striking a body blow at the liquor traffic. Hearing from an Indian named Three Bulls that a coloured man was doing business in fire-water about 50 miles away, MacLeod sent Inspector Crozier and ten men, accompanied by the inimitable interpreter, Jerry Potts, to gather in the outfit. Two days afterwards Crozier returned, bringing in the coloured gentleman and four others with some wagon-loads of whisky, a small arsenal of rifles and revolvers, as well as many bales of buffalo robes, which the whisky-sellers had taken from the poor Indians in exchange for the drink that was so fatal to these children of the wild. The whisky was poured out in the snow, the robes were confiscated for the good of the country, and the culprits given the option of a fine or jail. This process revealed the headquarters of the traffic, for a sporting man, rejoicing in the sobriquet of "Wavey," came up from Fort Benton, in Montana, and paid the fines of the white men. There was an extra charge against the coloured man, whose name was Bond, and as "Wavey" would not intervene Mr. Bond had to go to jail. MacLeod would stand no nonsense. On one occasion, a gentleman from the same country as Bond, who was sent to jail without option, and who had in his own locality contracted the bad habit of talking back to judges, said to Colonel MacLeod, "When I get out of here, if you put me in, I will make them wires to Washington hum." "Let them hum," sad the Colonel; "in the meantime you go to jail, and if you say more you may have your sentence doubled." This was a Daniel come to judgment with a vengeance. To be more modern, it reminds one of Begbie, the great frontier judge on the west coast, who tamed the outlaw miners who tried to start rough-house in the gold-rush days. The dishonest extortioners on the prairie could do nothing to frighten or flatter or tamper with men like Colonel MacLeod and his red-coated patrols. Hence, we read the sequel in the Colonel's report in December, 1874: "I am happy to be able to report" (happy is a choice word--there are some things that make a good man happy)--"to be able to report _the complete stoppage of the whisky trade throughout the whole of this section of the country_, and that the drunken riots, which in former years were almost a daily occurrence, are now entirely at an end; in fact, a more peaceable community than this, with a very large number of Indians camped along the river, could not be found anywhere. Every one united in saying how wonderful the change is. People never lock their doors at night and have no fear of anything being stolen which is left lying about outside; whereas, just before our arrival, gates and doors were all fastened at night, and nothing could be left out of one's sight." And then Colonel MacLeod adds a testimony from the Rev. John McDougall, of Morley, at the edge of the mountains. He and his father, the Rev. George McDougall, who had been frozen to death on the plains, were widely known old-time missionaries. In later years I knew John McDougall well, missionary, scout and frontiersman, tall, full-bearded, handsome and keenly alive to everything that affected the welfare of the West land. And this competent witness said, "I am delighted with the change that has been effected. It is like a miracle wrought before our eyes." The Police were fulfilling their high, benevolent and patriotic mission. Colonel MacLeod felt that the first business of the Police was to thus protect the Indians who were the wards of the nation, and so it was that he had struck a decisive blow at the drink traffic, which was bidding fair to exterminate these children of the plains. Once that was done the Colonel set himself to get into touch with the various native tribes, which from the earliest days of the explorers and fur-traders had been looked upon as the most warlike and dangerous. It is well known that even the Hudson's Bay Company, despite the experience and the remarkable tact of their employees, had always found it difficult to establish satisfactory relations with the tribes, amongst which at this period Colonel MacLeod and his men were seeking a sphere of service for the good of all concerned. Accordingly, we find MacLeod reporting before the end of 1874 that he had interviewed the chiefs of the practically confederated tribes of the Bloods, Piegans and Blackfeet. He found them very intelligent men, and he described in some detail the stately ceremony with which these chiefs had conducted themselves in these interviews. They shake hands with Colonel MacLeod, and then, receiving the pipe of peace from the interpreter, Jerry Potts, they each smoke a few seconds and pass it around. MacLeod then explains to them the friendly attitude of the Canadian Government towards them, that the Police had come not to take the country from the Indians, but to protect these Indians against men who would despoil them and destroy them by sowing amongst them evil practices. And he adds that the Government would send soon some of the great men of the country to deal with the Indians and make treaty agreements with them. At these early interviews the chiefs gave unstinted praise to the Police, before whose coming there had been constant trouble. The Indians said they used to be robbed and ruined by the whisky-traders, that their horses, robes and women had been taken from them, that their young men were constantly engaged in drunken riots and many were killed, that their horses were stolen, so that they had no means of travelling or hunting. All this, the chiefs said, had been changed by the coming of the Police. One chief, in the graphic way by which they gesture in accord with what they are saying, crouched down and moved along with difficulty, and then stood up and walked. "Before you came," said this chief to the Colonel, "the Indian had to creep along, not knowing what would attack him, but now he is not afraid to walk erect." And so that first winter wore on with steady work on the part of the Police, who, while seeing that the Indians had every protection afforded them, also helped them to understand that they also had to observe the laws of the land. In view of the general situation amongst the Indians and the proximity of part of the North-West Territory to the boundary line, on the other side of which there was almost continuous warfare between the Government and the Indians there, posts were established now at several points all over the vast area that the Mounted Police had to control and guide. In some respects perhaps the most notable event in the spring of 1875, was the sending of Inspector Walsh with "B" Division to the Cypress Hills country, where a fort was built, named after this active and venturous Inspector. And this Fort Walsh became the centre around which for several years the Indian problem, in its various phases, surged backwards and forwards in varying force, but sometimes within dangerous possibility of becoming a tidal wave of destruction and death. There is no finer chapter in Canadian history than the one in which a mere handful of officers and men of the Mounted Police, with endless patience, unflinching courage and consummate skill in open diplomacy, kept the peace in an area larger than several European kingdoms, and within whose precincts thousands of warlike and well-armed Indians composed the reckless, restless and roving population. Years afterwards, when the first Canadian railway had crossed the continent away to the north, and conditions were entirely changed after treaties had been made with the Indians and reserves allotted to them, Fort Walsh was abandoned and dismantled, as it had served its purpose. A peaceful ranch now occupies the site, but though the debris of the old fort is strewed on the plain, the record of the men who made their headquarters there and in similar places is an imperishable bulwark and citadel in the life of our Dominion. Other posts were established about this period, such as Fort Calgary, Fort Saskatchewan, Battleford, Carlton, in what is now Northern Saskatchewan, Qu'Appelle in Saskatchewan and Swan River, an early post, Shoal Lake and Beautiful Plains in the northern section of Manitoba. All of these had their influence on the progress of the West, but none had in the pathfinding days the halo of romance that centred around Fort Walsh. In the year 1875 Major-General Sir E. Selby Smith, who commanded the Militia in Canada, made a tour of inspection throughout the Dominion and spent some months under escort of the Mounted Police travelling from Swan River to the far West. He was most favourably impressed by the physique and initiative of the men, commended the work that had been done, suggested the increase of the Force and the opening of some new posts, but there were many items in the report which revealed that a man cannot know the life and the needs of a country by making a trip through it. Perhaps the best thing in his report was where he said: "Too much value cannot be attached to the North-West Police, too much attention cannot be paid to their efficiency." The men on the ground knew the value of the Force and were taking good care that it would be efficient to the last degree. It was at the time of this tour that a fort projected by Colonel MacLeod to be erected somewhere midway between Fort MacLeod and the Red Deer River was built by "F" troop of the Mounted Police. It was erected near the Bow River and for a time was known as Fort Brisebois, after the officer commanding the division at the time. The name got into orders once or twice but without authority, and Colonel MacLeod put an end to any controversy over it by calling it Calgarry, after his birthplace in Scotland. Our Western mania for shortening names and thereby sometimes breaking with the historical past led to the cutting out of a letter and leaving the name in its present form. But the present city of Calgary, with its great buildings and its distinctive place within sight of the Rockies, has a definite background of early police history which has done much to shape her destiny. In the seventies changes were taking place in the system of government in the North-West Territories that had pronounced influence on the future of the country in ways closely associated with police history. Heretofore the vast territory over which the Police had oversight had been governed from Manitoba by the Lieutenant-Governor of that Province, assisted by a small body of men called the North-West Council. But government at long range is not more successful than diplomacy of the same variety, and it was becoming evident that some visibility should be given to control in the North-West Territories that stretched from Manitoba to the Mountains and from the boundary to the Pole. Accordingly, in 1876 the Hon. David Laird was appointed Lieutenant-Governor, with a small Council to assist him consisting of Colonel MacLeod of the Police and Matthew Ryan and Hugh Richardson, Stipendiary Magistrates. Ryan was a man of considerable literary power, and Richardson became prominent as one of the trial judges in the cases of Riel and the other rebel leaders some years later. [Illustration: SITTING BULL. Famous Sioux Indian Chief.] [Illustration: COLONEL JAMES WALKER (CALGARY) The oldest survivor of those who were commissioned officers during the great march of 1874.] David Laird was a Prince Edward Islander of great stature and gentlemanly bearing. He was of imposing appearance, and had the grace of easy speech with a good voice. Fearless in his general attitude, he had withal a fine genius for diplomacy, and came to have a remarkable insight into the Indian mind. The Indians, who prefer giving men names that describe some outstanding characteristic, christened Laird as "the man who talks straight," or, in other words, the man who tells the truth and sticks to it. Few people, perhaps, nowadays know the obligation this country owes to men like Governor Alexander Morris, of Manitoba, and Governor David Laird, of the Territories, for the extraordinary success with which they and their faithful native interpreters, backed and flanked by the fair-minded Mounted Police, dealt with the Indians. The impressive scarlet uniform of the Police somehow or other came to be recognized by the Indians as a sign royal of friendship. Once when Inspector Walsh with several men was riding into a camp of American Indians who had crossed to this side in the winter time, with his dark blue overcoat lightly buttoned and the men in their great coats, the Indians, thinking they were American cavalry, met them with levelled rifles and angry faces. Walsh was not the kind of man to halt for that, and would probably have paid the penalty for his devotion to duty, had not one of the troopers, catching the situation, thrown his overcoat open and disclosed the scarlet tunic. In a flash the Indians lowered their rifles--they recognized their friends. Little wonder that Morris and Laird and the other treaty-makers were grateful for the high standing of these stalwart riders of the plains. This matter of the Indian treaties deserved some special notice, because it is not well understood by people outside this country and because it is closely connected, as already intimated with the story of the Mounted Police. It is inevitable in the progress of human history that higher civilizations should supersede the lower. Wherever the contrary has been the case and a lower civilization overran the higher the movement of humanity was retrograde. Hence, if the Indian type of civilization in Western Canada was to be superseded by the British type and this change effected without injustice and hardship for the original dwellers in the country, the Government of the Dominion must proceed by process of treaty. By this we mean that the Government had at the same time to conserve the rights of the Indian and secure to them both a place of residence and means of subsistence by a system of reserves and money payments, and also had to so extinguish the Indian title to all lands outside their reserves as to enable incoming settlers to enter upon these lands and possess them on fulfilling certain conditions. That the Government of Canada, without regard to political party, has through all the years been more successful in these undertakings than the Government of any other country is generally conceded. This success has been due in part to the wise leadership of governors and commissioners and native interpreters. But we reiterate what every one knows who has studied the real history of this country at first hand, namely that this success was due in a very large degree to the presence of the Mounted Police who became from the first in the eyes of the Indians the embodiment of genuine friendship and British fair play. The earliest Indian treaty in what is now Western Canada was made by Lord Selkirk, whom the Salteaux Indians in the Red River Country called "The Silver Chief," because for sterling gifts he obtained from the Indians for his colonists a strip of land extending back as far as one could see a white horse on the prairie in a clear day. That was a primitive method of measurement and depended somewhat on the individual's power of vision, but with a vast unpeopled land stretching a thousand miles to the setting sun no one raised questions about a few acres more or less. Later, when the country was beginning to fill up, greater care had to be exercised. Indians, though apparently stoical and unemotional, are in reality very sensitive and keenly susceptible to anything that looks like oversight or slight of them and their rights. The year 1876 witnessed the retirement of Colonel French from the Commissionership of the Mounted Police. He had wrought hard in the critical tasks that fall to the lot of the foundation builder, but desired to return to his duty in the regular artillery service in England, where his eminent contributions to the Empire have been duly recognized. Colonel French, who retained to the end a warm interest in the Police, was succeeded in the Commissionership by Colonel James Farquharson MacLeod, who had already done such outstanding work during the long trek to the West and in getting to definite police duty at the key-position of the whole work in the foothill country. It was a tribute to MacLeod's work that he was appointed also to aid Governor Laird in the delicate work of making the treaty with the most difficult tribes in the North-West to handle. Treaties had been made with the Indians who had been most in contact with civilization in the more easterly districts of the Lake of the Woods, Lake Winnipeg and the Qu'Appelle Lakes. But the most imposing spectacles and the most difficult situation began to arise when the Governors, flanked by the brilliant scarlet of the Mounted Police, came to the farther North-West where the Indians retained much of their native dignity and barbaric splendour. This point was reached when Commissioners Governor Morris, Hon. W. J. Christie and the Hon. James McKay came to Fort Carlton to negotiate with Mistawasis, the great chief of the Crees, and his friend Ahtukahcoop. An interesting preface to this treaty was a threat made by a rascally Indian, Chief Beardy, of Duck Lake, who said that he would not allow the Commissioners to cross the south branch of the Saskatchewan River to come to Carlton. This information was imparted by Lawrence Clark, Hudson's Bay Factor at Carlton, to Inspector James Walker, who had arrived from Battleford with fifty Mounted Police the day before that on which the Commissioners were to arrive. Walker (now Colonel Walker, of Calgary), a man of commanding stature and strong determination, at once decided to take a hand in the proceedings. Initiative has always been characteristic of the Police. They were often miles away in distance from and worlds away in chance of communication with, any superior officer, and so they early developed the powers of resource which had to come into play in emergencies. Hence Walker, seeing the situation, swung out with his troop, in the small hours of next morning and hit the trail for Batoche. On the way he overtook the band of Indians with Chief Beardy. Walker paid no attention to them, but simply passed them and continued on the way. These Indians rarely indicate surprise, but this was the surprise of their lives, and they showed it in spite of themselves. They evidently did not calculate on the presence of the force in that part of the world, and to have these stalwart red-coated riders come up from the unexpected direction was too much even for their impassiveness. When Walker met the Commissioners farther on, he told Governor Morris of the situation and then, wheeling his men, formed a scarlet escort around the carriage. When they met Beardy he was in a repentant mood and shook hands with the Governor. But this disorderly Chief would only sign the treaty in his own camp. Not long afterwards Inspector Walker with two constables had to go to Duck Lake and face this same chief and a band of his insolent warriors and prevent them from looting a store at that point. Still later we shall find the incorrigible Beardy on the war-path with the rebels Riel and Gabriel Dumont. The treaty, known generally as "Number Six," was duly made at Carlton by Governor Morris and the other Commissioners, with a noted half-breed, Peter Erasmus, as the capable interpreter. Those present who had not been accustomed to the plains witnessed a spectacle of wild splendour, as preceding the treaty, over a thousand Indians, brilliantly and fantastically painted, chanting a weird song, firing rifles, exhibiting marvellous horsemanship, beating drums and giving strange yells, advanced in a semi-circle near to the Commissioner's tent. All this was preparatory to the famous dance of the stem, where the chiefs, councillors and medicine men seated themselves on buffalo robes and a beautifully decorated pipe with a long stem was produced. This was carried around the semi-circle, then raised towards the heavens and the stem pointed in turn north, south, east and west. With more stately motion the Indians moved towards the Council tent, where they were met by the Commissioners who took the pipe and one after the other stroked it gently to indicate that they reciprocated the peaceful approach of the Indians. The Commissioners present with Governor Morris at this treaty and others deserve special notice. The Hon. W. J. Christie was a famous Hudson's Bay Company Factor. When in January, 1873, the Ottawa Government appointed a North-West Council to act with Governor Morris in governing the far hinterland towards the mountains, Mr. Christie, who had a very wide knowledge of conditions and who had education and judgment, was one of the men chosen. An interesting fact in that connection was that when the first meeting of that Council was held, on March 8 in that year, Mr. Christie travelled 2,000 miles by dog-train from Fort Simpson to Winnipeg to attend it. It was a good opportunity for collecting mileage and perquisites, but the probability is that this public-spirited man and the great Company he served made the contribution to the country. His usefulness was so apparent at the meeting that he was asked to help the Government in the great task of treaty-making which had baffled so many other countries. The other Commissioner whose name is found to nearly all the treaties was the Hon. James McKay, one of the most picturesque figures the western plains, amid all their unique characters, ever saw. I remember him in his later years. His father was a Scot, who had been on one of the Arctic expeditions in search of Sir John Franklin and had married in the Saskatchewan country one of the tall, stately and handsome daughters of the land. Their sons were all of distinguished appearance. The following description given by the Earl of Southesk, who had come on a hunting tour and a search for health in the great out-of-doors of the North-West years ago, is true to the subject. He says: "James McKay met me in St. Paul. His appearance greatly interested me, both from his own personal advantages and because he was the first Red River man I had seen. Immensely broad-chested and muscular, though not tall, he weighed 18 stone: yet in spite of his stoutness, he was exceedingly hardy and active, and a wonderful horseman. His face is very handsome--short, aquiline, delicate nose; piercing dark grey eyes; skin tanned to red bronze by exposure to the weather. He was dressed in Red River style, a blue cloth capote (hooded frock coat) with brass buttons; red and black flannel shirt, which served for waistcoat; black belt around the waist; trousers of brown and white striped home-made stuff, buff leather moccasins on his feet. I had never come across a wearer of moccasins before, and it amused me to see this grand and massive man pacing the hotel corridors with noiseless footfall, while excitable little men in shiny boots creaked and stamped about like so many busy steam engines." It was this splendid man who was present to assist Governor Laird and Mr. Christie in making treaties with the Cree Indians at Carlton on August 23 and at Fort Pitt on September 9. The last time I saw James McKay was when a number of us schoolboys rode up to Silver Heights to see some western sports and buffalo running in honour of the Governor-General, Lord Dufferin. And as the magnificent frontiersman drove about with his famous cream horse and buckboard, the great Irish diplomat realized what such men had done to make the great North-West peacefully into being a part of Canada. Soon after these treaties, the headquarters of the Mounted Police were moved from Swan River, which had never been satisfactory, to Fort MacLeod, where they arrived on October 22. Apart from Swan River being unsuitable, it was evident that the centre of interest was gravitating towards that part of the territories where the names of Forts MacLeod and Walsh, Wood Mountain and Cypress Hills and other points were being printed indelibly on the map of Western history. This portion of the territory was close up against the international boundary line across which might be heard the roar of fighting between the Sioux Indians and the United States soldiery. To discuss that is not part of our story, but the Indians there vehemently declared that they had been for years robbed by swindling government agents and driven off their land by unscrupulous gold-hunters and lawless speculators. And, as in many other cases, soldiers who were themselves innocent of these things had to be called on to fight the Indians who had grown savage under a sense of wrong and who, savage-like, had taken revenge by killing whenever they could. That very year, only a few months before the headquarters of the Police were moved to Fort MacLeod, occurred the tragedy of the "Custer Massacre," when that gallant soldier and his no less gallant men, attempting the impossible, were wiped out completely by superior numbers of Sioux under the redoubtable chiefs Sitting Bull and Spotted Eagle. "The Long Hair," as General Custer was called by the Indians who always admired his dash and courage, fought desperately to the end, and was said to be the last man to fall. Only the arrival later of General Terry, with whom Custer was to have co-operated, prevented still greater disaster to the balance of the American force. All this had its effect on our side of the border. It made our Indians, Blackfeet, Bloods, Piegans and others, restless, and it became known that the Sioux on the south of the line were making overtures to the Indians on the Canadian side either to go over and fight the Americans or to join with the Indians in the United States to drive all the whites out of the country on both sides. Inspector Denny, who did much valuable work in those early days and who made an arrest in a Blackfoot camp, reported in August of 1876 that he had been consulted by the Blackfeet Council and told of the efforts made by the Sioux to get the Indians on this side with them. However, the Blackfeet remained loyal mainly because they had learned to trust the Mounted Police. But shortly afterwards, matters were complicated by bands of Sioux crossing over the line into Canadian territory. We shall deal with this Sioux invasion in the next chapter, but in the meantime, as this is a chapter on treaties, shall record how the Canadian Government, being fully aware of all these events, took special steps at once to make treaties with the warlike tribes which inhabited that vast area from the North Saskatchewan River towards the boundary line. For this purpose the Commissioners appointed were Governor David Laird and Colonel MacLeod, of the Mounted Police. No better men could be chosen to make this famous Treaty Number Seven with the Indians at a very critical hour. Accordingly, on September 19, 1877, at the Blackfeet Crossing of the Bow River, less than a 100 miles from Fort MacLeod, the Chiefs of the Blackfeet, Blood, Piegan, Stony and Sarcee tribes and some 5,000 of their men, women and children met to hear the Great Mother's chiefs. Mr. Laird's address was full of dignity and impressiveness, and couched in the picturesque language which, interpreted by the inimitable Jerry Potts, found its way to the hearts of his audience. Mr. Laird opened by saying, "The Great Spirit has made all things, the sun, the moon, the stars, the earth, the forests and the swift-running rivers. It is by the Great Spirit that the Queen rules over this great country and other great countries. The Great Spirit has made the white man and the red man brothers, and we should take each other by the hand. The Great Mother loves all her children, white men and red men alike. She wishes to do them all good." Then Mr. Laird made special reference to the Police which was good diplomacy, for the Indians had known the Police for three years and the wise Governor saw the advantage of linking up the Police with the Queen's government. He said, "When bad white men brought you whisky, robbed you and made you poor, and through whisky made you quarrel amongst yourselves, she sent the Mounted Police to put an end to it. You know how they stopped this and punished the offenders, and how much good this has done. I have to tell you how much pleased the Queen is that you have taken the Mounted Police by the hand and helped them and obeyed her laws since their arrival. She hopes you will continue to do so and you will always find the Mounted Police on your side if you keep the Queen's laws." Then Mr. Laird explained the terms of the treaty and asked the Indians to go to their Council tents if they wished to consider the matter. Next day the Commissioners again met the chiefs and made all the points clear, and on the third day the treaty was concluded amid great satisfaction on all sides. There were some remarkable tributes to the Police by the Chiefs. Crowfoot, the head chief, said, "The advice given to me and my people has proved to be good. If the Police had not come to this country where would we all be now? Bad men and whisky were indeed killing us so fast that very few of us indeed would have been left to-day. The Mounted Police have protected us as the feathers of the bird protect it from the frosts of winter. I wish them all good and trust that all our hearts will increase in goodness from this time forward. I am satisfied, I will sign the treaty." Red Crow, head chief of the Bloods, the most powerful tribe of the Blackfeet Confederacy, said, "Three years ago, when the Mounted Police came to this country, I met and shook hands with Stamix-oto-kan (Colonel MacLeod) at Belly River. Since that time he made me many promises, he kept them all; not one of them was broken. Everything that the Mounted Police have done has been good. I entirely trust Stamix-oto-kan (Colonel MacLeod) and will leave everything to him. I will sign with Crowfoot." Many others spoke in the same strain, and after this great treaty was signed, on September 21, 1877, there was a salute of guns and general jubilation. The point to be specially recalled in connection with this treaty is that it was practically accomplished upon the splendid record that Colonel MacLeod and his men had made amongst these powerful tribes in the most difficult part of the West. The annual money payment to the Indians under the treaties required careful and honest handling. And at the conclusion of his report to the Government in regard to this most famous of all the treaties, Governor Laird made this remarkable witness-bearing recommendation: "I would urge that the officers of the Mounted Police be entrusted to make the annual payments to the Indians under this treaty. The chiefs themselves requested this, and I said I believed the Government would gladly consent to the arrangement. The Indians have confidence in the Police, and it might be some time before they would acquire the same respect for strangers." That this suggestion was carried out, is attested the next year by that well-known officer, Superintendent Winder, who in his report says: "Inspector Macdonnell and party arrived from Fort Walsh with money for the Indian payments. Inspector McIllree paid the Bloods at MacLeod, Inspector Dickens the Piegans on their reserve, Inspector Frechette the Stoneys at Morley-ville, and I accompanied the agent to the Blackfeet Crossing to assist in paying the Indians there." All this requires no comment further than to say that when the fighting Sioux across the line tried to inveigle these warlike tribes into a war of extermination against the whites, and later when the fiercely magnetic Louis Riel sought to get them to join his revolt, the great work in the consummation of Treaty Number Seven stood Canada in good stead. One more great treaty had still to be made, and though it is anticipating a date twenty years after the famous Number Seven Treaty, we record it here before closing the chapter of treaties with the Indians of the North-West. A vast region away northward from Edmonton, known generally as the Athabasca, Peace River and Mackenzie River region, had so far not been brought under treaty conditions. This was mainly due to the fact that settlement had not been making its way into that region. It was considered the home of the fur-trader and the hunter more than that of the farmer or the stock-raiser. But the investigations brought about by the Senate Committee at Ottawa on the motion and under the leadership of Senator (Sir John) Schultz, had called so much attention to the great agricultural possibilities of the country that, despite the total absence of railways, settlers were percolating slowly into that great northern area. Then the gold-rush to the Klondike began midway in the nineties, and as some of this rush was either going through the Peace River country to the Yukon or scattering down the northern rivers, it became necessary, in the view of the Mounted Police, who made recommendations to the Government, to make a treaty as early as possible, in order to prevent trouble. Accordingly, the Hon. Clifford Sifton, then Superintendent-General of Indian affairs in the Laurier Government, began arrangements in 1898 which led to the appointment of a Commission and the making of Treaty Number Eight in 1899. Strangely enough, the Hon. David Laird, "the man who talked straight," who had as Governor of the Territories made the famous treaties with the Indians of the plains twenty years before, was called to head the new commission and make this final treaty with the Crees, Beavers, Chippewyans and other Indians of the far North. Mr. Laird, after the term of his office as Governor had expired, had retired to his home in Prince Edward Island, but later on was appointed to take charge of Indian affairs in the West, with headquarters in Winnipeg. Along with this Indian Treaty Commission was a half-breed commission, of which the frontiersman author, Mr. Charles Mair, was secretary. The expedition took months, and involved hard if picturesque travelling, all of which is graphically described in Mr. Mair's narrative _Through the Mackenzie Basin_. The treaty was made beginning first at Lesser Slave Lake, and continuing at other points. Mr. Mair, in his book, gives us the names of the party, describes the camp equipment and then makes the following fine reference to the Mounted Police: "Not the least important and effective constituent of the party was the detachment of the Royal North-West Mounted Police which joined us at Edmonton, minus their horses of course; picked men from a picked force; sterling fellows whose tenacity and hard work in the tracking harness did yeoman service in many a serious emergency. This detachment consisted of Inspector Snyder, Sergeant Anderson, Corporals Fitzgerald and McClelland, and Constables McLaren, Lett, Burman, Lelonde, Burke, Vernon and Kerr. The conduct of these men, it is needless to say, was the admiration of all, and assisted materially in the successful progress of the expedition." Thus did these nation-building Police set their seal to the great treaties which provided for the future of the Indian tribes and at the same time extinguished the title of the tribes in order to open up a new empire for higher civilization. CHAPTER VI HANDLING AMERICAN INDIANS Nothing in the history of Western Canada was more charged with dynamitic possibilities of serious trouble than the unexpected influx into our country of thousands of battle-scarred Indians from the other side of the boundary line. The whole period for five years, from 1876 onward, bristled with difficulties. These Indians themselves had to be more or less provided for while upon our soil--they had to be controlled according to British law, they had to be kept from interfering with the loyalty as well as the rights and reserves of our own Indians, and they had to be restrained from making this country the base of any operations against our friendly neighbour country south of the line. The whole situation was filled with dramatic incidents and dangerous possibilities of international complications. The honour of handling it with masterly, firm and yet conciliatory methods must be given not to Ottawa, which was too far away and which often misunderstood, but to the officers and men of the Mounted Police whose consummate skill, courage and initiative are the leading features of that serious period. And the amazing thing about it all is that in the midst of seething thousands of American and Canadian Indians on the wide and lonely frontier, we had a mere handful of these gallant red-coated guardians of the peace. The influx of American Indians began in December, 1876, when some 3,000 Indians, with large droves of horses and mules, crossed over and camped at Wood Mountain. They told the officers of the Mounted Police who visited them at once that "they had been driven out by the American and had come to look for peace; that they had been told by their grandfathers that they would find peace in the land of the British; that their brothers, the Santees, had found it years ago and they had now followed them; that they had not slept sound for years and were anxious to find a place where they could lie down and feel safe." It was not the British way to turn a deaf ear to that pathetic appeal, and so Inspector Walsh, then in charge at Fort Walsh, took charge of the situation, began at once to regulate the possession of arms and ammunition to what was necessary for hunting for subsistence and generally to keep in close touch with the Indian encampments. In the following May the famous and redoubtable Sitting Bull with quite a large force came over and joined the American Indian colony. They also were interviewed at once by the Mounted Police and promised to observe the laws of the Great Mother. In the following months bands of Nez Perces and others arrived in flight from the American soldiers. And so the situation became more involved. Efforts were made to persuade these Indians to return to their own country, but they declined to do so and of course no one would compel them. The Indians said they had been robbed and cheated by agents, and so they had lost faith in the American Government, for they assumed that the Government knew or ought to know of these things. It was matter of common knowledge throughout the Western country that some agents who were receiving a salary of $1500.00 a year retired with fortunes after a few years in office, and even the most unsuspecting and docile Indian would baulk at that after a while. Colonel McLeod, a very cautious man, in a report to the Hon. David Mills at Ottawa, said, "I think the principal cause of the difficulties which are continually embroiling the American Government in trouble with the Indians, is the manner in which these Indians are treated by the swarms of adventurers who have scattered themselves all over the Indian country in search of minerals before any treaty is made giving up the title. These men always look upon the Indians as their natural enemies, and it is their rule to shoot at them if they approach after being warned off. I was actually asked the other day by an American who has settled here, if we had the same law here as on the other side, and if he was justified in shooting any Indian who approached his camp after being warned not to advance. I am satisfied that such a rule is not necessary in dealing with the worst of Indians, and that any necessity there might be for its adoption arose from the illegal intrusion and wrongdoings of the Whites." Happy country was ours to have a MacLeod on the spot through these troublous years! Meanwhile the Police had occasional problems with our own Indians, not in relation to the Government, but in connection with ancient or modern feuds or ordinary quarrels between tribes. The Police generally got things early under control. Here is a case. On May 25, 1877, Little Child, a Salteaux Treaty Chief, came to Fort Walsh and reported that his people and a large number of Assiniboines under Chief Crow's Dance had been camped together. The Salteaux desired to leave, and so notified Crow's Dance. This individual for some reason refused permission to the Salteaux to leave camp. But Little Child, feeling that he and his people had a right to go where they pleased "so long as they kept the laws of the White Mother," ordered his people to move. Whereupon Crow's Dance, who had 250 warriors, set upon the Salteaux, killing not any of the people, but shooting nineteen valuable sled-dogs, cutting lodges, upsetting travois, knocking down men, and frightening the women and children by firing off guns and giving war-whoops. When warned by Little Child, who did not retaliate, that he would report the matter to the Police, Crow's Dance struck him and said, "When the Police come we will do the same." Crow's Dance, backed by several hundred warriors, talked boastfully, knowing that there was only a handful of Police at Fort Walsh. But the Police came, all told fifteen constables and a guide, under Inspector Walsh. They had also the surgeon, Dr. Kittson, along, because it looked as if his services would be required badly. Walsh and his handful of men struck that camp at three o'clock in the morning, after getting the report. He halted his men and inspected their arms and had all pistols ready. Then they rode swiftly into camp, and before anyone knew how it happened, he had "Crow's Dance" and "Rolling Thunder" and "Spider" and "The one who bends the wood" and the other leaders under arrest and out of camp to a butte near by. There Walsh ordered his men to breakfast, and sent word to the Assiniboine Chiefs still in camp that he would talk to them after breakfast. And so he did, making it very clear that no one had any right to interfere with others who desired to leave camp peaceably, and that he intended to take "Crow's Dance" and the others to Fort Walsh for trial. And they were taken accordingly. Some were sentenced to short terms, others were allowed to go, as they were not specially involved. In reporting this incident to Ottawa, Assistant-Commissioner A. G. Irvine said: "In conclusion I cannot too highly write of Inspector Walsh's prompt conduct in this matter, and it must be a matter of congratulation to feel that fifteen of our men can ride into an enormous camp of Indians and take out of it as prisoners thirteen of their head men. The action of this detachment will have great effect on all the Indians throughout the country." Right loyally spoken, Major Irvine! And Walsh in his report speaks of his men: "In conclusion I wish to say a few words for the men of my detachment. Before entering the camp I explained to them there were 200 warriors in the camp who had set the Police at defiance; that I intended to arrest the leaders; to do so perhaps would put them in a dangerous position, but that they would have to pay strict attention to all orders given by me, no matter how severe they might appear. From the replies and the way they acted during the whole time, I am of opinion that every man of this detachment would have boldly stood his ground if the Indians had made any resistance." A good testimony this from a keen leader of gallant men. And because a note of appreciation is always an encouragement, we quote the able Comptroller Fred White, who wrote Major Irvine on behalf of the Secretary of State, then the governmental head of the department: "The Secretary of State desires that you will convey to Inspector Walsh his appreciation of the courage and determination shown by him and the officers and men under his command in carrying out their duty." This incident occurred while the Sitting Bull invasion was still an unsolved problem, and so we take it up again. Inspector Walsh, as already recorded, met him on his arrival on Canadian soil, and Sitting Bull promised to obey the Queen's laws and report to the Police anything that happened. Not long afterwards three Americans, one a priest, the second General Miles' head scout, and an interpreter, arrived in Sitting Bull's camp to persuade him to go back south of the line. "The black-robe" would have been safe, but the other two would have been shot on sight but for Sitting Bull's promise to Walsh. The Chief sent word to the Police that three Americans were in his camp, and Assistant Commissioner Irvine, Inspector Walsh, Sub-Inspectors Clark and Allen went out to hold inquiry regarding the situation. Including the Yanktons, a branch of the Sioux, there were some 205 lodges. This was Irvine's first meeting with the famous Sioux Chief, and he gives us this pen picture: "I was particularly struck with Sitting Bull. He is a man of somewhat short stature, but with a pleasant face, a mouth showing great determination and a fine high forehead. When he smiled, which he often did, his face brightened up wonderfully. I should say he is a man of about forty-five years of age. The warriors who came with him were all of immense height and very muscular. When talking at the conference he spoke as a man who understands his subject well and who had thoroughly weighed it before speaking. He believes no one from the other side and said so. His speech showed him to be a man of wonderful capability." The conference referred to was between the police officers above mentioned and Sitting Bull and other chiefs of the Sioux, Pretty Bear, Bear's Cap, The Eagle Sitting Down, Spotted Eagle and others. Later on the three Americans were present. But the Sioux flatly refused to return to the South, Sitting Bull closing the conference with the words, "Once I was rich, plenty of money, but the Americans stole it all in the Black Hills. What should I return for? To have my horse and my arms taken away? I have come to remain with the White Mother's children." The next step taken by the American Government which seemed anxious to have the Indians return South and settle down on certain conditions, was to send special Commissioners in the persons of General Terry and General O'Neill, replaced by Lawrence, to visit Canada, hold conference with Sitting Bull and the other chiefs to that end. The Canadian Government adhered to its position of being willing to protect the Indians so long as they were on British soil. Hence no undue pressure to leave would be brought on those who had sought asylum under the British flag, but at the same time both the Ottawa authorities and the Police would have been glad to see them go voluntarily. Those who had knowledge of the situation and the outlook knew that Canada would not set aside land as reserves for American Indians, and they knew also that with the early disappearance of buffalo and other game in the presence of advancing civilization, the burden of feeding and caring for these aliens would be very heavy. Word was wired from Ottawa to Colonel MacLeod to meet the American Commissioners with an escort at the boundary and if possible to get the Sioux leaders to come to Fort Walsh to meet them and thus save the Commissioners the necessity for a long journey. Accordingly, MacLeod met the Americans at the line and escorted them to Fort Walsh, to which point Inspector Walsh brought Sitting Bull and the other chiefs in due course. Walsh had great difficulty in getting the Indians to come, as they said they did not trust the Americans and feared that the latter might bring soldiers across to attack them. The fact that the day Walsh was in the camp on his errand of persuasion a band of Nez Perces men, women and children, wounded and bleeding, after a fight across the line, had come there for refuge, did not make the Inspector's task any easier. But because they had received the assurance of both MacLeod and Walsh that no one could cross the line after them, the chiefs came--Sitting Bull, Bear's Cap, Spotted Eagle, Flying Bird, Whirlwind Bear, Iron Dog, The Crow, Bear that Scatters, Little Knife, Yellow Dog and some others of less importance. The conference was held on October 17, 1877. It is customary for all parties to shake hands before beginning these "talks," but on this occasion Sitting Bull, representing the Chiefs, entered and shook hands warmly with Colonel MacLeod, but passed the American Commissioners with the utmost disdain. General Terry delivered the message from the President of the United States. Terry was a distinguished soldier, hero of Fort Fisher in the Civil War, a man of magnificent appearance, standing some 6 ft. 6 in., built in proportion, a very gentlemanly officer with a kindly face and gracious manner. He made known the wishes of the President, told the Sioux that they were the only hostile band remaining out, offered them reserves and stock with farm implements and instructors, the only condition being that they would settle down on their reserves and surrender their arms and their horses. The General made appeal to them that, because too much blood had already been spilled, they should all henceforth live in peace, and the whole bearing and appearance of the distinguished speaker indicated his personal genuineness. But Sitting Bull and his friends would not be appeased. They were embittered by a long course of harsh and unfair treatment by unscrupulous agents and frontier exploiters. One after the other the chiefs rose and declined the offer because, as they said, they had no confidence that these fair promises would be carried out. Sitting Bull said, "For sixty-four years you have treated my people bad. Over there we could go nowhere, so we have taken refuge here. I shake hands with these people (the Police), you can go back home, that part of the country we came from belonged to us and you took it from us, now we live here." Some of the other chiefs spoke even more bitterly and even a squaw, though it was a most unusual thing for a woman to take part in a conference, added her hot protest against accepting the proposals of the Commissioners from the States. The burden of the Indian speeches was all to the effect that they had been given no rest on the other side of the line, but had been driven about from place to place. So the United States officers returned to their own country, having failed in their mission, to their own disappointment, and it may be added to the disappointment of the Canadian authorities who would have been glad to be relieved of the responsibility for the care of alien Indians, but who would not attempt in any way to drive out any who had sought refuge on our soil. But as the time passed the position of the Sioux became more and more difficult. They were kept under strict surveillance by the Police. On account of their warlike disposition, and their association with the massacres south of the line, their presence was prejudicial to settlement by white people. Superintendent James Walker, who was in charge at Battleford and who, having jurisdiction over a large area, showed marked judgment as well as firmness in dealing with Indians, has some very accurate forecasts in a report written at the end of 1879. He suggests that Police be stationed at Duck Lake and Fort Pitt as well as Prince Albert. Duck Lake was the home of Chief Beardy, with whom Walker had already taken some firm measures and who joined with the Riel-Dumont rebellion later. Fort Pitt was the home of Chief Big Bear, concerning whom Walker writes in that report: "I look upon Big Bear as one of the most troublesome Cree Indians we have in the territories." And this same Big Bear also became a rebel in Riel's day and, after the Frog Lake massacre, burned Fort Pitt as an extra in his exploits, as I witnessed with my own eyes. These items are quoted to show Walker's foresight as well as insight, for these give special weight to another sentence in that report concerning Indians of the Sitting Bull tribe. "The very name of Sioux," wrote Walker, "strikes terror into the hearts of many of the settlers." On this account the wanderings of Sitting Bull from Fort Walsh to Qu'Appelle and generally round about, was an unsettling influence. In a year or two, however, with the buffalo growing fewer and no land reserve in sight on the Canadian side, a good many of Sitting Bull's following began to drop away from him and go back over the line. One day, with about 1,200 or so of his people, he turned up at Fort Qu'Appelle and applied to Superintendent Sam B. Steele, who had come to that point from Fort Walsh, and asked that a reserve be given him and his band in Canada. Steele told him there was no chance, but sent a wire to Indian Commissioner (afterwards Governor) Dewdney that Sitting Bull was there. Mr. Dewdney came to Qu'Appelle and told Sitting Bull that the Canadian Government would not give him a reserve, as he had a reserve on the other side of the line which the United States would give him to occupy in peace if he would go there. Mr. Dewdney offered to ration Sitting Bull and his band as far as Wood Mountain, and Steele sent an escort with the Indians to ration them to that point. When they arrived there Sitting Bull was in a rather vicious temper and went to Inspector A. R. Macdonnell, the Mounted Police officer in charge there, with a few men. Sitting Bull asked for food and was refused by Macdonnell, who was widely known as a somewhat erratic but absolutely fearless and fair-minded man. The Sioux Chief then said he would take food by force, but he had mistaken his man. Macdonnell replied that he would ration the band with bullets if they tried that game. Then said Sitting Bull, "I am cast away." "No," said Macdonnell. "You are not cast away. I am speaking for your own good and the good of your people and giving you good advice. You have been promised pardon and food and land if you return to your own reservation in the United States. I advise you to go and I will help you and your people to travel if you accept the terms that have been offered you." Sitting Bull knew that Macdonnell would keep his word in either case, and so he concluded to take the Inspector's kindly meant advice. Accordingly, the next day Macdonnell personally accompanied Sitting Bull to Poplar River, where the Chief handed over his rifle to Major Brotherton of the United States Army in token of submission. Macdonnell then arranged that the Sitting Bull band should be supplied with transportation and food by Mr. Louis Legarre, a trader, at the expense of the American Government, and thus they all crossed over the line. A few years later there was some row on Sitting Bull's reserve over there in connection with arrests, and in the confusion the famous old chief was shot, it is claimed by mistake and unnecessarily. Thus ended the stormy career of a man who seems to have been honest according to his light in fighting for the rights of his people as he understood them. His methods in war were no doubt barbaric and cruel enough, but some civilized nations cannot throw stones at pagans in that regard. I have written Sitting Bull's story as far as it affected Canada in some detail, because it was in reality a series of events full of dangerous possibilities. Papers and persons in Eastern Canada were demanding that regiments should be raised and sent out to the West to cope with the situation that foreboded war with the Americans, who had thousands of picked soldiers on the border to keep the Indians down. But to the utter amazement of Eastern Canadians and to the more profound surprise of the Americans our handful of Mounted Police, with masterly diplomacy, endless patience and steady, cool courage were able to handle the whole situation and solve it without the loss of a single life on either side. There are few such chapters anywhere in the records of history. It is in keeping with the general attitude of the Police towards the Indians, whom they considered the wards of the nation which the men in the scarlet tunic represented, that we find many fine incidents scattered up and down throughout the years. At Qu'Appelle, about the time above noted, an epidemic of smallpox threatened in the winter time, when its deadly effects are most in evidence in the Indian camps. The Police never proceeded on the wretched maxim of some that "the only good Indian is a dead Indian," and so, when these children of the wild were attacked by plague or pestilence or other destroyer, the Police fought for the lives of the afflicted people with all the tenacity and the courage of their corps. On the occasion mentioned in this paragraph there was no doctor, but Acting Hospital Steward Holmes, who had studied medicine, though he had no graduation standing, threw himself into the struggle against this dread disease. He vaccinated the Indians on all the reserves, many white people and all the half-breeds in the district. This meant travelling incessantly in the dead of winter and sleeping without tent in the snow-drifts with the thermometer down to 30 degrees below zero and more. He was only drawing the usual constable pay of 75 cents a day, and Steele, who was in command, recommended him for a small bonus allowance and a promotion. For it was not only vaccination and treatment of smallpox that had engaged Holmes' efforts, but constant attendance upon hundreds of Indians who had been so worn down that it was only by his devoted efforts that they were pulled through that hard winter. To Steele's amazement neither of his recommendations as to this toiler for others was acted upon. But I do not suppose Holmes cared. He had done his duty and was not working for reward. But the ways of men who could pigeon-hole a recommendation like that are difficult to understand. A somewhat similar case was away in another direction, where one Corporal D. B. Smith held the post all alone at the famous old Hudson's Bay Fort at Norway House on Lake Winnipeg. Scarlet fever and diphtheria in the most deadly form broke out amongst the Indians and half-breeds, who were being mowed down like corn before the scythe. Corporal Smith, though stationed there for ordinary duty, did not hesitate a moment in facing the situation and going into a fight against these violent twin epidemics. He looked after the sick with the tenderness of a nurse, he comforted the dying, he buried the dead when even relatives shrank from the duty, and by strong disinfectants he sought to clean the huts and tents of the poisonous germs. There was no glamour of war to lure him on, no crashing of music, no cheers of comrades, for he was alone. It was just a grim, determined, silent fight, in which he knew he might fall at any moment himself, and there was no one to tell of deeds that were worthy of the Victoria Cross. But he fought the plagues to a finish. And it is good to know that when the story of it all leaked out and got to the ears of the authorities the Corporal got an additional stripe in recognition of his valorous work. Or take a later case, where one Sergeant Field away in the bitter North at Fort Chippewyan received word that an Indian had gone insane and dangerous some 300 miles away at another post. Field had just returned from a hard patrol and his dogs were fagged. Field was an experienced man and knew the danger, as he was tired out himself. But he hired a fresh team of dogs and started out. The Indian madman was hard to handle, for he was violent and strong. Field had to tie him on the sleigh, but of course had to release him at times for fear he would freeze. On these occasions the lunatic would fight like a wolf and make attempts to get away. It would have been easy to let him get away and be lost in some night blizzard in the wilderness. But that was not the Police way, and in due course the unfortunate creature was landed safely at Fort Saskatchewan and given a chance to recover under new conditions. When occasion required, the red-coated men could be firm enough, as all law-breakers found to their sorrow, but there is something amazing in the way in which these policemen risked and lost their lives at times in making arrests rather than shoot the Indians they were sent to bring in. In a most marked degree the police kept to the faith that they were come to save human lives rather than destroy them. In this connection and throwing in some incidents as above to illustrate our points, we think of the case of Sergeant Wilde, of Pincher Creek, who trailed a murderous Indian generally known as Charcoal into the foothills. When the murderer was sighted, Wilde, whose horse was one of the best, spurred away ahead of his men. Charcoal was riding deliberately along with a rifle slung across in front of him in plain sight of Wilde, who, however, would not fire upon him, but pressed on to make the arrest and leave the disposal of him to the law of the land. When Wilde rode up to him, the Indian wheeled in his saddle and shot him, following this up a few minutes after by putting another bullet in the body of the policeman as he lay on the ground. Wilde was one of the finest men who had ever worn the uniform--one of the men who had built up the great tradition of the Force. He was greatly beloved at Pincher Creek, where the citizens erected a monument to his memory. A pathetic incident took place on the day of his funeral, when a faithful and favourite hound that had always kept guard over Wilde refused to allow the pallbearers to remove the body and had to be shot before the funeral cortège could proceed. It was a pity to have to do this drastic thing, but the loyal and devoted dog would no doubt have died in any case of a broken heart. And then there was the case of that other gallant young man, Sergeant Colebrook, up in the Prince Albert district, who was killed while proceeding to arrest a notorious Indian called Almighty Voice. Colebrook knew the character of the Indian because he had arrested him once before for cattle-stealing. This time Colebrook was trailing him for killing cattle and for breaking jail, and in company with an interpreter guide caught up to him on the open prairie. The Indian unslung his gun and called to the guide to tell the policeman to halt or he would shoot. But halting was not the Police way, and Colebrook, with the warrant to arrest, not to kill, as he said to the guide, went steadily forward and received a fatal bullet through the heart. It was the price he paid for his devotion to orders, but it maintained the Police tradition. Almighty Voice, of course, was not allowed to escape. He and two other Indians took up a stand in a clump of bushes, where they fought like rats in a hole against the Police and civilians, of whom they killed several before the bush was shelled and the Indians found dead when Assistant Commissioner McIllree with several men rushed the position from the open plain. It was the willingness of the Police, even at great risk to themselves, to allow the alleged wrong-doer to get the benefit of a fair British trial after his arrest, that gradually gave the Indians a new sense of obligation to the men of the scarlet tunic. This splendid part of the Police tradition won its way steadily till great war camps came to realize that the Police stood for the square deal, and that if men the Police wished to arrest were innocent, they would not be punished. And with that lesson came also into the heart of the Indian the conviction that if any of their number did wrong they should, as westerners used to say, take their medicine and reap the due reward of their deeds. In either case the Police approved themselves to the Indians as their friends, not their enemies, and thus the famous corps became a very great asset to Canada in the interests of law and order. CHAPTER VII THE IRON HORSES For some ten stirring and formative years the Mounted Police had been riding their gallant steeds over the virgin sod of the untracked prairie before the iron horses, crossing the Red River, hit the steel trail for the mountains and the Western Sea. It is quite certain that the presence of the men in scarlet and gold on western plains was an element in the situation which encouraged the promoters of the Canadian Pacific Railway, our first transcontinental, to undertake their tremendous project with more assured confidence. For these shrewd students of human nature knew quite well that people would look in various ways upon the coming of the railway. There would be some who, like Thoreau, the hermit sage of Walden, would resent, though perhaps for a less æsthetic reason, the intrusion of this noisy and energetic sign of a new era. It was he who cried, "We do not ride on the railway, it rides on us." For, while there were some in our West who actually did feel regret at the passing of the quiet day of their pioneer life, most of those who had the aggressive spirit of the white race in them, were glad to see the vision of the earliest colonists being fulfilled by the opening up of the country. But there were others who had lived on the frontiers, and had been a law unto themselves, who said, like a trader who saw three wooden shacks built where Calgary now stands, "I am going to move back--this is getting too civilized for me," and the man who said that represented a class that had to be made to realize the presence of government. Then there were the Indians, who saw in the advent of the railway the necessary disappearance of big game from the plains, which would become the habitat of the settler. More than once there were Indians who would have blocked the way of the railway builders or would even have swooped down in the night and torn up the rails, but for the restraining presence of authority. And besides all these, there were some amongst the huge gangs of navvies and general track-makers who had alien tastes and habits, who required to be, on occasion, reminded that, while in a British country no law-abiding man should be coerced into working against his will if he was not satisfied with conditions, he must respect the rights of human life and must not destroy the property of others. All these cases and conditions became actualities in the West, and with all these the Mounted Police dealt as occasions arose, in such a way as to enable the march of civilization to proceed unchecked and unafraid. For the settlers who made the continuance of the railway possible, the Mounted Policeman was a sort of guardian angel, and the well-known painting by Paul Wickson which hangs in the Premier's office at Ottawa shows how the patrol went about asking the homesteader if he had any complaints. Only those perhaps who have lived on these far-sundered homesteads know how much this meant to these lonely men and their isolated families. Fighting prairie fires, when the mad battalions of flame wheeled with the gale and charged at the humble dwelling or the precious hay or wheat-stacks of the settler, was the willingly assumed duty of many a rider of the plains. One recalls the case of Constable Conradi, who, while on patrol one fall day when the dry grass was as inflammable as tinder, asked a settler if there was any homesteader living in the direction where a fire was rushing. The settler said yes, that there was a man named Young, his wife and children, that way, but it would be impossible to reach them through the fiery wall that was so plainly visible. "Impossible or not," says the constable, "I am going to try," and putting spurs to his horse he was soon lost to sight in the rolling smoke. The horse was so badly burned that he had to be shot, but Conradi saved the family. He found Mr. Young, the settler, exhausted. They both fought the fierce blaze, and when hope of saving the home was gone, the constable, plunging through the fire, found Mrs. Young and the children standing in the water of a slough. He saw that they would be suffocated when the fire encircled it, and so he plunged and carried the children to the burnt ground, the mother following. From the settler's grateful letter to headquarters we make this extract: "His pluck and endurance I cannot praise too highly, fighting till he was nearly suffocated, his hat burned off his head, hair singed and vest on fire. My wife and family owe their lives to him, and I feel with them we shall never be able to repay him for his brave conduct." Thus did the Police make the settlers' work possible, that they in turn might make the railway a reasonably safe investment. Then, when the Indians became awkward and threatened to stop the progress of the transcontinental railway across the prairie, it was the Mounted Police that stepped in to see that the road was not blocked. Eastern contractors and workmen, who had not been used to seeing war-paint, were somewhat alarmed when a band of Indians would swoop down with the air of people who owned the earth, and in all such cases the Police were quickly called by wire or otherwise. Superintendent Shurtcliffe tells of a rather odd case in which an Indian chief with the appropriate name of "Front Man" stopped a railway contractor from getting out ties and caused the whole outfit to leave the bush in a good deal of panic. Shurtcliffe, a capable officer, immediately sent for "Front Man" and told him how dangerous a thing it was to interfere with the progress of work authorized by Canada. "Front Man" realized that he had rushed in where he had no business, and on his promising Shurtcliffe that he would behave himself, the contractor and his men went back to their peaceable but very important tie business. Then there was the case of Pie-a-Pot, who from the earliest days of treaty-making was crochety and rather defiantly opposed to the incoming of anything or anybody that would interfere with his nomadic habits and general inclination to please himself. He showed a disagreeable tendency to leave his reserve and wander with his camp following and general entourage, much to the discomfort of others who were not desirous of his presence. One day this chief took it into his head that he would wander on to the right-of-way being mapped out for the Canadian Pacific, and by spreading his camp across it put a damper on the enterprise. And he succeeded up to a certain point. The engineers worked up to his camp and politely asked him to move, but he laughed at them, enjoyed their discomfiture, while his braves circled around with their ponies and kept up a rifle fire to indicate what they could do to the engineers in case of emergency. Of course, the engineers were glad to retire as gracefully as possible, but they wired the Lieutenant-Governor that they were at a standstill. The Governor sent word to Police headquarters, whence a telegram went to the nearest Police post: "Trouble on railway. Tell Indians to move on." There were only two men there, a sergeant and a constable. They rode off at once, and when they arrived at the camp of the Indians and delivered the order, Pie-a-Pot and his chief men, who had not been much in contact with the Police, only laughed, while the braves performed their usual firearm feats and the squaws jeered. Then the sergeant indicated by showing his watch that he would give fifteen minutes for them to start moving. At this the braves on signal circled closer, backed their ponies against the troop-horses and made every effort to get the Police to start trouble, the idea being to let them take the offensive and be wiped out. But the Police were never to be drawn that way. In this case the two scarlet tuniced men sat coolly on their horses, which stood at the door of Pie-a-Pot's tent. And when the time was up the sergeant, throwing the lines to the constable, sprang off his horse, leaped past the surly Chief, entered the tepee and kicked out the centre pole, thus bringing the wigwam down nearly on the head of the defiant Indian. Without waiting, the sergeant moved to the next tent and repeated the operation with great precision, and then said to the chief and his men, "Now move and move quick." The chief was very angry, but he was no fool, and so in a very short time he and his whole outfit were on the trek to their reserve. The engineers went on with the transcontinental, and the two athletes in scarlet and gold, whose names were not even given out, rode back to their post, having made one more unadvertised contribution from the Police to the making of the West. Now let us instance a case in which the Police had to deal with turbulent navvies on the railway who went on strike and threatened to destroy the company's property. The Police have never acted in any sense as strike-breakers, nor have they interfered between the parties. They simply saw fair play, took care that the country's lawful business was carried on and provided against destruction of human life and property. This was the position for instance at the Beaver in the mountains while the Canadian Pacific was under construction. For the time being it was a terminus, and all manner of lawless, desperate and disorderly characters were there to prey upon the navvies, many of whom were foreigners and a good many of whom were just as reckless and offensive as could be imagined. To keep these rough men in order, and there were several hundreds of them mostly armed, there were only eight Mounted Police, but they were under the leadership of the redoubtable Superintendent, Sam B. Steele, who had as his non-commissioned assistant Sergeant Fury, a short, heavy set, bull-dog type of a man, whom I remember well, quiet, determined and undemonstrative, but who could, while keeping cool, at the same time be everything his name suggested if occasion required. When the strike was starting, Steele did not interfere, but warned the strikers that they must keep the peace and not commit any acts of violence or he would punish them to the full extent of the law. When the strike did start, Steele was in bed with mountain fever and Sergeant Fury had only six men. One of them, Constable Kerr, who had gone for a bottle of medicine for the Inspector, found on his way back a riotous crowd with a desperate character, well known to the Police, inciting the mob to violence and especially to an attack on the barracks. Kerr, who was not a man to stand nonsense, promptly arrested the man, but a score of men overpowered him and released the prisoner. Sergeant Fury at once reported to Steele, who said, "It will never do to let the gang think they can play with us." Then Fury and another man tried to make the arrest without resorting to using weapons, but in a little while returned, with their uniforms torn, to report that once again the rioters had taken the prisoner from them by force. Steele said, "This is too bad. Go back armed and shoot any man who interferes with the arrest." He started off again with Constables Fane, Craig and Walters, while the other four constables with their Winchesters stood ready to guard the barracks, which were slated for attack by the mob. Johnston, a magistrate, was there to read the Riot Act if necessary. In a few minutes there was a shot. Steele got up and went to the window. Craig and Walters were dragging the prisoner across the bridge, the desperado fighting like a demon, and a scarlet woman following them with cries and curses. Fury and Fane were in the rear trying to hold back the gang of some three hundred men. Steele called on Johnston to come with him to read the Riot Act and then rushed out, got a rifle from one of the guard, and ignoring his fevered condition ran across the bridge, covering the crowd with the rifle and saying he would shoot the first man who dared to cross. The crowd could hardly believe their eyes when they saw Steele and shouted, "Even his death-bed does not scare him." In the meantime the desperate prisoner was struggling fiercely with the men who had him, but when on the bridge Walters raised his powerful fist and struck him over the temple, and with Craig trailed him like a rag into the barracks. As the woman passed screaming, "You red-coated devil," Steele shouted, "Take her along too." Then Johnston read the Riot Act and Steele made a straight statement that the Police, though few, would not flinch and that if he saw more than twelve rioters together he would open fire and mow them down. And the eight Mounted Police stood there under Sergeant Fury with magazines charged, ready to act when ordered. The riot collapsed right there, the ringleaders were sentenced next day and there was no more trouble. The roughs at the Beaver had tried the game of rioting with the wrong men. And in order to show that the Police took no sides, but sought to hold the balance level in these matters, we might recall an instance related by Superintendent J. H. McIlree, where men had been hired by contractors on the understanding that when a section of the railway was finished to Calgary, these men would be paid off and sent back to their homes in the East. However, the contractors, when they came to that point, would not provide transportation to the East, but wished to send them farther West. The men refused, and after a few days took possession of a train of empty cars going eastward. The Police could not allow this commandeering of the property of the railway company for the failure of certain contractors, and so they caused the men to leave the train, but these same Police, once they discovered the real situation, made it so hot for those contractors that they were glad to yield and give the men what they had agreed. So all along the line, from the time it crossed the Red River in 1881 till it reached the Pacific five years later, the Mounted Police stood guard over the railway which was the first to link together with steel the scattered Provinces of the new Confederation and the construction of which within a given time was required to get British Columbia to become part of Canada. Thus were these red-coated men nation-builders, in that it was under their protection that the vast enterprise was carried forward to completion. It is not unexpectedly then that we come across two special letters from the builders of the great railway expressing their warm appreciation of the work of the Police. The first is from that remarkable man, Mr. W. C. Van Horne, who was afterwards President of the Railway, and who was knighted for his distinguished services to the Empire as a builder of railways. Van Horne was a somewhat extraordinary composite. I recall having the privilege of being under his guidance around the fine art gallery of Lord Strathcona in Montreal, and had evidence not only of his genial companionship, but of his being an art connoisseur as well as a skilled user of the brush himself. Socially and in his home he was full of comradeship and bright joviality, but as a railroader he was as inflexible and apparently unemotional as the material with which he worked. He was not given to gushing letters, so that the following from him from his office as General Manager of date January 1, 1883, is noteworthy: "DEAR SIR,--Our work of construction for the year 1882 has just closed, and I cannot permit the occasion to pass without acknowledging the obligations of the company to the North-West Mounted Police, whose zeal and industry in preventing traffic in liquor and preserving order along the line of construction have contributed so much to the successful prosecution of the work. Indeed, without the assistance of the officers and men of the splendid Force under your command it would have been impossible to have accomplished as much as we did. On no great work within my knowledge, where so many men have been employed, has such perfect order prevailed. On behalf of the company and of all their officers, I wish to return thanks and to acknowledge particularly our obligations to yourself and Major Walsh. "I am, sir, "Yours very truly, "W. C. VAN HORNE, "_General Manager_." "Lieutenant-Colonel A. G. IRVINE, "Commissioner, "North-West Mounted Police, "Regina." And at the close of the year 1884 the General Superintendent of the Western Line, Mr. John M. Egan, who was even less than Van Horne given to incursions into the sentimental, wrote the following: "MY DEAR COLONEL,--Gratitude would be wanting did the present year close without my conveying, on behalf of the Canadian Pacific Railway, to you and those under your charge most sincere thanks for the manner in which their several duties in connection with the railway have been attended to during the past season. "Prompt obedience to your orders, faithful carrying out of your instructions, contribute in no small degree to the rapid construction of the line. The services of your men during recent troubles among a certain class of our employees prevented destruction to property and preserved obedience to law and order in a manner highly commendable. Justice has been meted out to them without fear or favour, and I have yet to hear any person, who respects same, say aught against your command. "Wishing you the season's compliments, "I remain, "Yours very truly, "JNO. M. EGAN." Taken together these letters, with tributes from two such men, more than substantiate the claims we have made for the part played by the Police in that critical era of Western Canadian history. It is anticipating in order of time, but this is our railway chapter, and so we note here another service of enormous value rendered the railway by the men in scarlet and gold. The road was completed in 1886 from Montreal to the West Coast, and people used to wonder how this railway, traversing some 3,000 miles across lonely prairie and lonelier mountains, escaped having its trains held up by robbers, as was so frequently the case in other countries. The reason emerged in a report given by Superintendent Deane, of Calgary, and that reason was the preventive power of the presence and prestige of the Mounted Police. Deane, in his annual report for 1906, refers to the only effort that had ever been made to rob a train, and starts with the following revealing statement: "It has for years been an open secret that the train-robbing fraternity in the United States had seriously considered the propriety of trying conclusions with the Mounted Police, but had decided that the risks were too great and the game not worth the candle. After the object lesson they received last May, it may be reasonably hoped that railway passengers will be spared further anxiety during the life of the present generation at least." And Deane's hope has been justified. The special event of May to which he refers was a train robbery at Kamloops in British Columbia by a notorious train-robbing expert, Bill Miner, _alias_ Edwards, etc., assisted by two gunmen, William Dunn and Louis, _alias_ "Shorty" Colquhoun. A robbery had been committed by the same parties before nearer the coast, but it had been dealt with by local authorities and no trace of the robbers was found. However, the railway authorities were now thoroughly alarmed and, though the Provincial Police, one of whom, Fernie of Kamloops, did good work, were on the trail, were not inclined to take any chances. Accordingly, a wire was sent by C.P.R. Superintendent Marpole to General Manager Mr. (later Sir) William Whyte, of Winnipeg, who in turn telegraphed to Commissioner Perry, of the Mounted Police, asking that a detachment of his men be put on the work of hunting the robbers who had escaped into the difficult country south of Kamloops. Perry wired Calgary for two detachments to be in readiness, and left to take charge of the arrangements. From Calgary Inspector Church, with Sergeant Fletcher and ten men left for Penticton, so as to cut off the escape of the robbers over the boundary line. The Commissioner left for Kamloops, accompanied by Staff-Sergeant J. J. Wilson, Sergeants Thomas and Shoebotham, Corporals Peters and Stewart, Constables Browing and Tabateau, Wilson being in charge of the detachment. The weather was bad, the horses they secured at Kamloops were poor, but despite these handicaps this posse came on the robbers within forty-eight hours. The outlaws were armed to the teeth, but when they were discovered off guard were in the bush at dinner. Wilson reported what happened as follows: "We all dismounted, leaving the horses standing, went into the bush and found three men eating dinner. I asked them where they came from. The eldest man, who afterwards gave the name of Edwards, said, 'Across the river.' I asked them where they were before that. Edwards said, 'From over there' (pointing towards Campbell meadows). I asked how long since they had left there. Edwards said, 'Two days.' I then asked them what they were doing. The one who afterwards gave the name of Dunn, answered, 'Prospecting a little.' I then said, 'You answer the description given of the train-robbers and we arrest you for that crime.' Edwards said, 'We do not look much like train-robbers.' Just then Dunn rolled over and said, 'Look out, boys, it is all up,' and commenced to fire his revolver. I immediately covered Edwards. Corporal Peters was standing close to Colquhoun, who was reaching for his revolver, and he covered him and ordered him to put up his hands, at the same time snatching away Colquhoun's revolver. Sergeant Shoebotham, Corporal Stewart and Constable Browning ran after Dunn, firing as they went, he returning the fire as he ran. After some twenty shots had been exchanged Dunn fell into a ditch and threw up his hands, saying, 'I am shot.' The men ceased firing and took two revolvers from Dunn. On taking him out of the ditch it was found he had been shot in the calf of the leg, the bullet going right through." The Mounted Men brought the whole gang into Kamloops, refusing to give them up to anyone till they landed these desperadoes in jail, whence they were taken to serve sentences in the penitentiary. It is interesting to note that at that time Mr. Marpole, in a statement issued to the press, strongly advocated the extension of the Mounted Police Force to other parts of Canada in addition to the Middle West. In recent years that has been done, and the result has been enormously beneficial, as we shall later consider. And so Deane's expectation, as we indicated, was fulfilled, for, except for the clumsy efforts of a couple of foreigners, the train-robbers have evidently concluded to give a wide berth to any region where the Mounted Police stand for British Law. And it is not inappropriate at the close of this railway chapter to quote Steele's account of the ride given him out of compliment to his work and that of the Police generally, on the train which was the first to go through to the coast after Donald A. Smith had driven at Craigellachie in November, 1885, the spike which united the two oceans across Canada. Steele was back on duty in the mountains again and, as he knew some of the party, was invited to go through from Kamloops on a private car with Mr. Dickey, the government engineer, and the manager of construction on the coast end of the huge undertaking. And Steele writes in his most interesting book, _Forty Years in Canada_, "Dickey knew the Manager well, which was sufficient to ensure a warm welcome, and the train rushed along at the rate of 57 miles an hour, roaring in and out of the numerous tunnels, our short car whirling round the short curves like the tail of a kite, the sensation being such that when dinner was served Dickey, the manager and I were the only men in the car who were not suffering from train sickness. I think this was one of the wildest rides by train any of us ever took. Many years have passed since that memorable ride, and to-day one goes through the mountains in the most modern and palatial observation cars, but the recollection of that journey to the coast on the first train through is far sweeter to me than any trips taken since. It was the exultant moment of pioneer work, and we were all pioneers on that excursion." And we add again all due honour to the famous corps that had watched over the destinies of the long steel trail. CHAPTER VIII RIEL AGAIN Some years ago a well-known Senator told me that he was at a dinner party in Sir John Macdonald's house in Ottawa, when a telegram was delivered to the Premier at the table. He read it and put it under his plate. Nothing could be gained by throwing that bombshell in the midst of his guests. But in a few minutes, as the friends were saying good-night, Sir John came to the door with the Senator and said, "Mac, there's the very mischief to pay in the North-West." The wire had communicated the news of the Duck Lake fight, by which the rebellion, under that mad egoist, Louis Riel, was publicly staged in its opening act. And the Senator told me he recalled for all the years that followed the look on the Premier's face as one of pained surprise and unexpected shock. If the Senator was a good reader of faces and read that expressive countenance aright, he could doubtless see indications of pain, for Sir John was a tender-hearted man. But, if he saw surprise on the face of the Premier, it is proof positive that official pigeon-holes in the West had not divulged their secrets to Ottawa, or that his subordinates were hoping to quell the discontent of the half-breeds on the Saskatchewan without worrying the "old chieftain" unduly. And this we say because the outbreak of rebellion was a surprise to Western residents only in the sense that the resort to arms was considered unlikely. But every one knew something of the discontent. The Mounted Police saw it coming to a head, and Superintendent Crozier, who was in command at Fort Carleton, on the North Saskatchewan, has reported in July, 1884, some eight months before the outbreak, that Riel had been brought from Montana to champion the "rights" of the half-breeds. Superintendent Gagnon, who understood their language well, reported as to Riel's presence and the discontent of the half-breeds more than once. The causes of the discontent were not far to seek. Many of the half-breeds on the South Saskatchewan were the same who had taken part in Riel's first rebellion on the Red River fifteen years before. They were not people of a settled temperament. They did not take naturally to the farm. There was enough of the Indian blood in them to make them nomadic hunters rather than settlers, and enough of the fiery volatility of French blood to make them susceptible to the appeals of aggressive agitation. And Riel, though not specially anxious to fight himself, was a past master in stirring others up to get into conflicts. And when Superintendent Crozier notified the Government that this hot-headed, vain but magnetic agitator had come amongst his old compatriots, steps should have been taken to deport him, or otherwise put him where he could do no harm. Gagnon was quite right when he stated later that the main cause of the discontent amongst the half-breeds was the introduction by the Government of the rectangular survey of land on the prairie. Under this system settlers had to hold their farms in square blocks of 160 acres or more, and in consequence such settlers would be necessarily some distance apart. This was not to the mind of the half-breeds, who were more given to social gatherings than to agriculture, and who preferred the old survey that they knew on the Red River and the Assiniboine, where their holdings were in narrow strips fronting on the river and running two miles back. To introduce this on the prairie, the Government contended, would lead to confusion, and so it was easy for the agitator to stir up discontent amongst these inflammable people who had always been accustomed to the freedom of the plains. It was easy for the orator to say that the Government was trying to break up their old social customs, and when such a statement was followed up by saying that their patents giving them title to land were being long delayed, and that possibly they would never be granted at all, a live coal had fallen on material as combustible as the dry grass on the prairie. And once the half-breeds began to consider revolt it was not hard for them to stir up certain bad Indians with the proposal that by combining they could drive out the whites and have the country to themselves again. In any case our main interest in this book is the story of the Mounted Police, and we repeat that they did their duty in warning the authorities a long distance ahead. When their warning was not heeded and the flame of rebellion broke out, they, as this story will show, did more than their share in putting out the fire where it had started, and in preventing it from spreading, as it might have done, over the whole country. We have quoted Superintendent Crozier's warning. Let us notice also the testimony of another experienced officer, Superintendent Sam B. Steele. It appears that in 1884, when Steele was still in command at Calgary, Mr. Magnus Begg, Indian agent of the Blackfeet, reported that the former friendly attitude of those Indians seemed to be changing to one of sulkiness and hostility. Steele asked him about a certain half-breed who had been with Riel in Montana, and Begg, on being given the description, said he was in the camp with Chief Crowfoot. Steele sent and had this half-breed arrested, but he escaped by making a leap from the train. And when next day Colonel Irvine and Superintendent Herchmer came to Calgary to take over the command from Steele, who was under orders for duty in the mountains, he reported the facts to them with his conviction that the half-breed was one of Riel's runners trying to stir up the Indians. They asked Steele to stay over and arrest him in Crowfoot's camp, and taking two men with him, Walters and Kerr, well known for their strength and reliability, he went to the camp, and, through L'Hereux, the interpreter there, demanded the half-breed, whom he found in Crowfoot's tent. Crowfoot, with the half-breed beside him and his chief men around him, had evidently been imposed upon by sinister Riel propaganda, and seemed to be quite hostile. He sprang up and faced Steele threateningly as he entered the tent, but the giant policeman waved him back and told him it would be the worse for him if he started anything, because he had come for the half-breed and that he was going to take him, as the Police always did when they started after a man. Then Steele, suiting the action to the word, seized the half-breed by the back of the collar, whirled him round, and, dragging him out of the tent door, handed him over to the two stalwart constables, who lifted him into the buckboard and drove away. Steele remained behind for a while, and told Crowfoot that he had been misled by the half-breed, and addressing also the hostile-looking band of Indians present, the Superintendent told them that the half-breed had spoken to them with a forked tongue, and that it would be sensible for them to remain friendly with the Government and the Police. Steele told Superintendent Herchmer, when he came back to Calgary, that he was sure Riel was going to make serious trouble, and that he had runners like this half-breed in other places amongst the Indians, and the sooner the Government knew it the better. So the Police were doing their part to forewarn the authorities, but the men at Regina and Ottawa either did not get all these warnings, or else they treated them too lightly. And, accordingly, Riel, down at Batoche on the South Saskatchewan, kept up the agitation, and in the atmosphere of the adulation of his half-breed admirers his characteristic vanity asserted itself till, refusing to acknowledge the authority of either Church or State, he looked on himself as a sort of Divinely ordained leader. Rattle-brained as he was, he possessed elements of strength and magnetism enough to get a large following in a short time, and, assuming the name of "Louis 'David' Riel, Exovede," he took the aggressive by plundering some stores, arresting the Indian agent and others, and sending a flamboyant message to Superintendent Crozier to come with his men and surrender to the rebel chief. Crozier, who had done splendid service at Wood Mountain, Cypress Hills and elsewhere, was not the kind of man to surrender, but with the hope that he might avert trouble and incidentally give the Government time to mobilize the long-delayed reinforcements, he offered personally to meet Riel and discuss the whole matter with him. Riel, however, would not venture out, and so Crozier sent Mr. Thomas McKay, a well-known Prince Albert man and native of the country, to see him at his headquarters. When McKay reached Riel's council room at Batoche he found things at white heat. Riel told him excitedly that there was to be a war of extermination, during which the "two curses," the Government and the Hudson's Bay Company, and all who sympathized with them were to be driven out of the country. "You don't know what we are after," shouted Riel to McKay; "we want blood, blood--it's blood we want." McKay had a cool head and so sparred for time, till the rebel sobered down somewhat and then McKay left and returned to Carlton, where he reported to Crozier. Next day, in answer to a request from Riel, McKay and Mitchell, a merchant of Duck Lake, with Crozier's consent, met two of Riel's men, Nolin and Maxime Lepine (a brother of Riel's adjutant in the Red River revolt), who demanded again the surrender of Fort Carlton. This, of course, was refused, and in a few days rebellion was rampant, with this man, half-knave, half-madman at its head. The first clash came on March 26, 1885, when Crozier sent out a small detachment of Police with a few civilian volunteers from Prince Albert, under the general direction of that experienced and fearless frontiersman, Thomas McKay, above named, to bring in to Fort Carlton some Government stores from Mitchell's trading place above mentioned. This little detachment, of some twenty all told, were met when near Duck Lake by that mischievous Indian, Chief Beardy, with his warriors and Riel's fighting Lieutenant, a famous half-breed plainsman, Gabriel Dumont, this rebel force being estimated by Duck Lake residents at between 300 and 400 men, all well armed, though all did not appear then on the field. A confab took place, Beardy and Dumont being very insolent, and endeavouring evidently to get Crozier's men to begin hostilities so that the rebels might wipe them out. But McKay, though boldly standing his ground, would not be drawn, and after a somewhat stormy interview, retired to Carlton, daring the rebels to follow. In the meantime, the Commissioner, Colonel A. G. Irvine, a careful and conscientious officer, who had succeeded MacLeod in command of the Police in 1880, wired from Regina to Ottawa and got orders to take all available men, less than 100, and proceed to Prince Albert, as that whole section of country was exposed to the utmost danger. Irvine made a record march through slush and snow, outwitted Riel's forces at South Saskatchewan by going through their zone, and arriving at Prince Albert with horses so used up by the spring roads that a day had to be taken to get them able to go further. He had received word from Carlton that there was no immediate likelihood of trouble, but he lost no time in pressing on to that point, reaching there in the afternoon of March 26, only to find that Crozier had gone out that day to Duck Lake with his handful of police and civilian volunteers and had just returned after experiencing a reverse. At that time, and later in his formal report, Irvine expressed keen regret that Crozier, knowing the Commissioner to be within 50 miles with reinforcements, had not waited. But Crozier had been true to the Police record of not counting odds when duty seemed clear. And so, when his first small detachment, under Thomas McKay, had come back, the Superintendent doubtless felt that unless he acted at once, the rebels would say that the Police could be bluffed, and would thus be able to call to the cause of the revolt hundreds of half-breeds and Indians, who would take courage from the apparent apathy or weakness of the Government forces. Besides this, it became known later that the volunteers from Prince Albert were anxious to settle the rebels, as their homes were menaced by the uprising. So the Duck Lake fight took place between Crozier, Inspector Howe, with Surgeon Miller and fifty-three men of the Mounted Police, aided by forty-one civilian volunteers from Prince Albert, under Captains Moore and Morton, a total of ninety-nine on the one side against Gabriel Dumont, Chief Beardy and a force of nearly 400 half-breeds and Indians on the other. The rebels first used a flag of truce, and under cover of conference partially outflanked our men on the one side, while the rest of their forces were well concealed under cover of log buildings and brush. The thing was too unequal, and our men, after fighting in the open with the utmost coolness and courage against a practically hidden enemy, gathered up their nine dead and five wounded, who needed care, and retired in good order to Carlton. The loss of the rebels, who concealed their dead, was not known, but Gabriel Dumont was wounded by a bullet which plowed along his head and felled him to the ground. A few years later Mr. Roger Goulet, a famous loyalist French half-breed land-surveyor in Winnipeg, who was on the Commission to inquire into the question of half-breed rights, said to me: "The Duck Lake fight was worth while, because Gabriel Dumont's wound, which I saw later when he took off his hat to make an affidavit, cooled his ardour to such an extent that he was timid for the rest of the campaign, or the rebellion might have lasted much longer." Goulet's theory possibly accounts for the fact that Dumont, whose judgment was for a night attack on Middleton's camp at Fish Creek, gave up the idea rather swiftly when Riel did not seem to see its advisability. When Colonel Irvine reached Carlton, as related, and found out how things stood, the immediate thing to settle was as to whether he should hold that post or not. This was not hard to decide. Carlton was simply a Hudson's Bay post without population, while Prince Albert was the largest white community in the whole region. The people there must be protected as a first duty, and it was only fair to the Prince Albert volunteers, who had left their homes and came so splendidly to the aid of the little body of Police, that the latter in turn should not leave those homes exposed to the barbarities of the rebels now intoxicated by a certain success. Accordingly, Fort Carlton was abandoned. It took fire from a hospital mattress and an over-heated stove, just as the Police were leaving, and burned to the ground. Irvine and his men, with their wounded, arrived in due course at Prince Albert, which they found full of refugees from surrounding homesteads as well as the town. Most of these refugees were in the church there, which they had surrounded with a wall of cordwood in dread of attack. The women and children were wild with apprehension of possibly falling into the hands of Beardy's tribe. And there was a band of Sioux to the north that it was feared might at any moment assert their traditional love of the warpath. [Illustration: COL. T. A. WROUGHTON. Asst.-Commissioner in command at Vancouver, B.C. _Photo. Steffens-Colmer, Vancouver._] [Illustration: LIEUT.-COL. AYLESWORTH BOWEN PERRY, C.M.G. Commissioner since 1900. _Photo. Rossie, Regina._] [Illustration: COL. CORTLANDT STARNES. Senr. Asst.-Commissioner, Ottawa. _Photo. Topley, Ottawa._] HEADQUARTERS STAFF, 1921. [Illustration: R.N.W.M.P. WOOD CAMP. CHURCHILL RIVER.] The Duck Lake fight, with its balance in favour of the rebels, encouraged Big Bear up near Fort Pitt to rebel and do all the damage he could, starting in with the massacre of nine white men, Government agents, etc., on the reserve and imprisoning the rest, including the Hudson's Bay factor and his family, who gave themselves up to the Indians at Fort Pitt. It stirred up the powerful Cree element under Poundmaker at Battleford, where depredations were committed, and where the white people barricaded behind stockades suffered siege and the imminent danger of famine and attack for many weeks. It sent its echoes down into the south-west part of the territories where the warlike Blackfeet confederacy had its centre. At each of these points, as at Prince Albert, the few Mounted Police that were on duty became a literal tower of strength. At Battleford, Inspector Morris, with his few men, organizing also a home guard, guarded nearly 400 women and children who sought refuge inside the stockade. And Constable Storer, riding out alone from that stockade, when all the wires were cut, though pursued for 60 miles, carried the dispatch to the relieving column at Swift Current. At Fort Pitt, in the Big Bear country, Inspector Francis Dickens, son of the famous novelist, with a mere handful of men, one of whom, young Cowan, was killed by the Indians, and another, Loasby, was wounded, held that Hudson's Bay post until the factor and his family and employees gave themselves up to the Indians, when Dickens, having no farther object in staying there, dropped down the river to Battleford and took part in the fight against Poundmaker. And away in the south-west, where the whole region was charged with the electricity of revolt, the masterly hand of Superintendent Cotton, a cool, courageous and diplomatic officer, ably assisted by Inspector Antrobus and Surgeon Kennedy, was able to restrain the most dangerous of the Indian tribes in the West. Superintendent McIllree commanded at Maple Creek and Medicine Hat, and kept a constant eye by scouting parties on the Cypress Hills region, and Inspector McDonnell's services at Wood Mountain were of much value. Superintendent Deane was in charge at headquarters in Regina, and did a great deal of important work in recruiting men and using his influence for peace amongst Indians, such as Chief Pie-a-Pot and others. Northward, in the Edmonton country, where there were great numbers of Indians, amongst whom Riel and Big Bear had runners, that experienced soldier, Inspector A. H. Griesbach, "the father of the Police Force," as he was often called, accomplished tasks of first importance by holding Fort Saskatchewan, where many settlers took refuge, and by assisting with the organization of the Edmonton Home Guards, as well as patrolling the whole region round about. No one who knew the situation as it really existed at that critical hour, could ever dream of apportioning honours differently to men who were actually in action and those who stood guard over helpless settlers, or prevented by determined diplomacy the uprising of the Indians in their localities. Some who did not know the situation--arm-chair critics at a safe distance--levelled some darts of fault-finding at Colonel Irvine at Prince Albert, and I write a paragraph or two in reply, because I know whereof I speak. I have some reasons for claiming to know Prince Albert, which was founded as a mission and named by some of my relatives in 1866. At the time of the rebellion there were two brothers and a sister, as well as many other relations there whom I saw on my way down the Saskatchewan after the rebellion was over. They knew that some people in the East had raised the question as to Irvine remaining at Prince Albert during the rebellion. But they spoke with indignation in regard to all such critics, and said if these people who were talking in that way only knew what panic would have ensued if the Police had been withdrawn, and how likely it was that the whole settlement would have been pillaged and probably wiped out, the criticism would cease. If the British way is "women and children first," then the duty of protecting them against death or worse comes before the desire to save oneself from possible criticism. The Mounted Police, in over ten years' previous service on the plains, had established an unprecedented reputation for courage under all circumstances, and wherever in the rebellion time they had opportunity in the field, they shone out conspicuously as men who had no thought of self when fighting was the duty of the hour. In proportion to the numbers engaged, more men of the Mounted Police were killed or wounded than any other military body in the field. But when savages were on the warpath, and defenceless people, principally women and children, rushed for refuge to Prince Albert, Battleford or any other point, nothing could be so un-British, not to say inhuman, as to abandon them for the more exciting life on the field. Not only on Western plains, but in India and other such portions of the Empire, has this been exemplified. This much is said from the viewpoint of the ordinary sensible and chivalrous onlooker. But more can be stated. When the rebellion started with the fight at Duck Lake, the Government dispatched General Middleton from Ottawa to the West. The plan of campaign outlined had three objectives. General Middleton was to attack Riel at Batoche, where the rebel headquarters were; Colonel Otter was to march from Swift Current to the relief of Battleford, where Poundmaker's band was in arms; and General Strange, a veteran of many years' service, was to mobilize at Calgary whatever forces he could muster and go northward into the Big Bear country, to relieve the Edmonton district, settle with Big Bear and release the prisoners he had taken at Frog Lake and Fort Pitt. Middleton, a good soldier and a brave man personally, was in the supreme command of all the forces in the field, including the Police, and it is not too much to say that he asserted that fact very strongly all through the campaign, partly because of natural disposition and partly because he under-estimated the value of the "raw soldiers" of Canada, as he called them in a famous dispatch. Withal, while he was totally unaccustomed to the kind of warfare he was facing, he was not given to receive counsel from those who did know, and from close personal contact with the situation at the time, as well as from careful study since, I feel that General Middleton rather resented the dominant place of the Mounted Police in the mind of the West, and was more ready to make some slighting remarks about them than to take their counsel. And this I say without seeking to disparage the general quality or the personal valour of the officer in supreme command. Hence it was that General Middleton never intimated in any way to Colonel Irvine that he or any of his men should leave Prince Albert and come to the seat of war at Batoche. On the contrary, Majors Bedson and Macdowell, who made their way to Prince Albert from Middleton's camp by way of Carrot River, told Irvine that the General wished the Police to stay where they were and look out for the scattered half-breeds. And one day, when things were quieted around Prince Albert and Irvine made a reconnaissance in force to the south as far as Scott's, some 14 miles out, he was met by one of Middleton's scouts with a message to return to Prince Albert. That the above represents General Middleton's general attitude is further attested by the fact that when Riel's stronghold fell and Middleton was on his way by Prince Albert to close the campaign by proceeding against Chiefs Poundmaker and Big Bear, he declined Irvine's offer to go with him with his men, who knew the country and the Indians at first hand. Irvine offered to take his men, carrying their own rations, and go a day ahead of the General, or to go on the other side of the river, but was refused. Yet orders came back to Irvine a few hours later to go to Carlton, which he did, arriving there before Middleton, and sending out scouting parties in search of Big Bear's band that, as we shall see in a later page, had been scattered by Strange's column. It was not long before one of these Police scouting parties had captured Big Bear with some others and landed them in the jail at Prince Albert. And it is rather interesting to recall that it was big Tom Hourie, a Police interpreter, accompanied by two Police scouts, Armstrong and Diehl, who captured Riel and took him into Middleton's tent at Batoche. It is also interesting at this point to reproduce an overlooked extract from a letter written by the Earl of Minto, who, as Lord Melgund, was chief of General Middleton's staff, and who, therefore, wrote out of personal knowledge of the situation. After speaking of our three main columns, this fine soldier, who was wounded on duty, says: "Besides these three columns there was another force in the field--the North-West Mounted Police detachment, under Colonel Irvine, the value of which has always seemed to me underrated. The fact of Colonel's Irvine's force being at Prince Albert afforded a safe refuge to many outlying settlers, and, if it had not been there, the task General Middleton had to solve would have been quite a different one. Hampered, as Colonel Irvine was, by the civilian population of the settlement and by a difficult country, the possibility of successful junction with Middleton must always have been doubtful, whilst the moral effect of the force at Prince Albert was certain." I have gone ahead of the history in mentioning the capture of Big Bear, the pursuit of whom is the record of General Strange's column which, as already noted, mobilized at Calgary. In addition to the 65th Rifles of Montreal, the Winnipeg Light Infantry, with whom I served, and some irregular scouts under Major Hattin and Osborne, we had two Mounted Police detachments, one from the mountains under Inspector Sam B. Steele, and the other from Fort MacLeod under Inspector A. Bowen Perry, the present able Commissioner of the Force. Both these officers, coming at that time under the command of General Strange in the Militia, were given the Militia rank of Major. Steele enlisted a number of men, mostly ex-Mounted Policemen, as scouts, his whole corps, thus augmented, being generally called Steele's scouts. Perry, who was selected by Superintendent Cotton on account of special fitness, brought with him a nine-pounder gun, which did unique service in demoralizing and scattering Big Bear's murderous and pillaging band, to whose outrages we have already referred. These two Police detachments became the tentacles of our column and the mainspring of its ultimate success. Of the two officers Steele was the senior in years and in length of service. He had been in the Red River Expedition, and was in the School of Gunnery at Kingston, when he enlisted in the Mounted Police at its organization and worked his way up from the ranks. Powerfully built, he had all the appearance and carriage of a frontier soldier, accustomed to unexpected situations and always ready for any action that might be necessary. Perry attracted me first by his stalwart appearance and fine horsemanship. Even in a country where riding was a fine art, Perry was a distinguished figure on a horse, and later on I discovered that he made a point of doing everything well. He was a graduate of the Royal Military College, and had served with the Royal Engineers before joining up with the Mounted Police, where his genius for thorough administration and his general popularity raised him to the highest position in the Force. The news from the North coming to us at Calgary, indicated that the whole country north of the Red Deer River to Edmonton and beyond was full of rather surly and hostile Indians, who would rise at any moment if they thought there were any chances of success. Hence, General Strange, a thorough-going soldier greatly beloved by all of us, determined to push on to Edmonton with all speed accompanied by Steele. We of the Winnipeg Light Infantry waited a few days till Perry could reach us from MacLeod, and then we also started north under his guidance. We forded the Bow River, but when we got to the Red Deer we found it flooded by the spring freshets into what our Adjutant Constantine, who later did such splendid service with the Mounted Police, called, in warning the men, "a wide, swift-flowing and treacherous stream." Strange had crossed before the river rose, but how we were to get over was a problem. Our chances of getting on to the north looked slim. It was well that Perry, whose service with the Royal Engineers meant something, was along in command of the column. He decided to throw a rope across with the little skiff, which was the only thing in sight and then construct and cross by a swinging raft. The raft was constructed under his direction, and his own detachment of Police, with the gun and ammunition and harness put on board. Of course, he went himself, as he never asked his men to go anywhere without him. Things went fairly till near the other side, when the rope made out of the picketing lines of the horses broke by binding round the tree, from which it was being paid out, and the raft began to go down the raging current. At the risk of their lives Perry and Constable Diamond, grasping another rope, plunged into the torrent and managed to reach the shore and fasten it to a tree. But the current was too strong and this rope gave way. The boat went down a mile or so and, being caught in an eddy, was beached, and the stuff on board dragged up a steep cut bank. Then Perry commandeered lumber from a primitive saw-mill down the river, and built a ferry on which, in a day or two, we crossed. In the meanwhile, as we were in the hostile Indian country, Perry had accomplished the difficult task of crossing the 65th Regiment in the little skiff, taking a whole dark night to do it. He kept our regiment on the south side till the ferry was built. He thus had both sides guarded against any attack. Once over the river, we made a quick march 100 miles to Edmonton, where General Strange paid a high compliment publicly to Major Perry for the splendid way in which he had overcome obstacles and got our relief column through in such good time. The people of Edmonton gave us a hearty welcome, as their position in the midst of a big Indian country was very serious for a time. Big Bear, with the prisoners, was now treking away to the north, and it was our business to overtake him. The Infantry went down the river, while the Mounted Men went by trail near the river bank, or our clumsy, open flatboats might have come under fire. Forced marching, from Fort Victoria by Frog Lake to Fort Pitt, brought us to the scene of the Big Bear's atrocities, as we saw from the Sun-dance Lodge, the mutilated body of Constable Cowan and the charred remains of the nine white people who had been massacred at Frog Lake reserve. Fort Pitt was burning, but we saved two buildings. Big Bear and his marauding band in large force had kept up their retreat and vanished, but whether it was on the north side of the river, or the south side where they would effect a junction with Poundmaker could only be ascertained by scouting parties. Accordingly, General Strange at this point detailed Major Perry and seventeen men of his detachment (keeping the rest for the nine-pounder gun) to cross the river to the south side and move towards Battleford. It was not an enviable duty, and as the men crossed the river in the darkness and started their ride through a region that was supposed to be infested with hundreds on the warpath, it looked rather like a last patrol. However, after a hard ride they made Battleford to find that Poundmaker had surrendered, Middleton having just then arrived. Perry reported to Middleton with the information that Big Bear must be on the north side, arranged for a steamer to go up with supplies, which we needed very badly, and got on the steamer to return with his men. When part of the way back he got word that we were engaged with Big Bear, and so he landed his men and sent the steamer back to Battleford for reinforcements. After one of the most severe and risky rides of the campaign, Perry and his men rejoined us to find that his gunners under Sergeant O'Connor, and the nine-pounder, had made fine gun practice, and had been mainly instrumental in demoralizing the forces of Big Bear, with whom we had been in contact for two hot days. General Strange was much pleased with the way in which Major Perry had carried out the difficult reconnaissance with a handful of men. Meanwhile, after our fight with Big Bear and his flight from Frenchman's Butte, where he had a strong and well-fortified position, Major Steele, with his mounted detachment, had made a rush to Loon Lake, where, in a rattling encounter during which Sergeant Fury was severely wounded, he completed the defeat of Big Bear. Two days or so afterwards our scouts crossed Gold Lake in birch canoes and secured the release of the remaining prisoners of Big Bear, the others having come in to our lines after the fight at Frenchman's Butte, where Constable Donald McRae, still happily surviving, was wounded, but refused to leave the field till he had exhausted his ammunition. On the disbanding of the Alberta Field Force General Strange, who had served ever since the Mutiny, warmly commended the Infantry, and expressed the opinion that he had never commanded better soldiers than were in the Mounted Police detachments, ready for all kinds of duty. Preceding the surrender of Poundmaker, already mentioned, at Battleford, the fight at Cut Knife Hill had occurred. Colonel Otter had made a swift march from Swift Current to Battleford and relieved the beleaguered garrison and civilians there. With Otter came Superintendents W. M. Herchmer and Neale with a few Mounted Police. And when Otter decided to go out and attack Poundmaker these, with the few who had been at Battleford, and those who had come from Fort Pitt under Inspector Dickens, made up seventy-five Police, who went on that errand with Otter, and some 200 of his infantry and artillery. Just why Otter went out has never been very clear, except that he possibly wished to punish the band of Indians and prevent a possible junction of Poundmaker and Big Bear. Anyway, the Police were under his command, and they went in obedience to orders, as was their fashion. And the Police, being the advance guard to Cutknife, and both the advance and rear guard on the return, as well as in the hottest part of the fight for seven hours, where they behaved with great gallantry, lost heavily in killed and wounded in proportion to their numbers. It is not any reflection on the gallantry of the other corps, who were totally unused to Indian warfare, to say that it was the masterly tactics of the Police which extricated the column from the ravine after Colonel Otter saw that it was not advisable to continue the conflict against the large force of Indians who had every advantage in position. A few days after this Poundmaker, who was a very splendid-looking Indian, and who had given the order to cease fire when Otter was retiring, came in and surrendered to General Middleton, and the rebellion was practically over, though it was still a few days before Big Bear was captured, as already related. Perhaps there is no finer summing up of the services of the Mounted Police during the rebellion than that given by Dr. A. Jukes, Senior Surgeon of the Force, in his report at the end of that year. He says, "While I must leave to those whose duty as combatant officers it more especially becomes to record with sorrow, not unmingled with pride, the names and services of the gallant men who have fallen unflinchingly in the path of duty, I cannot withhold my humble tribute to the courage and fortitude of the mere handful of Mounted Police who, fewer in numbers than any battalion engaged in active operations, and generally far over-matched by enemies wherever it was their privilege to meet them, have left beneath the bosom of the prairie of their dead, 'killed in action,' a number greater than that of any battalion in the field, save one whose record, at least, they have equalled." And one cannot close this chapter without emphasizing what has often been overlooked by those who do not know Western affairs at first hand. Looking back now over the years, one is not surprised to have to see that the collapse of the rebellion, instead of leaving the Mounted Police Force carefree, actually added to their burdens and ushered them into a period of pronounced and continuous strain. The Militia, which was made up of several thousands of men--infantry, artillery, cavalry--all were withdrawn and scattered to their homes in various parts of Canada. The Mounted Police stayed at their posts or moved from place to place, as required in a readjustment period. The defeated rebels and many of the Indians were in a sullen mood, the year had been wasted from the standpoint of producing anything for food, the Indians were off their reservations in some cases, in others the reservations had been laid waste, and the buildings that had been erected for their comfort had been burned or wrecked by themselves when the spirit of destruction arose as they went on the warpath. Yet the officers and men of this remarkable corps, without any cessation or furlough, took up the ravelled skein of human life around them, and with great patience, skill and tact, soon had things running smoothly again. It was a wonderful piece of reconstructive statesman-like work and, as it proceeded, both the half-breeds and Indians who had been disaffected began to regret deeply the action they had been misled by agitators into taking contrary to the advice of the men in the scarlet tunic, who had always been their friends, and who always had stood for the square deal for every one. It was not only not the fault of the Mounted Police, but largely through ignoring their long-repeated warnings to the Government that the rebellion had taken place. While it lasted these Police did their duty like men at great cost without ever saying, "We told you so." And when it was over they so comported themselves in the midst of a distracted population that it could never occur again. CHAPTER IX RECONSTRUCTION In writing these chapters it is necessary to throw in a story or incident here and there out of the regular sequence in time, so as to relate cognate subjects to each other. Hence, as their names have all been already mentioned, it may be well here to indicate the terms of office occupied by the several Commissioners who have directed the destinies of the famous corps. With all of these, except Colonel French, who was the first in order, I have had some personal contact. The office of Commissioner has been held by Colonel G. A. (later Sir George) French from 1873 to 1876, by Colonel James F. McLeod from 1876 to 1880, by Lieut.-Colonel A. G. Irvine from 1880 to 1886, by Colonel Lawrence W. Herchmer from 1886 to 1900, and from 1900 up to date by the present Officer Commanding in the person of Colonel A. Bowen Perry, C.M.G. These all had their distinctive traits of character and each had his own speciality--foundation building, discipline, organization and so on--but they all meet on a common plane as soldiers and gentlemen without fear and without reproach. Of Colonel French we have already written--he was the layer of the corner-stone--and the after-history of the Police as a spirit level proves that it was well and truly laid. Colonel McLeod came into the command when the Indians, under changing conditions at home and amidst perplexing problems born of the Indian situation south of the boundary, had to be handled with unusual discreetness and care. And MacLeod was distinctly the man for such a period, of wide human sympathies, absolutely impartial and even-handed in his magisterial decisions and inflexibly courageous, he became to Indian and white man alike a sort of embodiment of the highest ideals of British administration. Colonel Irvine had served with credit under Wolseley and was highly esteemed by his men. His commissionership fell within the stormy time of the second Riel rebellion, and despite the fact that he was not generously treated by the Commander of the Militia forces during that period, he emerged from it with an enhanced reputation and with the respect not only of his own men, but of all who knew how difficult and important his task had been. Colonel Lawrence W. Herchmer, besides some service with Imperial forces, had been through some especially important work in connection with the Frontier Boundary Commission. This experience proved of much value to the Force and the country when he became Commissioner. Coming in the restless period succeeding the rebellion, Colonel Herchmer's contribution to Police history was his extension of the patrol system all over the vast territory under his oversight. A man of fine appearance and courteous bearing he was well liked and popular with the men and the community during his term of office. Colonel Perry, the present Commissioner, has had the longest term of service in the supreme command. As his name will come up frequently in the remaining chapters of this story, we need not make special note of his work here. But it is not too much to say that owing to his outstanding ability and his wide range of general knowledge, as well as his keen perception, he has during his long term of office practically recreated the Force in many particulars. He has unusual power for getting to the heart of a situation by a sort of intuitive insight. He has the reputation of being able to grasp and analyse the contents of documents almost at a glance and seize their salient points for action. His decisions are thus made after rapid assimilation of the facts, and he expects his orders to be carried out with exactness and dispatch. In this he is not disappointed, as the officers and men under his command have such confidence in his judgment that they work out his plans with enthusiasm. He is fair to all classes, but will not tolerate movements that make for the subversion of the constitution or the wanton disturbance of law and order. Intensely Canadian, he is not insular, for few men in his line have read more extensively in the fields of history. Having made these notes on the men who have guided the Force, we can take up the story again where we ended the last chapter with the close of the second Riel rebellion. As intimated at that point, the Militia Forces were withdrawn and the Mounted Police were left alone to deal with the problems of reconstruction and peace. Certain of the rebels who had been specially seditious and murderous had to be rounded up and dealt with by process of law in order that such unseemly doings should not again menace the safety of the settler and the march of civilization. It fell to the lot of the Police to gather the evidence, to secure the presence of witnesses, to furnish guards, and at headquarters in Regina the duties were very heavy. But these trained men worked with steady precision, for the lesson had to be taught that insurrection and murder were not to be tolerated under our flag. The men in the scarlet would see that whatever had been true of other frontiers, Canada was not to have a wild west or a wild north either. So the rebels suffered the due reward of their deeds. Louis Riel was tried and, despite the efforts of his lawyers, Lemieux and Fitzpatrick, brilliant men who came from Quebec to defend him and whose conflict with the Crown lawyers, B. B. Osler and Christopher Robinson, afforded a consummate spectacle of dialectic sword-play, this leader of two rebellions was executed at Regina. Several Indians, notably Wandering Spirit, who was the evil genius of the Big Bear revolt, were also visited with capital punishment. Big Bear himself, who had become decrepit, and the lordly Poundmaker, who sturdily maintained that he had only defended himself when attacked at Cutknife, were confined to the Stony Mountain penitentiary for a time, but released when a medical board decided that the change from out of doors would soon end their lives. Poundmaker was a splendid-looking man, stately and grave in manner, and his chivalry at Cutknife, where he ordered the "cease firing" when Otter was withdrawing, entitled him to consideration. I recall his pride in the long pleats of glossy black hair that adorned his handsome head. It was a graceful recognition of his gallantry that the authorities at the penitentiary, at the instance of the Department, left the fine locks of their captive unshorn during his prison term. At the suggestion of the Mounted Police officers many of the chiefs who had remained loyal were taken on a tour of the east, where they received many tokens of the kindly attitude of Canadians towards them. [Illustration: INDIAN TEPEE.] [Illustration: DOG-TRAIN.] I recall a story in that connection--a missionary story. It is in place here because no one knew so well as the Police what a large part in preserving peace in the rebellion time was played by missionaries like John McKay, of the Mistawasis Reserve near Carlton, John McDougall, of Morley, George McKay, of Prince Albert, Père Lacombe and others. In the partnership of the Police and the missionaries the law and the gospel wrought together for good ends. The story was told a group of us by John McKay, to whose influence over Chief Mistawasis was largely due the fact that that powerful Cree chief, whose reserve was almost within sound of the guns of Duck Lake, did not join in with Chief Beardy and Dumont. After the rebellion, Mistawasis was one of the chiefs taken east as a reward for his loyalty. I recall seeing some of them being driven around eastern cities in cabs to see the sights. They preserved the usual stoical silence and evinced no surprise, but they missed nothing and when they got back home their tongues were loosed and for many a day they recited their experiences and told the story of the white man's great cities and manifest power. Mistawasis, on his way home, met John McKay on the plains, and they sat around the camp fire late that night as the chief poured out his recollections of what he had seen. One thing had puzzled the Indian, though he had thought much over it. "The strangest thing that happened," said Mistawasis, "was in Ottawa, where some good people had a missionary meeting at a house, and they were singing songs, and a lady played on the singing machine (piano). At last they asked me and Star Blanket to sing. We both were ashamed, because we could not sing much. But I told Star Blanket I would sing what the missionary taught us out on the plains and I began, and all of a sudden the lady ran to the singing machine and began to play and then they all joined in and I was leading the whole band." "Now," continued the Chief, "how did they know in Ottawa the same thing you taught us out at the reserve in Saskatchewan?" And then John McKay told him the tune was "Old Hundred," which all good people knew, and that the company sang it in English words while he sang in Cree, but that they were singing the same thing. This delighted Mistawasis, who felt that he and the white people there were really one in the deep experiences of life. And that meant brotherhood to him. But all the Indians were not like "Big Child," as this chief's name meant, and so the Mounted Police had strenuous work for some years after the rebellion, when scarcely a thousand of them had to patrol and guard a territory twenty times as large as some European kingdoms. From the ably written and graphic Police reports for the years following the rebellion, one can visualize the changing conditions of the country. The outbreak had undesignedly advertised the wide West. The thousands of men who had come out on military duty, having spied out the wondrous fatness of the land, had gone back to the east to become unofficial immigration agents by telling what they had beheld. And so the tide of humanity began to flow over the plains towards the setting sun. This means that the buffalo were gone for all time and that game generally would become a precarious means of existence, that the ranch and the farm would supersede the open plain, that settlers would need much guidance as well as protection, that the Indians would have to be taught to stay on their reserves and make a living there, and that the half-breeds, who were no lovers of agriculture, would have to be weaned from their nomadic inclinations. In some parts of the vast country, as at Prince Albert, Superintendent A. B. Perry, who took charge there after the rebellion, states, "The general attitude of the half-breeds and Indians was one of regret for what had happened." All was going well, but in some other quarters there was a sort of sullenly defiant spirit abroad which took all the tact and the courage of the Police to overcome. It was fortunate that the officers and men of the Police had from the beginning so commended themselves to the Indians and half-breeds as exponents of fair play that these natives of the country never seemed to hold the Police responsible for the errors, delays or mistakes of any government. In speaking of Police reports I would like the reader to bear in mind that, in addition to the reports furnished by the combatant officers generally so classified, commissioners, superintendents, inspectors and others, some of the most remarkable and important documents sent forward to the proper authorities, through the usual channels, were written by the surgeons and their assistants, and also by the veterinary surgeons. Men and their troop horses were companions on the long trails, and they both had to be cared for by sympathetic experts in each line. It was vastly important that both should be kept fit if the work was to be done, and of the two the men themselves were always more anxious about their horses than about their own comfort. Hence these health-preserving specialists were of peculiar value for the efficiency of the corps. And as they were men of education as well as keen observers, their reports bore the evidences of research, which made them treasuries of information. As an indication of the way in which the Police showed that they were in the country not only to preserve law and order but to guide settlers in the interests of the country's development as well as for their own welfare, I quote from one of Commissioner Lawrence Herchmer's annual reports this valuable statement in 1886: "As a rule too little fall ploughing is done in the North-West, and there is consequently too much hurry amongst the farmers in the spring and large tracts of land are sown, but not sufficiently worked--nearly all the farmers work too much land for their strength. Very few of them made any use of the manure from their farmyards, and although at nearly all Police posts, farms are quite close, I am not aware that any manure is drawn from our stables by any farmers." This statement was amply justified and very much needed, as those of us who knew the country then can affirm. Many had rushed west with the idea of getting rich "quick." They spread themselves over too much land, they neglected fall ploughing and ran the risk of getting caught with frost next season, and they thought they could save themselves time and money by doing without a fertilizer and taking all they could get out of the land. No doubt Herchmer and his thousand men preached the gospel of good farming with effect, for not many years passed before the flagrant mistakes he pointed out were remedied, to the great benefit of the country which has become in large measure the granary of the Empire. In patrol work the following from Superintendent Neale throws a little side-light on some of the frequent experiences of the Force in that period. The reference is to the "Old Man's River" in the foothill country in December. Neale says: "I had gone ahead to try the ice and found it unsafe. The saddle horses were then crossed, followed by the wagons, one of which, the hospital spring wagon, came to grief by the horses refusing to face the wind, trying to get on the ice and breaking the pole. Both men and horses were covered with ice, as the wind was very strong and bitterly cold. The stopping place at Kipp being only in course of erection, there was no place to go into, and the raising of a tent was an impossibility. However, the horses were placed in the shelter afforded by some haystacks, and after being dried and fed the men managed to get a cup of tea and then turned in with their horses." There is not much detail here, but one who knows that country at that season reads between the lines and shivers. And that the conditions might crop up at other dates is evident by a line in the same report which says that "Inspector Sanders travelled the whole distance from Lethbridge to Bull's Head _coulée_ in a driving snowstorm." That would be a dangerous outing. That others of the Police were taking note of new conditions for the benefit of the country, as Lawrence Herchmer did in his remarks on farming above quoted, is evidenced by a recommendation by Superintendent Steele, who says in 1886: "I wish to call your attention to the quality of wood used last winter for fuel, causing large fatigues, much waste and consequently great expense. This could be avoided by entering into coal contracts with people residing near the coal beds on the North Saskatchewan, who would be able to supply at low rates." Thus were these guardians of the peace keeping their eyes open and urging forward the proper industrial development of the country. There is a striking and characteristic passage in a later report from Superintendent Perry, the general truth of which is just as vital to the well-being of the State to-day as it was when written not long after the rebellion. It appears that Perry and his men had traced and brought for trial a good many cattle-killers, mail-robbers and others, but found much difficulty in getting convictions in local court where jurymen and others seemed to have more sympathy with the accused than necessary. Perry sees the far-reaching danger of this attitude, and refers to it as follows: "I regret that convictions for the serious crimes were not secured against the guilty parties. Evidence was produced for the defence which could well be doubted. Not only has this case produced sympathy for crime, but in other cases, it has been plainly manifested. Petitions have been forwarded to lessen the penalties where laws of the country have wilfully and knowingly been broken. So notorious has this become, that it has disheartened us in attempting to secure criminal convictions. There seems to be an absurd idea that the dismissal of a charge means a snub to the Mounted Police, whereas it strikes home at the root of society and threatens the lives and property of the very men who jeer and flaunt." The frontier was fortunate in having men who saw and pointed out this tendency in time. There is the ring of a statesman in that declaration. But Perry and his men were by no means deterred, even if feeling disheartened by that state of apparent sympathy with law-breakers. This is attested by the fact that when the first stage robbery ever accomplished in the territories took place by the holding up of the Prince Albert mail near Humboldt, Perry and his detachments under Inspectors Begin and Guthbert so combed the whole country in search of the perpetrators that this attempt to introduce the Jesse-James programme into Canadian territory was effectually discouraged. It took some time to land the robber, a man named Garnett, in the north country, who was given a long term sentence in the penitentiary. The Police were always on active service, but the service was very varied in character. It is interesting to find this note in one of the reports of that period written by Superintendent Deane, then in command of the Headquarters District at Regina. "On the 15th of August it was reported to me that a child about two and a half years old, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Pringle, of Regina, had strayed from her mother, who was on a visit to Pense. A Police party was dispatched to search the neighbourhood. The child was lost on the evening of the 15th, but the loss was not reported to me till the following afternoon. The child was found on the evening of the 17th in some bushes a mile or two away from the house from which it had strayed, and beyond being somewhat frightened, was little the worse for the exposure." One can quite imagine the concern of these red-coated knights of the saddle for the lost child. They would not say much, but thoughts of food and sleep would be put aside till the child was found. What plan they employed is not stated, but I have seen men under similar conditions, mounted or dismounted, holding hands and swinging in compass circles on the plain so as not to leave a foot of ground unsearched. Deane's report is as above, but again those who know the country and the men will read between the lines and see these uniformed athletes quieting the fears of the little one and then going away to some other duty glad with the remembrance of the child and the rejoicing parents. For a few years after the Riel outbreak there was a lot of unrest amongst the Blood Indians down to the south, where the proximity of the boundary line gave much opportunity to horse-thieves, cattle-killers and smugglers of whisky, but the watchfulness of Superintendents Neale and MacDonnell, Inspectors Howe, Sanders, Wattam, Sergt.-Major Lake and others checkmated every effort at lawlessness. Inspector Sanders made a clever capture of two Bloods, "The Dog" and "Big Rib," who were tried and sentenced, but who escaped to the other side of the line from the sheriff. This escape led some of the Bloods to think they could get ahead of the Police. In fact one of the chiefs, "Calf Shirt," brought in liquor from Montana and said he would defy the Police, while another Indian, "Good Rider," tried cattle-killing on the Cochrane Ranch. But the Police took a hand at this point. Superintendent Neale wired Superintendent MacDonnell for a detachment of officers and men, and MacDonnell sent Inspector Howe with twenty men to meet Neale with a like number at Stand Off. The result was that both "Calf Shirt" and "Good Rider" were arrested at two different camps, and each was duly tried and sentenced to a term with hard labour. This nipped the law-breaking in the bud. That was the Mounted Police way. After this experience it is not surprising to read in Commissioner Herchmer's report for 1888, "There has been a remarkable absence of crime during the past year and, outside arrests of criminals from the United States, we have made no important arrests in our territory." This was the gratifying result of the thoroughness of the Police patrol system, and the natural sequence to the fact that there was not much use or profit in trying to thwart the law when these red-coated guardians of the peace were around, and as the Indians found that law-breaking did not pay, they turned to more profitable pursuits, in which they were encouraged and helped by the Government and the Police. Hence this observant Commissioner is able to say that "in all quarters of the territories the Indians are making rapid strides towards self-support." The day was coming when, under the same paternal encouragement, the Indians would be the prize-winners at the fairs on the plains where they had once hunted buffalo--a very remarkable transformation. In the same year Herchmer calls attention to the highly pleasing fact that the introduction of the telephone would lead to an enormous saving of men and horses, and notes the able and diplomatic way in which Superintendent Steele, assisted by Inspectors Wood, Huot and Surgeon Powell, had quieted matters in the Kootenay country where Chief Isadore's attitude had discouraged settlement. With his usual social insight, Herchmer indicates that the Mormon settlement in southern Alberta, with its possible polygamy, will be the better of some oversight in the interests of British law. This latter was a wise decision, and led at least to the practical abandonment of a doctrine that had brought much odium upon that sect. It is interesting to find in that period of the late eighties a letter to Superintendent Deane, at Lethbridge, from the Montana Stock Growers' Association conveying a resolution of "thanks to the officers and men of the North-West Mounted Police and also to the Canadian authorities generally for assistance given to many of the citizens of Montana in recovering horses stolen from our territory." And that the Police were just as ready and willing to see the Indians got their dues either way is evidenced by another entry in which Deane pithily says, "A Blood Indian named 'Mike' laid an information against a Blackfoot for stealing his horse. 'Mike' recovered his horse and the Blackfoot is now serving three months' imprisonment here." Touching on the question of smuggling near the boundary, Deane tells of a patrol consisting of Constables Campbell and Chapman who, between Pendant d'Oreille (evidently a place where people should step lively, for the Superintendent says it "bristles with rattlesnakes") and Writing-on-Stone. These constables came across a man named Berube with five horses and a wagon. His story did not sound well to them, and so they asked him to come to camp. He agreed with evident reluctance, and when he said he was hungry and his team tired, the Police told him to unhitch the team, mount one of them and come along to camp for breakfast. Then Berube wished to get his pocket-book out of the wagon, but instead he fished out a revolver and galloped away saying he would riddle them if they followed. Of course they followed. With the usual Police restraint they forbore to shoot. Campbell overtook the smuggler, but just as he ranged alongside the policeman's horse stumbled and fell, Campbell, leaping off as the horse fell and grabbing at the halter of Berube's horse, but failing to hold him owing to the speed. Berube again threatened the riddling process, but the constables chased him to a slough, where the smuggler's horse got mired, but Berube tried to lead him out. Campbell fired in the air, but Berube kept going, whereupon Campbell shot the smuggler's horse, and the patrol took Berube and his four horses into camp. Deane says that as the horses appeared to be glandered, he wired for Veterinary Surgeon Wroughton (now the able Assistant Commissioner), who declared the case virulent, and ordered everything destroyed. This was done, and Deane adds, "The slaughter and destruction were carried out by the Police, some of whose clothes suffered destruction in the process for which they, not unreasonably, look for some compensation." And we hope they got it. Handling glanders was almost as dangerous as either the bullets or the rattlesnakes. Superintendent Perry, who with the good assistance of Inspector Cuthbert commanded in the Prince Albert district in 1888, made some specially valuable recommendations as to the future care of the Indians, and praised the work of the missionaries amongst them. He said, "The hope of improvement in the Indian lies in the training of the rising generation, and it is to be hoped that before long the children will be taken in hand." And Perry's recommendation then made as to Industrial Schools bore fruit not many years later to the great advantage of the Indian and the country as well. Thus were the Police doing social service work as their duties proceeded. An interesting side-light is thrown on the changing conditions of the West by our finding that in the late eighties a detachment of Police was sent by request from that Province into southern Manitoba. This detachment, under Inspector J. A. McGibbon (recently Assistant Commissioner at Regina, now retired), who had done important work at Moose Mountain and other far western points, had headquarters at Morden. The business of this detachment was to patrol the whole country near the boundary line, to grant special "Let Passes" to people who were entitled to cross backwards and forwards, to prevent wood being taken from the Canadian side by Dakota settlers, and generally to stand for law and order. In connection with other work I was up and down that region a good deal in those days, and recall the sense of general security the scattered settlers had because of the presence of McGibbon and his men. After five years in command of the Prince Albert district, which had been the critical storm centre around which the winds of the Riel rebellion had beaten fiercely, Inspector A. B. Perry, before changing to another command, makes another valuable contribution to the development of Western history when he writes some special paragraphs in regard to the future of the half-breeds. Game was disappearing and the occupation of freighting on the prairie was being rendered useless by the incoming of railways. Perry says, "The mass of the half-breed population must therefore turn their attention to other methods of making a living. They have no alternative: farming must become their occupation in earnest. The English and Scotch half-breeds have already done this successfully; but very few of French descent have yet made any real attempt at it." Perry was right. These people had the blood of the nomad and the volatile in their veins. Perry continues, "As farming is the inevitable pursuit of the French half-breeds, all who are friendly to them should agree in urging and encouraging them to remain on their present holdings, so that they may at once face their destiny and ultimately obtain the position of a self-supporting people. They should be treated with patience and aided generously, remembering that it is not easy for white men possessing all the advantages of education and civilization to change their occupation. Can the half-breed hunter or freighter be expected to be more apt in adapting himself to change? It would be an astonishing thing if they quietly and quickly adapted themselves to the work of a farm on which success is only obtained by hard, patient and continuous labour." And Perry goes on to advise special instruction for these people. And he concludes, "There is a tendency on the part of some to regard the problem of the future of these people as insolvable. Knowing their many sterling qualities I cannot despair, but believe their descendants will be prosperous and desirable citizens of our North-West Territory." Words like these could not be written by a man who contented himself with the routine duty of a policeman, but by a wide-awake Canadian who was anxious for the future of his country and his fellow-citizens, and it is because there were so many in the Force who saw these questions in the light of Canada's future that we have always placed the Mounted Police amongst the real nation-builders of this new Dominion. And the decade which ended with 1890 finds one of the new pages in the story of the Police in the patrol by Inspector J. V. Begin across the stormy waters of Lake Winnipeg up to the bleak shores of Hudson Bay at the famous old post of York Factory. This patrol involved much hardship and danger, but it stabilized conditions in that remote Keewatin area. In this regard Inspector Begin's trip was successful, but during his absence in the north there occurred the wreck of the Police boat on Lake Winnipeg, taking down with it Corporal Morphy and Constable Beaujeu, to both of whom the Inspector was warmly attached. They were splendid young men, full of gallantry and courage, but they answered the last roll-call while in the discharge of duty in a Force that has always been on active service. CHAPTER X CHANGING SCENERY The decade from 1890 to 1900 witnessed changes and incidents that were fully up to the Police history record for matters of thrilling importance. In 1891 Sir John A. Macdonald, who was the originator of the Force, and who had always taken great pride in its splendid efficiency, passed away after a brief illness at the historic homestead, Earnscliffe, in Ottawa. Not even Sir John's most rabidly partisan friends had ever claimed perfection for their political idol, but I did hear one man say that he was so devoted to "The old Chieftain," that he was quite prepared to support him whether he was right or wrong. This was probably an extreme case, but it illustrates the extraordinary magnetism of the remarkable man who had been the chief pilot in taking the country through the shoals and rocks that threatened to wreck Confederation at its launching. Sir John's Canadianism was intense and so was his Imperialism, for was it not he who said, "A British subject I was born and a British subject I will die"? The undoubted political lapses in his career seemed to proceed from his being possessed with the idea that his presence at the head of affairs was so necessary for the well-being of the country that he should get there and stay there at any cost. His two great achievements in connection with Western Canada were his inauguration of the Canadian Pacific Railway, and his organization of the Mounted Police. This does not mean that in these two projects he had not the aid of others, for in some measure he had the support of even his political opponents, who differed from him in considerable degree on the railway policy, but who supported him in his proposal to organize the Mounted Police. When I last heard this Disraeli-looking man speak, it was in Winnipeg, when he was making his first and last trip across Canada on the railway for which he had done and ventured so much. In his semi-humorous and semi-serious way he said, "I used to state that I never expected to live long enough to see the road completed, but that when my friends would be crossing the continent upon it, I would be looking down upon them from another and better sphere; my opponents said I would be looking up, but in reality to the surprise of both, I am doing it on the horizontal." On that same trip the veteran took great delight in seeing the scarlet and gold uniforms of his favourite corps on their "native heath" in the great prairie land of the West. Such was Sir John's interest in the Force that, despite his heavy duties, he retained the headship of the corps to the end of his days. In later years Sir Wilfred Laurier, Sir Robert Bordon, and the Hon. N. W. Rowell were outstanding also in their high opinion of, and their great interest in, the riders of the plains. In fact all public men who really understood the Western situation and the wide-reaching influence of the Police on Western history have always been ready to estimate highly the great services rendered by these remarkable men. During that same decade which rounded out the century Colonel MacLeod, who had been appointed to the Bench and whose fine character had endeared him to the Police and the country, crossed the Great Divide amid the grief of all who knew him. The Assistant Commissioner, W. M. Herchmer, who had throughout nearly thirty years served with distinction in the Militia and the Police, died much regretted, and was succeeded by Superintendent John H. McIlree, who retired in 1911 after thirty-eight years of most valuable service. It was in that decade also that the gold-rush into the Yukon took place, as we shall see, and furnished a new occasion for one of the most remarkable periods in the history of the Police, replete with incidents of adventure and tales of endurance along with a devotion to duty and a triumphant enforcement of law which added immensely to the already great prestige of the Force, and made a record that not only astonished but won the admiration of the world. We will, however, review some notable events of that decade before coming to the Yukon. Tragic but glorious was the fate of a young constable near Pendant d'Oreille, who was out on special duty when a blinding snow-storm gathered to the height of a blizzard across his path. Losing the way, the troop-horse stumbled into a ravine and broke his neck. But the athletic young policeman, who had developed muscle as well as mind in his university, extricated himself and struggled on in his determination to carry out his commission. The odds of blizzard and cold were too heavy, and the gallant lad succumbed in the unequal contest. But he would bring no discredit on the Police tradition, and when his body was discovered by a search party the following words, scribbled with freezing fingers, were found on a paper in his dispatch bag, "Lost. Horse dead. Am trying to push on. Have done my best." In the long roll of honour there are few more remarkable incidents than this of the young policeman battling with the relentless elements which some of us have witnessed raging on these Western plains. But he did not fail. From his numbing hands he had passed on to others the supreme duty of upholding the great tradition. And then we can swing to another and lighter, but still very important phase of Police life. In the nineties Superintendent Steele, who was at Fort MacLeod, gives us some vivid and interesting pictures of social evenings in the winter, and out-door sports in the summer. The Police were leaders in these gatherings, but all the country-side turned out, and the barrack hall was thrown open on occasion for winter gatherings. There was wisdom in all this, for to teach people to enjoy proper recreation and play is to make them better citizens and more cordial one to the other. In the summer the Bloods and Piegans with their ponies and dogs attended the sports, and took active part under the general oversight of that incomparable scout and interpreter Jerry Potts. In the roping of the huge wild steers there was much opportunity for the display of skill and nerve. When these big steers had been run out and had passed the line the cowboy on his trained pony followed at racing speed. His pony seemed dowered with full knowledge of the methods, and so watched the lasso thrown over the steer's head, when the wary pony, with all four feet braced to meet the strain, came to a sudden halt. This swift stop caused the steer to go heels over head and fall on his back, the pony holding the rope tight till the rider dismounted and tied the steer up in orthodox fashion, the pony watching every movement till the task was finished. Bronco-breaking was a regular industry, and every meet of the kind just described had its bucking contents, but not after the manner of circuses with a few dispirited animals that go through a programme without springing any surprises on the rider. A real prairie bronco five or six years old, that had never been ridden or even handled since he was branded when a foal had no set programme. The rider never could tell what that bronco would do next. The animal might start away quietly, as if he was wondering what had gotten on his back when he was blindfolded. Then suddenly he would leap right up into the air, "swap ends," so the cowboys said, and come down facing the opposite way Then he might rear up and fall backwards, or throw himself down and roll over, but the rider was always on the bronco's back before he could get going again. This went on for some time, varied by a swift race out over the plain, from which the return would be made with the froth down over the hooves of the horse. Then the cowboys pronounced the bronco broken, but woe betide the unsuspecting tenderfoot who was tempted to get on the hurricane deck of what these men called a broken horse. [Illustration: YUKON RUSH: SUMMIT. CHILCOOT PASS] [Illustration: GROUP OF INDIAN CHILDREN ON PRAIRIE.] The Police were good riders and each Division had several constables who made a speciality of breaking refractory broncos. And the work was necessary because for months after the horse was first broken he would break out again on occasion. One day on our line of march to the north from Calgary, a constable after the noon hour stop found on mounting his horse that the bronco spirit was still existent, and that bucking was evidently the order of the day. But the policeman was ready. He banged the horse over the head with his hat and used the spur till the unruly animal made a few kangaroo-like leaps and came to a sudden halt at the edge of the hole where the camp fire had left a bed of hot coals. The rider was not disturbed by the shock, but the buckle of his cartridge belt gave way under the strain and the whole thing dropped over the horse's head into the fire. Those of us who were looking on lost no time in taking cover when the fire got at those cartridges. Steele tells us in this same connection of an extraordinary feat of horsemanship he witnessed by Mr. Charles Sharples, of the Winder Ranch. Sharples had brought some horses to MacLeod to sell to the Mounted Police, and had them in a stable near the Old Man's River, where there was a perpendicular bank about 30 feet high. He started out to show one of the horses to the Commissioner at the Fort, but the brute bucked fiercely towards the cut-bank, sidling and fighting against its rider until at last there seemed to be nothing for it but to go over the bank side-on. That did not suit Sharples. He turned the brute sharply towards the precipice, gave it the spur and went out into space. Everybody rushed to the top to see what had become of this bold horseman, and were amazed to see him still firm in the saddle with the horse swimming towards the opposite bank, none the worse for his wild leap. Steele does not tell us whether Sharples made a sale of that horse, but he deserved to succeed in so doing. A horse like that would come in handy. Perhaps the races and other sports inaugurated by the Police had their effect in discouraging the Indians from the barbaric Sun-dance which the Government sought to end as soon as possible, although not desiring to repress them by force. The Sun-dance was a semi-religious, semi-tribal festival for the purpose of enabling young braves to prove that they had courage and stamina enough to go on the war-path. While we were engaged in the Riel rebellion campaign we saw several Sun-dance lodges along the line of our march after Big Bear, these lodges being left standing with a view to frightening our men from pursuing braves who could demonstrate their courage in the way the lodge indicated. The Sun-dance lodge was a circular wooden structure of poles with rafters coming together to a point above. From these rafters hooks were suspended by thongs of tough leather. The prospective braves danced around furiously within the structure in a frenzy of excitement, fastening the hooks in their skin and thus lacerating themselves till they sometimes fainted away. This performance was an annual affair on the general principle that they should be always ready for war. There was nothing in the festival that would justify a forcible suppression of it, which would offend the Indians by interference with an ancient custom. But the Mounted Police used their persuasive influence against it and showed the younger Indians how foolish and useless it was. Accordingly, we find Superintendent Steele, who was in command at Fort MacLeod, saying in 1891, "This year both Bloods and Piegans indulged in the time-honoured Sun-dance. From personal observation and careful inquiry I am convinced that this festival has almost entirely ceased to have any significance except to the old people. The vanity of the ancient warrior is no doubt gratified when he recounts his scalps, but there seemed very little interest and no enthusiasm on the part of his audience. The young Indians of both sides seem to look on the whole thing as an excuse for a picnic. Many Indians on the reserves did not take sufficient interest in the festival to attend it. Two braves were made at the Blood dance and none at the Piegans'." So this pagan custom was vanishing. It is now a thing of the past, but we must credit the Police with gradually ending it. About this period there were still some rumblings of discontent amongst the Sioux Indians south of the boundary line in the region of Manitoba. There were recurrent "scares" and many rumours of "Ghost dances" on our side of the line, in expectation, it was said, of an incursion by the Sioux, who were reported to be stirring up our Indians to commit depredations on the settlers. But the presence and the constant patrols of Inspector J. A. McGibbon and his men in the scarlet tunic soon restored the equilibrium of things and calmed the fears of the settlers so that they went peacefully on with their work. A literary outcome of the situation was the widely quoted and beneficially humorous utterance of a punster on the staff of the Winnipeg Free Press, who asserted that the Sioux (sue) scare was seizing a lot of fellows who owed money. The relations existing between the Mounted Police and the American soldiery south of the line were always of the most cordial and fraternal type. Superintendent A. W. Jarvis, who was in charge at Lethbridge in the nineties, refers to this in one of his reports. He says, "Several deserters from the American army arrived here in the spring, but only one of them brought a horse. This was taken from him and was sent back to the officer commanding at Fort Assiniboine. This was the only opportunity I had to reciprocate the courtesy so freely extended to us under similar circumstances by the American officers at that post. These gentlemen have always shown themselves ready and willing to assist the Mounted Police by any means in their power." Speaking of desertions it was generally felt that a man who would desert was not really worth a search. So far as the Mounted Police were concerned, there were not many desertions, but there was probably more relief than otherwise when some unworthy man took French leave and escaped. Such a man was not wanted. The standing of the Force was to be maintained, and so the statement once made by Commissioner Lawrence Herchmer became a classic: "I want to see the Mounted Police Force to be the hardest to get into and the easiest to get out of in the world." There is a fine human picture in another clause of Superintendent A. W. Jarvis' report already mentioned. He says: "On November 20 two boys, aged 16 and 10 years respectively, sons of leading citizens of Medicine Hat, were caught in a blizzard a few miles south of that town and frozen to death. Two days later the Police Patrol from Bull's Head found the bodies. Sergeant Mathewson remained alone all night on the open prairie to watch them and protect them from the cayotes, till the Police team came next day to take them to town." Mathewson had a lonely and dangerous vigil on the blizzard-swept plain, but it was characteristic of these big men to stand guard in such pathetic cases. The same fine touch comes out in a brief medical import in 1892 from that able man Senior Surgeon Jukes at the Regina headquarters. It had been a time of stress in the hospital work, and Dr. Haultain, the assistant surgeon, had been laid completely aside by illness. So Dr. Jukes cut out the office work and let reports go in order to devote himself to the sick. Then Assistant Surgeon Fraser arrived from Calgary to help, and Dr. Jukes has time to send in a brief note before the time for having reports in the printer's hands expires. And he says at the end of it, "I am assured by the comptroller that in consideration of the enormous amount of work which has been thrown on me for the last three months, no censure can possibly be passed on me for having devoted the whole of my time to the sick under my charge and other professional duties, in preference to the writing of an annual report." Well spoken, Dr. Jukes, and the authorities saw the point at once. Reports could wait, but the sick had to be looked after at once. That, too, is a police tradition. Take care of the casualties now and report later. That the Mounted Police Force was continuously progressive to ever higher efficiency was due in no small measure to the fact that officers and men were encouraged to be on the look out for improved methods and to feel free to suggest these to those in command. Superintendent Perry had been the means of bringing about a system of districts and sub-districts with constables scattered over many points rather than concentrated at headquarters, qualified only by the suggestion that changes be often made so as to keep all in touch with regimental duties. And I find that Inspector Constantine, a man of quite unusual gifts and powers, as we shall see later, makes a striking recommendation in his report from Moosomin in 1893. He says that the farther division of districts into groups in charge of a non-commissioned officer has increased the self-respect of these men and developed their interest and initiative. He says men are more to be trusted than regulations. "Get good men forward, give more power to individuals, create a confidence through all ranks one with the other and things will work harmoniously in maintaining the peace of the country." And because all the men cannot be experienced from the outset Constantine suggests that a special instruction book should be issued to every recruit, a necessary part of his equipment, and to be produced at kit inspection or whenever called for by the officer commanding. And this keen Inspector adds that young men who had this book would be in a better position to carry out their duty "besides having the confidence inspired by a knowledge that they were right and not being in an agony of indecision caused by being advised by parties having different interests." Happy the Force that had leaders able and free to suggest new departures to greater efficiency. That the officers were always careful about minor details with a view to the comfort of the men and economy at the same time as far as possible is evidenced by some suggestions from Inspector A. C. Macdonnell, who was in charge at Wood Mountain in 1893. Macdonnell (now Sir Archibald, Commandant at Kingston Military College and the wearer of many war decorations) says that he had the old mud-roofs removed and replaced by shingles and painted, and makes the recommendation which those who know the country will understand, "that next year all the log-buildings be chinked with mortar. It would last five years and be much cleaner and neater in appearance than mud, and save the cost of the annual mudding." These officers kept their eyes on everything. It is in keeping with what was said above as to deserters that Macdonnell reports a desertion and adds, "As this constable was the possessor of an exceedingly bad defaulter's sheet, the Force sustains no loss." Let the Force be made easy for undesirables to leave, as Herchmer said some years before. In 1893 Superintendent Perry, in referring to the reports he was transmitting from Superintendent F. Norman, of Wood Mountain, Inspectors McGibbon, of Saltcoats, J. O. Wilson, of Estevan, C. Constantine, of Moosomin, and W. H. Routledge, in Manitoba, says these reports show "how varied and multifarious are the duties which are demanded of us--at Wood Mountain our men are found acting as cowboys, rounding up and driving back across the boundary vast herds of wild American ranch cattle which again and again wander northward in search of better feed and more water. At Estevan and Gretna they are seen in charge of large herds of quarantined cattle, attending sick animals, milch cows, and at the expiration of their term in quarantine driving them long distances by trail, loading on trains and conveying them to their different destinations; in Manitoba they are engaged in enforcing the customs laws, aiding the regular customs officials, whose duties they at times perform, and executing the Crown Timber and Dominion Land regulations; and, in addition to this work of a special nature, everywhere carrying out their regular duties of detecting crime, aiding the administration of justice, acting as prairie fire and game guardians, and maintaining a patrol system which covers weekly some 1,200 miles." No wonder Perry adds, "Such extended duties test the capacities of the Force and their successful performance illustrates the diversity of attainments in the personnel of the North-West Mounted Police." And those of us who have seen them under many circumstances can vouch for their being not stereotyped officials, but all-round adaptable men. There are flashes of humour all through the reports of Police Officers. Sometimes they may have been unintentional, but humour is a saving grace and men who were facing tragedies almost every day would have given way under the strain if they had not put a little comedy into life even in their reports. Here, for instance, is an item from a report by Inspector Z. T. Wood, who later on did such splendid work in the Yukon. Writing from Calgary in 1894 he reports a case by saying, "On the night of July 5 a man named Wilson took his effects from a C.P. Railway car and started north without going through the usual form of paying the freight thereon. He was caught, brought back and committed for trial." Superintendent Deane exposes one of the peculiar technicalities of law when he says, "On the 15th of August a traveller had a pair of field glasses stolen from his buckboard at a ranch about 12 miles from Lethbridge. We know who took them, but the one witness who could convict the thief had disappeared." The same officer elsewhere observes, "On the 15th of September last, in the Pot Hole country, a saddle was stolen from the back of a piqueted horse whose rider had dismounted to shoot some ducks. We know who is responsible for this piece of impudence, but shall be lucky if we succeed in recovering the saddle." Deane saw humour in the situation, but was evidently rather sceptical about the ways of law. These examples of wit could be multiplied readily from what to the casual student seem to be dry annual reports. In reality these same reports pulsate with life. But it is often only found between the lines by the reader who knows the history of the land. Nearly midway in that last decade of the last century the golden Yukon swung out of solitude into the vision of the world and there as elsewhere in the vast north-land the Mounted Police were to play a large and brilliantly useful part. To some study of that part we shall come in succeeding pages. CHAPTER XI IN THE GOLD COUNTRY Away on the banks of the Red River hard by where the City of Winnipeg with its aggressive business marts and its surging polyglot population now stands, there is the old Kildonan Church, which the original Selkirk Settlers, pioneers of the West, built for themselves and their children. These early colonists, unmindful of worldly gain, had the traditional hospitality of the Highland race to which they belonged, and the proverbial absence of class distinction which always obtains on a frontier: "No bolts had they to their doors Nor bars to their windows, But their houses were open as day And the hearts of the owners." It was natural that to such a place should come on frequent visits the Hudson's Bay men, the explorers and pathfinders, most of whom were of the same race and creed as the pioneers. And it was natural too, that when these pathfinders came to the end of the long trail their bodies should be brought back to rest in the God's acre around that old church, the famous cemetery where "Each in his narrow cell forever laid, The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep." There were other lines of Gray's immortal poem that could be applied with great appropriateness to that churchyard that lay in the midst of a settlement in which were men of undoubted talent and power had their lot been cast in other surroundings. Such lines, for instance, as these: "Some village Hampden, who, with dauntless breast, The little tyrant of his fields withstood: Some mute, inglorious Milton here may rest: Some Cromwell guiltless of his country's blood." But there are many resting there who became known far beyond their early circle. Most of them are not connected with our present story, but one monument in that ancient churchyard bears the name of a man whose record shines out with splendour in the history of the Yukon, which region was afterwards the scene of one of the most brilliant, successful and grandly tragic chapters in the record of the Mounted Police. The name is that of Robert Campbell, the famous Hudson's Bay Company explorer, who threescore years before the famous gold-rush which required the guardian presence of the Police had discovered the Yukon River, and had travelled for years in the regions which later on became known as one of the great gold-fields of the world. Campbell was not looking for gold or caring for it. He was opening out a new Empire for trade with the usual self-forgetful devotion of its employees to the interests of the great Fur Company. I remember Campbell, guest often in my father's house on the Red River in my boyhood, and later, for he lived to a great age. A Highlander too was he, from Glenlyon in Perthshire, tall, stately, handsome, with black hair and beard, his whole bearing suggestive of power. A modest man withal, for he refused to call after himself the great river he had discovered, and he left no material out of which a real biography could be written. But it was because he had blazed the way and because another Hudson's Bay man, Hunter Murray, had built Fort Yukon, that others throughout the years began to penetrate into the wild until, in the nineties, there came the discovery of acres of gold which attracted the wildest rush in the history of mining. There have been many wild rushes in different parts of the world, but those who went on the Yukon rush faced climatic conditions in blizzards, bottomless snow drifts and desperate cold, as well as on torrential streams and treacherous rapids, which, from the standpoint of hardship and privation, dwarf all other mining expeditions into insignificance. Of all this burden and exposure and hardship the Mounted Police, in the simple discharge of their duties, bore the lion's share, and that without any financial compensation such as others expected who were drawn to the north by the lure of gold. The Police had nothing beyond their small pay, and they kept themselves strictly and sternly aloof from opportunities to enrich themselves either in the way of business or in the way of allowing any offers to be made them as a price for shielding law-breakers. They did not make any money, though it was being made by thousands all around them. But they did their duty so valiantly and so uncompromisingly that they added to their already great prestige and showed the world a new record in keeping potentially dangerous frontier camps almost entirely free from crime. There was hardly any gun play. There were only two or three homicides, and there were no failures in justice and no lynchings. When in 1894 the first rumours of a probable rush into the region came to the outside, the Dominion Government felt that it was imperative that, in order to prevent lawlessness as well as to protect the interests of Canada in respect to the area within her boundary, the famous corps that had policed all the western frontiers should be represented immediately in the gold regions of the far north. And it was vitally important that a man should be sent in as officer commanding who would be specially fitted for such an unprecedented and extraordinary task. That man was found in the person of Inspector Charles Constantine, and he, taking with him other picked men in Inspector D. A. E. Strickland, Assistant Surgeon A. E. Wells, Staff-Sergeant Brown and twenty non-commissioned officers and constables, left for their distant field of action in the month of June. Strickland, who had done fine service on the plains, was to be of great value in the north on account of his knowledge of woodcraft logging, building and such like, in addition to his regular police duties. Wells was to have his hands full, since for some time he was, as some one said, the only doctor in a region as large as France and had, with sometimes inadequate means, to fight scourges of scurvy and the other diseases incident to food and climate. The men in the detachments were experienced and hardy enough to face anything that might turn up either in the shape of man or beast or difficult atmospheric conditions. Constantine had served in the Red River expedition, and then, on account of special qualifications, had been made chief of the Provincial Police in Manitoba, where he was a terror to evil-doers. When the second Riel rebellion broke out and a volunteer regiment was being hurriedly raised in Winnipeg for service in the Big Bear country, Constantine, to the great delight of all of us who joined up with that regiment, became Adjutant. During that campaign he was always to the fore in every crisis and showed particular skill in rooting out men who were inciting the Indians to revolt. One morning of dense fog away beyond Fort Pitt our outside picket was fired on when I had charge of the guard. Calling out the guard and getting them under arms I went over to notify the officer commanding in the camp, but met Constantine with his forty-five ready for action. He had scented the alarm and did not wait for notice before getting out to see what was doing. A less keen-sighted or an excitable man would probably have shot anyone looming up through the fog, as I did from the direction of the shooting, but Constantine, though as quick as a flash, always had himself in hand. After the rebellion he became an Inspector in the Mounted Police, and had so approved himself as a wide-awake, intelligent and courageous officer that when the Yukon sprang up with its special demand he was appointed to be the pioneer in that far region of the north. Of medium height but very compactly built, Constantine was immensely strong, quick in his movements and capable of enduring tremendous strain. If it came to a rough and tumble he was as hard a man to handle as anyone would care to find. These qualities, along with his mental alertness and judicial training, made him a good man to send to a region where he had to exercise many functions until fuller government could be established. Constantine first of all made an investigating and exploratory trip accompanied by Staff-Sergeant Charles Brown. Leaving Moosomin in May in obedience to orders to report in Ottawa for special duty, Constantine received instructions to proceed to the Yukon and make recommendations as to general administration. He accordingly left for the north and by crossing over by the Lewes-Yukon he reached Fort Cudahy on August 7, where he remained about a month before returning by St. Michaels and arriving at Victoria in October. He reported elaborately on the resources, climate and possibilities of the whole country. This was in 1894, and in consequence of Constantine's grasp of the situation and his talent for organization he was sent back next year with the officers and men above indicated, arriving at Fort Cudahy on July 24. It was well that Strickland was a practical logger and builder, for quarters had to be provided. It was a land of extremes, with intense cold in the winter and equally intense heat in the summer. Constantine speaks of an occasional 75 degrees below zero in the winter and the heat as high as 120 degrees. In another report he writes, "The miners have a simple method of determining when it is too cold to work by hanging a bottle containing mercury outside the house. When it freezes it is time to remain inside." We should rather think so. Albeit, the climate is dry and healthy when people are prepared for it and are not found fasting after prolonged exposure. It was in the hot weather that Strickland and his picked men went up the Yukon amid the heat and flies, cut down the logs and floated them to where Fort Constantine was built before the extreme cold struck the region. The men who stayed with Constantine had cleared the ground of moss and brush with great effort. The moss varied from one to three feet in depth. Below it was ice, so that the report says the men worked a good part of the time up to their knees in water. "If it was not 90 degrees in the shade it was pouring rain." Up the river Strickland and his men were getting out the logs as stated, but without any appliances except their own physical strength and energy. Only men of the finest type could have stood it, and the Inspector gives them unstinted praise. The buildings were rushed up as stated before the winter. They were chinked with moss and the roof covered with earth, there being no time to saw boards to cover. All this was not so bad for the winter, but when the spring came the men who had fought the intense cold were subjected to another kind of hardship. Constantine says in a later report, "During the heavy rains the roofs leaked so badly that oil sheets and tarpaulins had to be put up over all the beds to keep them dry. The earth roofs of this country will only absorb a certain amount of moisture and when the limit is reached, a deluge of very dirty water is the result." Evidently the men were not having a picnic. However, Constantine and his detachment keep the country in order, administer justice, collect customs due to the Dominion and generally make conditions civilized and British. There was a time when it was generally believed that most of the gold-bearing creeks were on the American side of the line, but a survey made under direction of the Police revealed the opposite to be the case and Constantine notified the miners on Miller, Glacier and other creeks that they were on Canadian territory, subject to British law and amenable to regulations as to mining fees, Constantine's modesty and determination are illustrated in one quiet paragraph, which some of us who knew him will find luminous between the lines. He says, "A few miners denied Canada's jurisdiction and right to collect fees on the ground that there was a possibility of error in the survey. However, I went up to Miller and Glacier Creeks and all dues were paid without any trouble except that of a hard trip, but as all trips in this country are of that nature, it was part of the bargain. On Glacier Creek a number of miners undertook to run matters in accordance with their own ideas of justice and set themselves up as the law of the land. The trouble ended, however, by the Canadian law being carried out." Constantine was clearly serving notice on all and sundry that the Mounted Police were on hand to live up to their reputation of seeing justice done and playing no favourites. The authorities had made no mistake when they sent him in as the pioneer. Then he speaks in 1896 of new discoveries which began to cause the mad rush from all parts of the world as the news percolated through to the outside. "In August of this year a rich discovery of coarse gravel was made by one George Carmack on Bonanza Creek, a tributary to the Klondike. His prospect showed $3.00 to the pan." Not bad picking for George, who became wealthy. But George's shovel and pick and pan, clattering as he worked, awakened echoes to far distances and the wild stampede of all kinds of people, prominently the adventurous and the get-rich-quick class, began with a vengeance. Constantine got ready for it, strongly recommending the establishment of civil courts, the appointment of an administrator and law-officer and the reinforcing of the Police so that they could be scattered up and down the new mining areas as required. A post called Fort Herchmer, after the Commissioner, was built at Dawson which was to become the big centre shortly, and the Police Force was augmented by the arrival of two small detachments under command respectively of two well-known officers, Inspectors Scarth and Harper. And not any too soon were these precautions taken, for Constantine lets light in on the kind of people who began to head for the diggings when he says in his graphic way, "A considerable number of people coming in from the Sound cities appear to be the sweepings of the slums and the result of a general jail delivery. Heretofore goods could be cached on the side of the trails and they would be perfectly safe, now a man has to sit on his cache with a shotgun to ensure the safety of his goods. Cabins in out-of-the-way places are broken into and everything cleaned out." That was before the newcomers realized that the Mounted Police were to the fore. Constantine and his men kept on their track and perpetrators of ordinary offences were astonished when they were run out of the country in order to save food for the decent people who were willing to work without preying on others. And the Inspector gives parting salute to the deported individuals by saying, "Many of them could well be spared in any community, for the rush had brought in toughs, gamblers, lewd women and criminals of almost every type, from the petty thief to the murderer." But Constantine gave them no quarter, and so it was that by the time the big stampede took place into Dawson and the Creeks it had become known far and wide that the Mounted Police would stand no nonsense. So the way was made simpler, though not at any time a sinecure, for those who followed the intrepid pioneers in the scarlet tunic. But coming at the summit of an active and strenuous life, the exposure, responsibility and general wear and tear of his Yukon years undermined the once rugged strength of Constantine. He was transferred to the prairie after nearly four years in the Yukon, but never fully recovered his vigour. His leaving the Yukon had a very human side. The miners showed their appreciation of his manly, straightforward character by crowding in and presenting him and his wife and boy with nuggets of gold and indicating in their diffident but genuine way that if ever any of them needed help they could count on their Yukon friends for anything required. Which reminds us that tribute should be paid to the wives of these policemen who braved the wilderness places of the west and north to be helpers to their husbands and to make their homes centres of social refining influence where such influences were of untold value. [Illustration: CHILCOOT PASS: N.W.M. POLICE AND CUSTOM HOUSE.] [Illustration: KLONDYKE RUSH: SQUAW RAPIDS, BETWEEN CANYON AND WHITE HORSE RAPIDS. 1898] Inspector Cortlandt Starnes, the present efficient Assistant-Commissioner at Ottawa Headquarters and who has done valuable service all the way across the country from Hudson Bay to the Yukon as well as on the plains, took over the command from Constantine and remained in charge till the arrival of Superintendent Steele, a period extending from June to September, 1898. Starnes, who is a short, heavily built and powerful man, capable of enduring much hardship, had come through in the previous winter, staying some months at Lake LaBarge and Little Salmon, accumulating stores of goods from the coast to be taken through in the spring to Dawson, where a shortage was impending. He had no easy time getting over the route, he and his men only saving themselves from wreck on Lake Bennett by throwing overboard some of their freight. With forty below zero and everything frozen up, Starnes had to build winter quarters at Little Salmon, and with the true democracy of the frontier we find the officials he was escorting into the Yukon giving a hand--Judge McGuire, Mr. F. O. Wade, Crown Prosecutor, Dr. Bonnar and others. But early in the spring Starnes moved on to Dawson. The rush was setting in and with Inspector F. Harper and a few men he had to hold the place for law and order during a sort of interregnum period. No civil courts were established till Judge McGuire came, and to administer the law under such conditions was always trying. But it was done. Offenders were given no rest. "Gunmen" were made impossible and gamblers found no city of refuge in the gold country. In three months Starnes and Harper, principally the former, tried 215 cases, these being all the way from dog-stealing (dogs were dogs in the north), drunkenness, keeping or frequenting disorderly houses to vagrancy, using vile language and refusing to work. If men would not work when free they were sentenced to jail with hard labour, because these experienced men knew that idleness is the prolific progenitor of crime. In consequence crime never got a start in the most quickly crowded mining camp in the world. It had been held down from the beginning. The place had its saloons and dance hall and fools were fleeced there as they are in older centres, but the superb strength and incorruptibility of the Mounted Police proved too much for the lawless element, and the whole period makes one of the proudest records in the history of this wonderful force. The big stampede for Dawson started in 1897-98, and to cope with the incidentals and probably accompaniments of it, there was a whirlwind series of movements by the Mounted Police which seemed to anticipate every contingency, head off all manner of calamities, make provision for protecting the boundary line against infractions of the customs regulations, and generally see that law and order should prevail all over the wide area that was soon teeming with a nondescript heterogeneous population of excited gold-hunters. Two of the big men of the Force, Superintendents A. B. Perry, a masterly organizer, and S. B. Steele, a determined enforcer of law, were called on to go up to the north and meet the unprecedented situation. That these two superior officers did not shirk any of the hardships could be demonstrated from many an instance like the following related casually by Steele as to an incident at the outset. "At Dyea I met Perry and together we returned to Skagway in a small sailing boat. The weather was very cold and as the tide was out we were obliged to wade through the pools in our moccasins. When we embarked we were soaked to the hip and our clothes were frozen like boards." And they came that way the whole distance to Skagway, where they got no time to change as Perry had to leave for Vancouver that night in regard to further arrangements. With these two from the beginning, indeed some were in the country ahead of them, was a group of very able officers, Superintendent Z. T. Wood, Inspectors P. C. H. Primrose, C. Starnes, F. Harper, W. H. Scarth, A. E. Strickland, R. Belcher, A. M. Jarvis, F. L. Cartwright, Surgeons W. E. Thompson and S. M. Fraser. Non-commissioned officers like Tucker, Macdonnell, Barker, Bates, Graham, Hyles, Corneil and Raven were amongst those in charge of early detachments or attached to hospital bases in the first year of the big rush, and these with the help of as able and resolute a body of men as ever wore uniform led the way to a new world record for policing a country in a paternal method of oversight which guided and controlled but never resorted to shooting. The use of the word paternal calls to mind the way they threw a cordon around the country to prevent at the threshold the entrance of men who were unprepared for the hardships with either clothing or supplies or physique. And the manner in which the Police interposed against the madness of inexpert men who were anxious to run the White Horse Rapids and the Miles Canyon in crazy boats on the way to Dawson was admirable in its quiet forcefulness. A good many of these people were men and women from offices and stores in American cities who knew boats only by hearsay. So when Steele arrived at the Rapids he gathered the stampeders together and said: "There are many of your countrymen who have said that the Mounted Police make the laws as they go along, and I am going to do so now for your own good, therefore the directions that I give shall be carried out strictly and they are these: Corporal Dixon, who thoroughly understands this work, will be in charge here and be responsible to me for the proper management of the passage of the Canyon and White Horse Rapids. No women or children will be taken in the boats. If they are strong enough to come to the Klondike they can walk the five miles of the bank to the foot of the White Horse and there is no danger for them here. No boat will be permitted to go through the Canyon until the corporal is satisfied that it has sufficient free board to enable it to ride the waves in safety. No boat will be allowed to pass with human beings in it unless it is steered by competent men, and of that the corporal will be the judge. There will be a number of pilots selected, whose names will be on the roll in the Mounted Police Barracks here, and when a crew needs a man to steer them through the Canyon to the foot of the rapids, pilots will be taken in turn from that list. In the event of the men not being able to pay, the Corporal will be permitted to arrange that the boats are run without charge." Some of the impetuous who were willing to risk everything for the glitter of gold rather demurred at this strong paternalism, but when it was all over they thanked their stars that the Mounted Police had been on hand to head off the folly of fools. We have anticipated in the last paragraph in order to illustrate how the Mounted Police guided the wild stampede. But let us get back and find Superintendent Perry on the ground just as the rush was starting for the passes. He made a swift trip and placed detachments of police on the Chilcoot and White Passes, putting those reliable officers Inspectors Belcher and Strickland in command. Up to a certain date it had almost been taken for granted that the whole country was on the American side as the names of Miles, the Indian fighter, and Gordon Bennett had been given by enthusiasts to the Canyon and the lake. But when Perry put Belcher on the Chilcoot and Strickland on the White Pass to hoist the British flag and collect customs levies, intimation was given that the great gold country was on the Canadian side of the line and that all who wished to pass that way must contribute to the Dominion exchequer and thus swell the revenue of Canada. Weather conditions were nothing less than awful. Steele, who, with Constable Skirving, went up the Chilcoot from Dyea where they had come on a craft which was covered from stem to stern with six inches of ice, says, "As we proceeded up the pass we faced a wind so cutting that we had often to make a rush for the shelter of a tree or walk in a crouching position behind the tailboard of a sleigh for a few minutes' respite. We overtook some on the trail next day out of a notorious tent town known as Sheep Camp. Many of them were staggering blindly along, with heavy loads on their backs, some of them off the trail and groping for it with their feet. These we assisted or they would have fallen by the way." The same writer goes sympathetically into the following vivid description: "It would be difficult to describe the hardships gone through by the Mounted Police stationed at the passes. The camp at the Chilcoot under Inspector Belcher was pitched on the summit, where it is bounded by high mountains. A wooden cabin was erected in a couple of days. The place where it was in the pass was only about 100 yards wide. Below the summit, on the Canadian side, was Crater Lake, named after an extinct volcano. On its icy surface the men were forced to camp when they arrived. In the night of February 18 the water rose to the depth of six inches. Blankets and bedding were wet, the temperature being below zero with a blizzard. The tents could not be moved and the sleds had to be taken into them to enable the men to keep above the water at night. The storm blew for days with great violence, but on the 21st abated sufficiently to admit of the tents being moved to the top of the hill, where, although the cold was intense, it was better than in the water-covered ice of Crater Lake." "The nearest firewood was seven miles away and the men who went after it often returned badly frost-bitten. "Belcher, collecting customs, performing military as well as police duty on the summit, lived in the shack, which had all the discomforts of a shower-bath. Snow fell so thickly and so constantly that everything was damp and paper became mildewed. For some weeks the weather was very cold without storm, but on the 3rd of March there was a terrific day when the snow buried the cabin and the tents on the summit, the snowfall for the day being six feet on the level." The occupants had to shovel constantly to keep from being suffocated. On the White Pass Inspector Strickland and his men had to pitch tents on the ice at first, no timber for cabins or firewood being nearer than 12 miles. Logs were cut and hauled in by horses. There were raging blizzards and great danger constantly threatened the men, who had to be on the alert to avoid being lost or frozen. However, on February 27 the Union Jack flew to the breeze and collection of customs began. A strong guard kept the trail and men were told off to examine the goods of the stampeders. There was a tremendous rush, and Strickland, overworked and suffering from severe bronchitis, struggled along, ably assisted by his splendid men. An enormous amount was gathered from those who were rushing in by thousands from the other side of the line bringing their supplies with them. About this time Inspector Cartwright arrived from Regina with twenty men, and Steele, going up the White Pass with him, put him in charge, sending Strickland to Tagish, where the dry air soon restored him to health. It is an illuminating comment on Steele's disposition to look after others and forget himself that he was also, as Dr. Grant said, suffering from bronchitis which he had contracted weeks before when wading through icy waters to a boat. But as there was no one around to order him off duty he just kept right on, trusting that his strong constitution would see him through. If physical conditions were bad with storm and cold, moral conditions from the coast to the summits were worse. The authorities on the American side seemed to accept as a sort of axiom the statement that a frontier had to be lawless. Anyway "Soapy Smith," a notorious gunman and gambler, who was eventually killed by a United States Marshal who was going to arrest him and who was killed by "Soapy" at the same time, both firing at one moment, had, with a big gang like himself, terrorized Skagway and the trails for months. Murders, robberies, shell games and the rest were practised without cessation up to the Mounted Police line on the summits, where they suddenly ceased because things of that sort would not be tolerated for a moment. At that point the incomers put their "guns" away and went quietly about their business. One finds it difficult to account for this difference unless by the assumption that immigrants into the American Republic had taken advantage of her wide proclamation of the ideal of liberty and had abused the ideal by turning it into licence. In this way nests of law-breakers and anarchists were allowed too much opportunity by local officials, where in a similar case a compact force like our Mounted Police with no local strings on them and with intense sentiment for the honour of the whole force, never permitted a situation to get out of hand in any locality however remote from the centre of government. In a preceding paragraph I mentioned the name of Dr. Grant. He is the Rev. Dr. A. S. Grant, a Presbyterian Missionary who went in over that White Pass trail with a pack on his back. He could stand it better than most men, for he was a broad-shouldered and powerfully built man. Going as a missionary he was a man of peace, but he would not allow anyone to be imposed on in the difficult road. Hence one day when a bully elbowed a grey-haired man roughly into the snow, Grant interposed and receiving only insult, taught that bully a lesson he did not forget. To the credit of the bully be it recorded he took his medicine and shook hands with the man of peace who believed in protecting the weak. Grant had taken a course in medicine which proved of immense value on the trail and during the early days in Dawson. Steele says of him, "Dr. Grant, a clergyman as well as physician, treats hundreds of sick without remuneration. Our force owes him a heavy debt of gratitude for the way he saved our men. More than half of those at the summit and Lake Bennett had pneumonia but were so well treated that we lost none. I have never seen men in such a dangerous state and it seemed impossible that they should recover, but they were pulled through." This same Grant when he got into Dawson started the Good Samaritan Hospital with his own funds and became a large factor for the physical and moral well-being of the place. And his tribute to the Mounted Police is unstinted, for once he wrote me saying, "Canada owes to these men a debt of lasting gratitude. A true history of the West will say much about the self-sacrifice and heroism of this body of men. Many of their noblest deeds will remain unknown but they will be registered in a higher type of civilization expressed in a truer type of citizenship. Many of these deeds will find register only in the writing of the recording angel." The official reports of the officers of that period as of others are full of self-suppression. For instance, that able and unassuming officer Superintendent Z. T. Wood, says in one place, "I received orders to take the money of the Government in customs, licences, fees, etc., to be deposited in the bank at Victoria. I accordingly left Bennett going out by the Chilcoot and Dyea and took $150,000 in gold and bills. I reached Victoria in due course and handed over the money." That is all, but in fact it was a very dangerous journey. He had the stuff in police kitbags, but those were the days of "Soapy Smith's" gang of ruffians. Going from Dyea to Skagway, Wood had to threaten to fire on a boat that was following. Soapy Smith and his toughs were on the wharf at Skagway, but the determined bearing of Wood and his few men, together with the presence of the crew of the C.P.R. boat _Tartar_, got them through. It was a ticklish situation. A word should be added here as to the famous gold escorts. The practice was to turn the gold into ingots and send these to the coast under care of the Mounted Police in small detachments of from two to six men. The amounts thus carried often ran into tens of thousands and the care of these valuable loads of gold could only be given to men of the highest trustworthiness such as these guardians of law and order had always proven themselves to be. Not a mite ever went missing. It is a fine thing to quote this as a testimony that strengthens our faith in humanity. And this splendid incorruptibility was shown by men serving amidst difficult conditions in trails and rivers in all sorts of weather for a mere pittance a day. Inspector A. M. Jarvis speaks about the "continuous roar of the snow-slides" which one would imagine to be rather disturbing music. He relates that when he started to collect customs at Dalton cache the first man to pay was a doctor from St. Thomas, Ontario, who had been living in the Western States for over twenty years. "The doctor came over, saluted the flag by taking off his hat, and said it was the first time he had seen it on British soil in that period." Of a trip taken with Constables Shook and Cameron on snow-shoes Jarvis says, "The snow was soft, and despite the snow-shoes we sank deep at every step. The following afternoon we returned to camp, having been travelling forty-six hours without blankets and only one meal." Inspector Cartwright, who relieved Strickland at the White Pass, gives us a little insight into the problem of keeping warm in rather porous canvas tents by remarking that wood cost as high as $110.00 a cord. It was a case of supply and demand. And so in the manner recorded in this chapter did these pioneer policemen in the Yukon possess the land in gallantry under the Union Jack. Meanwhile back on the prairie, the Mounted Police were alive to every movement and much was done to save people from their own overweening desire to get into the gold country by any route that might show possibility of success. Thousands had gone in by the front door of the coast and then over the passes, but a good many tried to enter by the back door, going by Edmonton and then over the routes that had been trodden years before by great explorers like Alexander Mackenzie and Robert Campbell. Hence Commissioner Herchmer thought it wise to send patrols out over this vast region of the Peace, Athabasca and Mackenzie rivers in order to prevent the loss of any of these more or less inexperienced gold-seekers. The big patrol of that period was made by Inspector J. D. Moodie, who was sent out from Edmonton on September 4, 1897, to discover the best route for those who intended to get to the Yukon by the way of the Peace River and then over the Mountains. Moodie was accompanied by Constable F. J. Fitzgerald, Lafferty, Tobin and a French half-breed guide Pepin. They went part of the way with horses, part with dogs and part with boats. There was endless hardship through difficulty as to supplies and transportation and this long patrol to Fort Yukon took a year and two months. Moodie made a detailed report and his complete diary was published. Some idea of what the patrol involved may be gathered from the following paragraph in the report: "We arrived at Fort Graham on January 18, and were then entirely out of supplies for men and dogs. There was no dog-feed here and very limited supplies in the Hudson's Bay Store. Hearing that fish could be secured from some lakes about 25 miles away I next day sent out some of the men to fish with nets through the ice while others tried their luck after moose. Neither, however, were successful. I sent out in different directions to find Indian camps which were supposed to be somewhere within 50 miles of the post. These, however, could not be located. The dogs were almost starving, the snow was five feet deep in the bush and no guides to be had. I had therefore reluctantly to give up all idea of going farther till spring." In spring a start was again made and Fort Yukon reached as stated in about fourteen months after leaving Edmonton. Moodie's description of the route and the difficulties was not such as to encourage anyone else to try it. In that way the patrol did good service. For the rest of it, the collapse of the gold rush after 1898 made it practically unnecessary. But it demonstrated again the endurance, judgment and reliability of the police in carrying out any duty assigned to them. To show the thoroughness with which the country was covered by the police in order to prevent danger and catastrophe to the rather improvident gold-seekers, a patrol was made by Inspector (later Assistant Commissioner) W. H. Routledge a distance of 1,100 miles or so from Fort Saskatchewan away north to Fort Simpson. This patrol was of value in getting into touch with many groups of "Klondikers," taking in their mail and bringing it out and also in making known at remote points the laws that were specially applicable to their situation. And there was also a patrol under Inspector A. E. Snyder undertaken with a view to seeing whether Inspector Moodie had been successful in getting forward towards the Yukon. This patrol under Snyder went as far as Fort St. John up near the sources of the Peace River and returned to report that Inspector Moodie and his men had gone on to Fort Graham, whence their way would be clear in the spring for the last lap of the long patrol as above related. While the Yukon was being opened up the members of the Force on the plains and in the mountains were steadily doing their duty. They were perhaps less in the limelight for the time being since the attention of a good part of the world was centred on the gold country, but their presence was equally necessary as a terror to evil-doers and an encouragement to those that did well. The construction of the Crows Nest Branch of the Canadian Pacific Railway entailed a very heavy amount of work on the Mounted Police. This came under the oversight of Inspector G. E. Sanders, who in turn was under the nominal direction of Superintendent Deane, then in command at Fort MacLeod. Deane had a busy time, as he had to cover about 400 miles of front with less than 200 men, of whom as many as fifty at a time had to be at certain construction points in British Columbia. Referring especially to the railway part of the work Deane says, "Inspector Sanders' report which I enclose will give a good idea of the amount of duty devolving upon him and his men, and I beg leave to record my opinion that it was well done. The effect of even a single mounted policeman's personality upon a lawless mob requires to be seen to be fully appreciated, and there were countless occasions where the qualities of tact and readiness of resource were required to supplement the prestige which is begotten of discipline alone." "It would be impossible to estimate the thousands of men that have passed hither and thither along the line during its construction. A considerable proportion of them were entirely unsuited to the work. The construction authorities claim that by the operation of the Alien Labour Act they were deprived of the services of the professional railroader, the man who travels with his outfit all over the continent from railway to railway, and who would have made light of the difficulties of which so much has been said. It is undeniable that many men have suffered great hardships, but it is equally true that many of them should never have turned their attention to railway construction. Some have never done a day's work on the railway in their lives, and some have never done it at all." There was a good deal of wage dispute on the line, but Inspector Sanders says, "As to the amount of wages received by the men and their not having any money to send to their families in the east, it was very noticeable to me that the men who complained most drank most." This needs no comment. It is interesting to note here the outside opinion of the "Fort Steele Prospecter" as contained in an editorial in that paper in February, 1898. After giving a general description of the mixed class of men on the road it says, "The crimes along the road, however, are surprisingly small, considering the vicious element which comprises the contingent of camp followers" in the way of whisky sellers, gamblers and disorderly characters. "This happy state of affairs is due to the innate fear of Canadian justice and the scrupulous surveillance of the efficient corps of the North-West Mounted Police into whose hands the enforcement of law is committed. No one can travel over the line without a feeling of admiration for the system which can produce such excellent results, the absolute security of life and property in a region infested by rogues and adventurers from every clime." Sanders agrees that hosts of men had taken up work to which they were wholly unaccustomed. A lot of men were happy when handling an axe, but the pick and shovel had a saddening effect on them. And Sanders is in keeping with the general habit of the Police when he says, "We tried our utmost to have the real grievances of the men settled, and my representations to the general manager of construction always met with prompt attention." So they should, for they would be fair and just. Inspector Howe, who was in charge in 1898 at Regina, had a wire from Boston about a man who had robbed the merchants of that æsthetic city of large sums of money. The man was supposed then on the train heading towards Regina. Howe sent a sergeant to Qu'Appelle, who boarded the suspected train and located his quarry in a Pullman compartment, which was locked. The man within, who was accompanied by a lady, would not open the door. At next station a Mounted Police constable got on board and the two men in scarlet uniform smashed the door. The woman threatened to blow their brains out, but failed. The runaway couple had the money and bonds, and after due process went back to Boston to serve a term. Inspector Howe tells rather a rich story of a Police Inspector in Montana who apologized profusely to Howe for not answering by wire a telegram in which Howe had notified the said Montana Inspector of the whereabouts of a man much desired by the Police in that State. The Montana Inspector writes, "I handed my deputy a telegram and told him to send it off to you at once. He went out to send it but was shot dead, and this morning the coroner handed the telegram to me. It had never been sent, so you will see I am not altogether to blame." Howe considered the excuse valid, but the estimate of the value of human life in Montana it disclosed did not suit the ideas of a Mounted Policeman. CHAPTER XII STIRRING DAYS ABROAD AND AT HOME In the report of Superintendent Cotton for the year of the big Yukon stampede there is related one of the many incidents which indicated that on the plains the Mounted Police were keeping up to their record for initiative and daring, even though their work was less in the limelight than the spectacular world rush to the Yukon furnished. It seems that some months before the date of the report a prisoner named Nelson, sentenced to a term of imprisonment for a serious offence, escaped by jumping from a train on the way to the Manitoba Penitentiary from Regina. Constable Clisby, who was on duty at Saskatoon, was notified by wire from Dundurn station, and at once took up the recapture. The Saskatoon ferry was out of order, so he could not use it. But he was not to be deterred from the pursuit of a criminal by a trifle like that, or he would not have been up to the Mounted Police standard in resource and inventive capacity. So, as the river was impassable in the ordinary way, Clisby commandeered a railway hand-car, and possibly nailed an extra plank or two upon it. Then he got his troop-horse to climb up and stand upon it, while this strong-armed constable took hold of the "pump-handle" and worked his way across the trestle railway bridge many feet above the surging river. One can easily see what a desperate risk this was to take in cold blood. The big bronco had been broken enough for use on the solid earth by an expert. But to venture into the air with a semi-wild horse, which by any movement of fright at the unusual experience might upset the whole outfit into the river, was about as daring an experiment as anyone could try. But the strange transport got safely over, and Clisby, shaking out that bronco into a long gallop, found his man in the home of a settler, engaged in filing off the leg-iron in order to be able to get away more swiftly. Of course the prisoner was gathered in, as was also the settler who had loaned the file and was standing by watching the interesting process. The peculiar thing was that when the settler, who had given the escaping prisoner the file and stood by to see him use it to make his escape more certain, was brought up before two magistrates for helping a prisoner to elude his sentence, these sapient administrators of law dismissed the charge. This miscarriage of justice so disgusted both the constable and his superintendent that in, contemplation of it they seemed to forget the astonishing feat with the hand-car. But we dig it up proudly from the old report. It is in keeping with this desire on the part of the Mounted Police to see justice meted out to the guilty for the protection of society that we find them impatient with legal technicalities which freed the guilty, or the views of any legally constituted body which headed off further investigation into what was possibly serious crime. And this remark is made at this point, because I come across a report in which a Mounted Police Superintendent, while not openly complaining, thinks it worth while to call attention to a Coroner's jury which, after inquest in the case of a man who had been found dead with his neck broken, brings in the unexpected verdict that the man died by the visitation of God. The fact that the Superintendent simply states the matter without note or comment indicates pretty clearly his opinion of the intelligence of that jury. It recalls the case of the famous frontier judge, Sir Mathew Begbie, of British Columbia, who is said to have been much disgusted and amazed when a jury acquitted a prisoner whom the evidence clearly indicated had sand-bagged an innocent citizen. The judge had no option but to discharge the notorious character whom the jury of his peers had exonerated. "You may go," said the indignant judge, "but it seems to me that you would be doing good service to this country if you sand-bagged every man on that jury." [Illustration: SUPT. CONSTANTINE IN WINTER UNIFORM ON THE YUKON.] [Illustration: PIEGAN INDIANS AT SUN-DANCE.] While the gold-rush of which we have been writing was at its height in the Yukon there were rumblings of conflict on the dark continent where Paul Kruger, the grim old President of the Boer Republic, was getting ready to launch a war which he said would "stagger humanity." The trouble had been brewing for some years. Many thousands of British men were in the Transvaal, developing its resources, adding to its wealth and doing everything for its upbuilding but without the privileges of citizenship. And these British men were agitating for representation in addition to the taxation they already enjoyed for the benefit of the Boers. It is doubtful whether Canadians generally took much trouble to investigate these questions of franchise and suzerainty, which have always had two sides up for discussion. Canada was willing to trust the judgment of British statesmen on the subject, and when Britain is at war Canada is not disposed to stand back. Conan Doyle probably sensed the situation when he wrote the stirring lines: "Who's that calling? The old sea-mother calls In her pride at the children that she bore 'Oh, noble hearts and true There is work for us to do, And we'll do it as we've done it oft before Under the flag, Under the flag our fathers bore.'" There had been a swift sting, too, in a certain telegram sent by the Kaiser of Germany congratulating Kruger on the failure of the raid under Doctor Jamieson, for "Doctor Jim" was a popular idol. And the rather crude but strong lines of a music-hall song had percolated to the outposts of Empire: "Hands off, Germany; hands off, all. Kruger boasts and Kaiser brags. Britons, hear the call. It's back to back around the world And answer with a will; It's England for her own, my boys, And Rule Britannia still." So the "sons of the Blood" began to foregather from the ends of the earth. And when cavalry units were desired from Canada the Mounted Police got a certain degree of opportunity. We put it in that way because for reasons known to the Dominion Government there was always necessity for keeping the larger part of the corps in Canada. They could not be allowed to enlist in a body for any war, and men who had special grasp of the problems at home could not be spared to go abroad. Nothing can be gained for the Empire through losing ground at home in efforts to gain it abroad. And this applied to both the Boer War and the recent Great War, in so far as the Mounted Police were concerned. At the Boer War period, we had the Yukon rush, which meant an extraordinary mob of desperate characters to deal with, in addition to the problems ensuing from large immigration into the Middle West. And at the period of the Great War, there was a singularly elusive but definitely pronounced tendency to destructive revolution in various parts of Canada, which only a corps with the great prestige of the Mounted Police could successfully meet with firmness and tact. The undisciplined violence which raw forces might use in such a restless, mutinous period, would work positive harm to the whole Dominion. Hence we could not on either occasion let the whole Force go abroad. But on both occasions some opportunity was given to a certain number of officers and men, the main difficulty being, as the Commissioner said, "not who would go, but who _must_ stay at home." However, in the Boer War the Mounted Police furnished, most being on the active roll, but some ex-members, nearly 300 officers and men to the Canadian Mounted Rifles, Strathcona's Horse, South African Constabulary, and other corps. Their identity was lost by merging them with various units, but, nevertheless, they did conspicuous and distinctive service. It is no reflection on those with whom they were merged to say that the special qualities which came from years of discipline and esprit de corps, as well as the decided initiative which their training on the frontier always developed, gave the Police a place of peculiar influence and prominence on the veld. And this was true of ex-members of the Force who served in various corps. There was "Charlie" Ross, for instance, whom I recall meeting at Battleford in Riel's day as the Mounted Police scout who seemed to bear a charmed life, and who did much to save the situation in the fight with Poundmaker at Cutknife Hill. Ross went to South Africa as a sort of free lance, but he joined up with a scout body, and so distinguished himself that he was permitted to form a corps of his own which, as Ross's Scouts, did some dashing service. All the Western Canadians gave a good account of themselves. They were not strong on the fine points of military etiquette, and sometimes offended by failing to recognize and salute officers in strange uniforms. They were rather restive in barracks, and did not take kindly to the life in Cape Town, but they were at home when in the saddle on really active duty, and got their full share of it before the war was over. Their presence on the veld and their effective work won high praise from such high-class officers as Sir Redvers Buller, Lord Dundonald, Lord Kitchener and, later on, in London, "the first gentleman of Europe," King Edward himself. A thoroughly characteristic story is told by several writers about a C.M.R. man who had been a cowboy and "bronco-buster" in Alberta. An Imperial Regiment, under General Hutton, was bewailing the fact that they had a magnificent black Australian horse, a regular outlaw so vicious and powerful that none of their men could handle, much less ride him, and they were quite sure that no one else could, so that the animal might as well be shot. One of the C.M.R. officers who was present said some men in his troop could ride, and he would ask them about it. He went over and several of them volunteered, but they settled amongst themselves that Billy should tackle the situation. Next morning was the time fixed, and Billy, in cowboy costume, carrying his own trusty saddle and a quirt, sauntered over to the spot careless-like, and not knowing the insignia of rank very well, walked up to an Imperial officer in gold lace, and prodding him jocularly with the quirt, said, "Where is the black son of a gun that you say can't be rid?" The officer looked amazed at being so accosted, but, like a good sport, laughed and ordered the horse to be turned loose. Billy's friends promptly lassoed the "waler," hogtied and saddled him in a hurry. Billy was in the saddle when the snorting animal was on his feet. The horse put up a game fight, bucking, kicking, biting, "swapping ends," and doing everything else that a thinking bronco can indulge in to get rid of his rider. But Billy enjoyed it. He banged the horse over the head with his big hat, smote him with the quirt, and used the spurs, till the mad animal raced in fury a mile or two, only to come back with froth down to the hooves. But Billy had him under thorough control, quiet enough to eat out of his hand. And when Billy pulled off the saddle he remarked casually to the astonished officers who had expected an inquest over him, "Out in my country that hoss would cut no figure, for out there we can ride anything with legs under it, even if it is a consarned centipede." The Canadian Mounted Rifles 1st, 2nd and 5th, had some 220 officers and men of the Mounted Police, while Strathcona's Horse had only some forty or so, though the rest were men accustomed to the kind of irregular warfare they found on the veld. The fact that Strathcona's Horse was raised, equipped and wholly paid for out of the private purse of Lord Strathcona, the only case in the Empire during the war, gave that corps a unique place in the public eye. Lord Strathcona, who was a member of the House of Lords and High Commissioner for Canada, placed it in command of Superintendent Sam B. Steele, a widely known officer, entertained the corps lavishly both before and after the war, fitted it out as no other regiment was equipped, brought the officers and men into contact with Royalty, kept it more or less in touch with the Associated Press--and all of this tended to put this regiment more in the limelight than others from Canada. This, of course, did not make their task any easier, but rather the contrary, since any failure on their part would have been quickly known. As a matter of history they did their part in such a way as to bring the utmost credit to all concerned. The corps was officered by highly capable men. The Mounted Police officers, serving in Strathcona's Horse were: Superintendent S. B. Steele (in command), Inspectors R. Belcher, A. E. Snyder, A. M. Jarvis, D. M. Howard, F. L. Cartwright and F. Harper: included also were, Ex-Inspector M. H. White-Fraser, Sergt.-Major W. Parker and Staff-Sergt. H. D. B. Ketchen. The two last named were granted commissions in the Army and Colonial Forces. The commissions of the other officers of this corps were all in the Imperial service. Strathcona's Horse took part in many major engagements, did much scout and patrol work, and one of the Mounted Police serving in it, Sergeant A. H. L. Richardson, on July 5, 1900, won the highest of all the decorations for valour, the Victoria Cross. At a hot engagement in the village of Wolvespruit the odds were so heavy against our men that they were given the order to retire. One of our dismounted men, wounded in two places, lay on the field, and Sergeant Richardson, seeing his plight, rode back and brought him in, although exposed to a warm cross-fire at close range, and despite the fact that Richardson's horse was so badly wounded that he could only go at a slow pace. It was a very gallant action. When at the close of the main part of the war the South African Constabulary was formed, Steele, of the Strathcona's, was appointed its Colonel, and much "mopping up" was done in the pursuit of irregular Boer bands. Inspector Scarth, Constables C. P. Ermatinger, and J. G. French were given commissions. For their service with the 2nd and 5th C.M.R., Inspectors John Taylor, Demers, Sergt.-Major J. Richards, Sergt.-Major F. Church, Sergeant Hillian, Sergeant H. R. Skirving, Constables A. N. Bredin and J. A. Ballantyne were also granted commissions. I have mentioned certain circumstances which set Strathcona's Horse more in the public eye than the Canadian Mounted Rifles, in which the majority of the North-West Mounted Police served, but the latter took a part in the war which involved much hard fighting, and did much to enhance the prestige of Canadian soldiers, whose service abroad up to that time had not been in military units. The North-West Mounted Police officers who joined the various units of the C.M.R. and received commissions in the Militia were: (2nd C.M.R.) Lieut.-Colonel L. W. Herchmer (the then Commissioner of the Police, who commanded the battalion), Superintendent J. Howe, Inspector A. G. Macdonnell (afterwards in command of 5th C.M.R.), Inspector J. D. Moodie, Inspector J. V. Begin, Inspector T. A. Wroughton, Superintendent G. E. Sanders, Inspector A. E. R. Cuthbert, Inspector H. J. A. Davidson, Inspector F. L. Cosby (Adjutant), Inspector M. Baker (Quartermaster), Inspector J. B. Allan, and Veterinary Officer Lieut. R. Riddell. These officers and the men they commanded were intent upon their duties, and such able soldiers as General Hutton, General Lord Methuen, and others, gave them unstinted praise for their work in the Orange Free State and their advance guard work on the march to Pretoria, under Lord Roberts, who was greatly impressed by their ability in scouting and patrol work. It fell to the lot of that able and popular officer, Superintendent (Major) G. E. Sanders, to show on two special occasions, with small detachments against large odds, the mettle of the North-West Mounted Police. Near Middleburg, when Sanders with 125 men was guarding the railway, he was attacked by a considerable force of the enemy with artillery. A hurry call for reinforcements was issued, but before they came the Canadians had beaten the Boers back, Major Sanders and Lieutenant Moodie, as well as some of their men, being wounded in the determined resistant fight. Two months later, Sanders, with a handful of sixty men, formed the advance guard for General Smith-Dorien's column, but his guide missed the way and all of a sudden Sanders and his men, completely out of touch with the General's column, came in contact with a larger force of the enemy. The rifle fire of the enemy was very heavy, but the handful of Canadians held on till orders came from the General to retire. While they were retiring Corporal Schell's horse was killed, and the corporal was hurt by the horse falling on him. Sergeant Tryon most gallantly gave his own horse to Schell and himself continued on foot. And then Major Sanders, taking in the situation at a glance, galloped to the assistance of Tryon, whom he endeavoured to take before him on the saddle. It was a splendid effort, but, as Sanders endeavoured to lift Tyron, the saddle cinch slipped, the saddle turned to the side of the horse, and both men fell heavily to the ground. Sanders was stunned somewhat by the fall, but pulling himself together ordered the Sergeant to make for cover and he would follow. But a Boer sharpshooter dropped Sanders wounded in his tracks. Then another fine thing took place. Lieutenant Chalmers, a former Mounted Policeman also, who had led one wing of the advance guard, wheeled his horse and spurred to the help of Sanders, but he was unable to move him alone, and started for the firing line. The Boer sharpshooter was still abroad and, turning his attention to Chalmers, shot that brave officer, who fell mortally wounded from his horse. Major Sanders and Tryon were both rescued by a rush of reinforcements, and the Major is still doing effective service for the country as Magistrate in Calgary. It would seem to an onlooker that the decoration "for valour" should have been awarded to Sanders for his gallant and dangerous endeavour to rescue Tryon, and in a posthumous way to Chalmers, who sacrificed his life in the effort he made to save his superior officer. One recalls in this connection the similar action of former Inspector Jack French, whom I recall well as a stranger to fear, who at Batoche rushed in on foot and carried the wounded body of Constable Cook in his powerful arms from the fire zone to a place of safety. Many of the sacrificial deeds of men are unheralded. Officially, the officers and men of the North-West Mounted Police who served in the Boer War, were noted as on leave from their own corps, and therefore their services to the Empire are not recorded in the Police reports. But Commissioner Perry, in this particular case, gives in his annual report an extract from Militia orders, in which Lord Roberts wires the War Office: "Smith-Dorien stated Major Sanders, Captain Chalmers, behaved with great gallantry rear-guard action, November 2." To this the Commissioner adds: "I greatly lament the untimely but glorious death of the gallant Chalmers, with whom I had not only served as an officer in this corps, but also as a cadet in the Royal Military College." And then the Commissioner expresses this well-grounded opinion: "I regret much that the identity of the Force was lost in South Africa. The North-West Mounted Police are well known beyond the bounds of Canada. And I would like that it had been known to the world as one of the corps which had taken part in the South African War. With but few exceptions all ranks were willing to go, and it was not a question of who would go, but who must stay at home." This is well and wisely expressed. If ever there should be another war, which we hope not, unless absolutely unavoidable, Canada should strive to have her units kept intact. Destruction of identity leads to destruction of great traditions to which men should be true, and to the loss of the esprit de corps and _noblesse oblige_ elements, which go so far to creating unconquerable regiments. At the end of the war, in addition to the Victoria Cross won by Sergeant Richardson, as already related, the following honours, gained by members of the North-West Mounted Police while on service in South Africa, were announced in general orders: _To be Companion of the Bath and Member of the Victoria Order, 4th Class:_ Superintendent S. B. Steele, Lieut.-Colonel commanding Lord Strathcona's Horse. _To be Companions of the Order of St. Michael and St. George:_ Inspector R. Belcher, Major 2nd in command, Canadian Mounted Rifles. Inspector A. C. Macdonnell, Captain Canadian Mounted Rifles. Inspector F. L. Cartwright, Captain Lord Strathcona's Horse. _Awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal:_ Sergeant J. Hynes, Sergt.-Major Lord Strathcona's Horse. Sergt.-Major Richards, Sqd. Sergt.-Major Lord Strathcona's Horse. Constable A. S. Waite, Private Canadian Mounted Rifles. The conclusion of the Boer War, with the additional service in the South African Constabulary, marked the transference of Colonel Sam B. Steele from the North-West Mounted Police to the Militia service of Canada, as he was appointed to the command of Military District No. 13, with headquarters at Calgary, though later he took over Military District No. 10, with headquarters at Winnipeg. He was one of the "originals" of the Police, joining up in 1873, and became one of the distinctive and picturesque figures in the famous Frontier Force. Capable of an enormous amount of work in a given time, he had never spared himself in efforts for the country and for the Force. He had large gifts as an administrator, as well as a fighter and enforcer of law, and these he placed unstintedly at the disposal of his generation. When he left the Police Force and accepted service in the Canadian Militia, he did much to recognize existing work and establish new units. When the Great War broke out he offered his services at once, and while waiting for overseas service he was intent on recruiting all over Canada. He went over in command of the Second Contingent from Canada, but the tremendous strain of his forty years of service began to tell on his once powerful physique, and to his deep disappointment he was prevented from leading his men in the field. In recognition of his services to the Empire he received Knighthood and a Major-Generalship, which represented a long and strenuous road travelled up from the ranks. He died in England while the war was still raging, and a funeral service in London was attended by a great number of people prominent in the world of affairs. But his body was brought back to Canada, the land he loved so well, and was buried with full military honours in Winnipeg, the city to which he had come long years before as a soldier under Wolseley. It is not generally known that, though he had not been in the Force for nearly twenty years, one of his last acts was the writing of an earnestly worded and, under the circumstances, a pathetic letter, to Sir Robert Borden, Premier of Canada, then in London, pleading for the full recognition of the military standing of the Mounted Police in Canada. In that letter he recounts out of his own recollection the history of the corps in which he had served from the outset for some thirty years. He recalls the work they had done as a military force on what was really active service all through the years, points out the high military qualifications of the men who were officers in the corps, as well as the uniformly high type of men in all ranks, to the large contributions the Mounted Police had made to the Empire in wars abroad, and spoke of the heavy responsibility resting upon the Force in the Dominion. He said: "I question whether the present command of Canadians overseas in England is equal to the great responsibility held by the Commissioner of the Mounted Police and his Assistant in Canada." The letter asks the Premier to do certain things for the officers and men, the effect of which would be to give them equal rights with members of the permanent Militia Force in respect of titles, decorations and general standing. And the result of the requests, if granted, would be to place the Mounted Police in the same position as the Militia in regard to medals, pensions and land grants, a matter of great interest and importance to the members of the Force. There is something very fine in this personal endeavour of "Sam" Steele, who, with many anxieties and responsibilities of his own at the time, made a serious appeal to obtain what he considered the rights of the comrades with whom he had shared hardships and dangers all over the vast North-West of Canada. A copy of this letter of Steele's, which was occasioned by changes then taking place in the Police organization, came into my possession from a private source, but it is not a confidential document, and is published here in recognition of the enduring loyalty of this sturdy old soldier to his companions, the veteran riders of the plains. They richly deserve the recognition for which he pleaded. And we cannot turn over the page of the Boer War and leave it in history without recalling that a few pages above reference was made to the fact that Canada had gone into the war more because she had faith in the judgment of the statesmen of Britain, whose life-long training and world-vision inspire confidence in their decisions, than because she had studied out the situation at first hand. British statesmen have made mistakes here and there, but since the tragic day when through ignorance of the situation they failed to recognize the rights of British colonists on the American continent to have a voice in the government of the country, they have not erred by refusing their Dominions overseas the privilege of governing themselves where they have proved their capacity for so doing. But there was a bold and world-startling faith manifested when they granted self-government to the Boers within a short time after the war ended. True, these same statesmen had led up to it by the ministry of reconciliation exercised by the high-souled Kitchener with a Canadian Mounted Policeman, Colonel Steele, a noted administrator, as Chief of the South African Constabulary. And these and others who worked with them to remove bitterness and misunderstanding from the minds of the conquered Boers had supporting evidence of good-will on the part of the conquerors in the fact that our soldiers had acted chivalrously in the enemy's country during the years of war, so that no woman or child in all that region was ever knowingly hurt or molested. All this with the gift of responsibility transformed our gallant enemies into loyal friends who stood by us splendidly in the recent war, and who contributed to the councils of the Empire in a critical hour the magnificent ability and statesmanship of Botha, Smuts and others. Meanwhile, in the homeland here in Canada, the steadfast, unflinching and imperturbable Mounted Police were doing their duty just as pronouncedly as their comrades on the veld. They had practically all wanted to go if required, but the Government had interposed and, as we have already quoted, it was not a question of who should go, but who _must_ stay at home. And they were greatly needed here, for nothing is gained by consolidating the Empire abroad if we allow it to disintegrate right under our eyes and around our own threshold. The Pax Britannica--the orderliness of British rule--had to be preserved in the vast spaces of the North and West of Canada. Thousands of potentially lawless men were surging through our mining country in the Yukon, challenging Canadian administration with the dictum that huge frontier mining camps had necessarily to be outlaw regions where every man did that which was right in his own eyes. And it became the duty of the Mounted Police to back the administration of law, to answer the challenge of lawless men, and to prove to them and to the world that the dictum above quoted was a lie in so far as Canada was concerned. And these intrepid men in the scarlet tunic did their duty so well that the world learned a new lesson by seeing policemen preserving order without killing anyone where it could be avoided, even at the cost of their own lives. The Mounted Police know how to use their "guns," but they never in all their history degenerated into "gun-men." And, in addition to policing the Yukon mining country, these few hundred men had to guard human life and property in the immense stretches of the Middle West where, into a country larger than several European kingdoms, tens of thousands were pouring in a tidal wave of immigration. From the ends of the earth these immigrants were coming, hosts of them, alien in race and tongue, as well as in religion and morals--people who had lax ideas as to the sacredness of human life and the sanctity of home. They, too, must be taught to keep the peace, and to become loyal to the institutions of the free land where they had sought asylum from despotism and oppression. And nothing but consummate tact, endless patience along with unvarying coolness and courage, enabled the men of the old corps successfully to meet this unprecedented situation. Besides, all that great north country had to be patrolled hither and thither into the circle under the shadow of the Pole itself. Wherever the flag flew, Indians and Esquimaux, as wards of the nation, had to be protected against the dangers of famine, the inroads of sickness, as well as from the exploitation of unscrupulous men. And they, too, had to be taught the sacredness of human life, as well as the rights of private ownership, in order that no loose ideas about property should prevail in the land. Few things, if any, in the history of the Empire equal the hardiness, the courage and endurance manifested in the great patrols of the Police into the ice-bound regions of the Arctic and sub-Arctic areas of Canada. For years the explorers who have searched for the Poles have been the heroes of many a story of thrilling influence on the minds of readers. One would not detract an iota from the achievements of these gallant adventurers. But for the most part they were equipped and outfitted abundantly with everything that money could buy in order that all requirements and emergencies could be met as they arose, and their expeditions were few throughout the years. The Mounted Police, on the other hand, were incessantly at this work, not in parties and highly equipped, but in twos and threes and sometimes singly, with nothing beyond their winter and summer uniforms and dependent largely on their own efforts for food, as they were not possessed of the means of carrying any large quantity. Many of these men probably said, as Inspector F. H. French recorded in his diary during the famous Bathurst Inlet patrol, of which we shall read later: "Have had no solid food for two days, and every one is getting weak; dogs are dropping in their harness from weakness. This looks like our last patrol." Only a brave man could write down words like that, and it detracts nothing from the splendid courage of him and his men that the words were not long written when providentially some deer were sent across their path and saved these men for future work. These men who went out on patrol only gave the barest outline of their experience in the reports which they had to make to their superior officers, and through them to Ottawa, but those who know the country could read between the lines and feel the thrill of admiration and wonder. And these same officers, when not on the particular patrol they were commenting upon, paid unstinted praise to their men in their own reports, but even these reports were buried in the mass of material in the Department, so that the public did not see them. But once in a while we get hold of some comment, as when Superintendent Perry referred to one patrol and said "nothing greater had been done in the annals of Arctic exploration." Or when Inspector Sanders referred to the leader of another patrol and said his action "was in keeping with his brave and manly character." And I like the way in which Superintendent A. E. C. Macdonnell, with some manifest diffidence, introduced into a report from Athabasca Landing the following quotation from the _Toronto Star_: "The world takes a lively interest in Polar expeditions, but Canada supports a Northern Police patrol of which very little is heard, and the journeyings of some of these men is quite as daring as anything connected with searches for the North or South Pole. They contend with the same conditions, are inexpensively equipped, and, as a rule, succeed in all that they undertake. A sheet or two of foolscap, giving to the Department at Ottawa an official report of their travels and observations, is the only record that survives. And very few ever read these records, although they sometimes thrill those who do read them." One other important duty fell to the lot of these Policemen in the home country, and reference has been made to it in the earlier pages, namely, the self-imposed duty of becoming builders of the country by making known the resources of all its various parts. And when they made known the resources of the country they, without any gain therefrom themselves, protected those who came in to develop them. Sometimes they had to protect these people against themselves. In the Yukon gold rush the Police threw a cordon around the entrances to the mining country and prevented foolhardy, unfit and unequipped men and women, crazed with the gold lust, from venturing a journey which would have meant their falling frozen by the wayside or being lost in the angry rapids, which even the inexperienced were ready in their ignorance to essay. These gold-seekers were allowed to go in when they were prepared or when they were under the care of men of experience. Similarly, at the time of this writing, the Police in the Athabasca, Peace and Mackenzie areas are guarding the ways to the reported oil fields of the North, so that the unfit in their wild desire for reaching oilfields may not perish in the midwinter, whose rigours they do not understand. Yes, the Mounted Police, few and scattered in detachments, from the Great Lakes to the Yukon, and from the boundary line to the Pole, had enormous responsibilities at home, while many of their fellow-citizens were abroad in the Boer War. And the man who was Commissioner of the Police during that period had a burden to carry which only those who knew the situation can estimate. That man was Superintendent A. Bowen Perry, who succeeded Colonel Lawrence Herchmer in August, 1900, but who, from the time of the big gold stampede into the Yukon, had largely the direction of things there, and had taken over the command personally at Dawson City when Steele left there in the fall of 1899. Colonel Herchmer, who had been Commissioner from 1886, was an able and conscientious officer. He had gone over to the Boer War in command of the 2nd Canadian Mounted Rifles, but had to come back on sick leave, when he retired also from the Commissionership. From the date of Herchmer's appointment to the Canadian Mounted Rifles to Perry's accession to the Commissionership of the Police, the command of the latter body had been ably held and administered by Assistant Commissioner McIlree. Colonel McIlree, who retired from the Force a few years ago, and whose services won the recognition of the Imperial Service Order, was one of the original men of the corps, having joined at the outset in 1873. He had, therefore, a long record of highly important and creditable service when he retired in 1911, after thirty-seven years on the frontier. [Illustration: REV. R.G. MACBETH, M.A.] [Illustration: GROUP, N.W.M.P., TAGISH POST. YUKON.] When Perry returned from the Yukon (where he was succeeded by that fine officer, Superintendent, later Assistant Commissioner, Z. T. Wood) and assumed the Commissionership he faced an exceedingly difficult situation. The Force was seriously depleted both in men and horses by the inroads made upon it by the war. And at the same time the work, as above outlined, was growing by leaps and bounds. True, recruits were being obtained and new horses were being purchased, but every one knows that it takes time and training to get a depleted force up to proper strength again. But the new Commissioner had a genius for organizing and handling men, and, as he had been away in the Yukon for a period, one of the first things he now did was to visit the prairie detachments, study the whole and map out a policy for the future. Conditions in the country with rapidly changing development as well as in the Force, owing to demands upon it, required a sort of re-creating of the famous corps, as well as a new disposition of it to meet the new times. And Commissioner Perry, with a great faculty for swift, decisive action, and a gift for attracting the cooperative efforts of his officers and men, was the type to undertake the task and succeed. Now, for a score of years he has directed the movements of the Force, meeting the extraordinary and unexpected situations which arise in a country that is a sort of melting-pot of the nations. A polyglot population, a babel not only of tongues but of ideals, the rise of new social conditions, the presence of agitators and mischief-makers who are experts in setting men against each other in opposing classes, the coming of destructive agents whose theories have made some old world countries into ramshackle wrecks, the persistence of the elements of lawlessness with outbreaks here and there--all these and much more have marked the unprecedented history of these years in this last new country in the world. And Canada, perhaps, will never fully realize the debt she owes to this quiet, gentlemanly, resolute man, who is a student as well as a soldier, and whose strong hand has been in constant evidence in controlling, guiding and guarding the interests of a country larger than half a dozen European kingdoms. When Perry took charge, the Force, outside those at the war, numbered some 750 men. These were distributed so as to give about 500 to the oversight of the vast Middle West and the balance to the Yukon. The men in the Middle West prairie section were scattered in over seventy detachments all the way from Southern Manitoba to Fort Chipewyan in the far North, a distance of over 2,000 miles, while in the Yukon the distance between the most southerly outposts and the farthest North was over 500 miles. Anyone who knows the country can realize the task of men who had to look after such an enormous area, when their number meant that one or two men would sometimes have to exercise control over districts many miles in extent. These men had to be constantly in the saddle or on the trail with dog-train. Verily Captain Butler's early suggestion as to organization of the Police, that the men sent out should be a "mobile force," was being amply vindicated as a good one to meet the necessities of a new land. And that the new Commissioner was looking ahead is evidenced by such clauses in his first report as "The great countries of the Peace, Mackenzie and Athabasca Rivers are constantly requiring more men. I am sending an officer to Fort Saskatchewan to take command of that portion of the territory." Later he says: "The operation of foreign whalers at the mouth of the Mackenzie will ere long require a detachment to control their improper dealings with the natives and control the revenue." And in due course they were there. In that first report Perry indicates that "the Force should be entirely re-armed." A lot of the men had obsolete arms, and the Commissioner insists that "if the corps is to be armed it ought to be well armed." He suggests a change from the heavy stock saddle and accoutrements thereof, claiming that with some 46 lbs. on his back before the rider mounted, the horse had a right to ask: "Why this heavy burden?" And he speaks of necessary changes in harness, transports and uniforms. He discusses the question of the kind of horses required, even to the colour, and indicates ranges of country where horses can be bred that are "strong in the hindquarters." Quite evidently the new Commissioner had his eye on everything, and intended to have the corps equipped up to the limit of efficiency and comfort. He was going to speak out in the interests of his men and horses, too. For a mounted corps must have regard to both if the maximum of usefulness is to be attained. The reports of officers in the Middle West for that year, Superintendents Deane of MacLeod, Griesbach of Fort Saskatchewan, Moffatt of Maple Creek, Inspector Wilson of Calgary, Strickland of Prince Albert, and Demers of Battleford, all indicate a good deal of cattle-stealing, the most of which, of course, was near the American boundary line, where outlaws from both sides dodged backwards and forwards in efforts to escape the authorities on either side, who co-operated and generally got these robbers in hold, But Deane felt that the ranchers themselves should exercise a little more intelligent interest, instead of leaving everything to the Police, who were few in numbers, and none of whom could be in more than one place at a time. Referring to the case of a man who had bought some cattle and had left them unbranded and unwatched in the pasture whence they disappeared in the night, Deane says, "Daly became very indignant, and has talked freely about bringing an action against the Mounted Police, but whether for allowing him to lose his beasts or for failing to find them I know not." However, Mr. Daly evidently concluded that he had no case against the Police, for he is not heard from again. Up in the Yukon that year, as already mentioned, Superintendent Z. T. Wood was in command of the territory, with Inspector Courtlandt Starnes in charge at Dawson, and Superintendent P. C. H. Primrose at White Horse, and Assistant Surgeon Fraser on Dalton Trail. Besides these officers there were Inspectors J. A. McGibbon, W. H. Routledge, W. H. Scarth, A. E. C. McDonnell, as well as Assistant Surgeons Pare, Madore and Hurdman. It was a time of general and reasonably stable prosperity, as evidenced by the fact that the men in Starnes' Division collected well up to a million dollars in royalties in the mining areas, the banner section being Grand Forks, including Eldorado, Bonanza and tributaries where Staff-Sergeant (later Inspector) Raven gathered nearly $520,000. The Government was spending freely for the oversight of the Yukon, but was getting back big dividends. It is interesting to note in Starnes' report this significant clause: "To the early resident of Dawson the present sanitary condition of the town must be a source of congratulation and a matter of satisfaction." For thereby hangs a tale redolent with a record of hard work. In the spring of 1899 a Board of Health had been formed, under the general oversight of the Mounted Police, for Superintendent Steele (later succeeded by Superintendent Perry) was chairman, Corporal Wilson (though not on the Board) Sanitary Inspector, H. Grotchie and Dr. J. W. Good succeeding Dr. Thompson, who was the first medical officer, but had gone on leave. The year 1898 had been fever-scourged and haunted by a plague of scurvy, due largely to the lack of vegetables and fruit it was said. Dr. Good determined that this condition, resulting from the rush of thousands of people to camp on a frozen swamp, would not recur, and when Dr. Good made his mind up and contracted those heavy black brows of his something had to be done or he would know the reason why. Dr. Good was a noted specialist in Winnipeg from the early days--a man of powerful physique, wide general education, and a grim kind of manner, which was redeemed from dourness by the constant bubbling up of the irrepressible humour which made him a most entertaining companion. He went into Dawson over the passes in the big trek principally from sheer love of the adventure, as most would say (and he had the adventurous spirit), but largely, I imagine, to be of service in what, to his practised understanding, might become a death camp. He had no need of seeking wealth, as his practice had always brought large revenue from the well-to-do, though a lot of poor people got no bills for his services. Dr. Good was and is (for he is still happily with us) a distinct type, and I say this out of personal acquaintance through many years. His battle for the health of the people of Dawson and districts was great and successful. He gives a semi-humorous report of it in a formal report to the Mounted Police Department. From it we make an extract: The Doctor says, "The duties of the Medical Health Officer were somewhat varied. I will give you a summary of them. Firstly, to inspect hospitals from time to time; secondly, to see indigents at his office or their homes, if necessary, and to examine them and see if they could be admitted to hospital. Thirdly, to inspect the water supply. Fourthly, to inspect the food and aid in the prosecution of those selling food unfit for use. Fifthly, to visit all vessels arriving, and when fish, cattle or food were on board, inspect everything before it can be landed. Sixthly, to inspect all cattle, sheep and hogs before they could be slaughtered to see if they were healthy, from which it must be inferred that the Medical Health Officer had studied veterinary medicine as well. I regret to say this was not the case." (This was the Doctor's modesty, but Steele says the knowledge of veterinary science he displayed was remarkable.) And then the Doctor adds in his humorous way: "Now, from the above, it must be plain that the Medical Health Officer led an exceedingly active and useful life." And we agree with him. And the Doctor goes on to give us a vivid picture of conditions in Dawson City when he took hold: "We found practically one vast swamp, which is usually navigable in the early spring, still in almost a primitive condition, or even worse, cesspools and filth of all kinds occupying irregular positions, typhoid fever and scurvy rife in the land. We immediately went to work to put the house in order, getting out all the garbage and refuse on the ice in the early spring, so that it might be carried down the river at the break up. We then specified places at which garbage, etc., should be dumped. We had the streets cleaned, by prison and other labour, had offensive material removed and rubbish burnt, while the Governor, with great vigour, inaugurated a system of drainage, so that in a short time the change excited the wonder and admiration of the people." The doctor is evidently fond of Scriptural phrases, for above he has spoken about "putting the house in order," and now he adds: "We had, of course, some difficulties to contend with, the fact that people to a large extent were 'strangers and pilgrims,' and unaccustomed to any restrictions unless those of a primitive order." But the Doctor, with the aid of the Mounted Police officers already named, as well as Corporals Wilson, McPhail and the men generally, triumphed and made the place healthy. Perhaps there is nothing more remarkable in the record of the Police than the way in which, wherever they were stationed, they always fought epidemics and disease amongst Indians or whites or Esquimaux to the utter disregard of their own safety, though it was not necessarily part of their ordinary duty. How close an oversight was kept by the Mounted Police as to the movements of people in that wild country is evidenced by the fact that men could not "disappear" between the Police posts or elsewhere without their case giving rise to swift inquiry. If they left one point for another and did not arrive in a reasonable time the fact was in the knowledge of the Police, and they immediately started to trace the missing parties to see whether they had gone lost through missing the trail or had vanished off the earth by the hands of murderous characters. All this comes out in the famous case of one O'Brien who was tried and executed at Dawson for one of the most cold-blooded crimes imaginable. As I was writing, at this point a letter came from Mr. H. P. Hansen, of Winnipeg, who said he had stayed at Fossal's road-house in the Upper Yukon about two weeks before O'Brien committed his triple murder. He and O'Brien were the only guests and had started out on the trail together. Hansen says, "No doubt this man had murder in his heart at the time," but as he had no knowledge of the fact that Hansen carried money carefully concealed, O'Brien, probably with some disgust, did nothing. That O'Brien "had murder in his heart" is more than likely, because when his trial came off a "Bowery tough" who had been in prison with him in Dawson for some other offence testified that O'Brien had proposed that they should, when freed, go along the river and find a lonely spot. Here they should camp, shoot men who were coming out from Dawson with money, put their bodies under the ice, and thus cover their tracks. This was too much of a programme for even the "Bowery tough," but it shows O'Brien's disposition. O'Brien, however, seems to have decided to haunt that trail till he could make a killing, and so he seems to have doubled back after leaving Hansen and landed at Fossal's road-house again, whence he started out with three men on Christmas Day of 1899. The three men were Olsen, a Swede, who was a telegraph line repairer, and two men from Dawson, F. Clayson, of Seattle, and L. Relphe, who had been a "caller-off" in a Dawson dance-hall. Clayson was known to have a large sum of money on him, and he became the particular object of O'Brien's attention, but because "dead men tell no tales" the others had to share in the disaster, and O'Brien, at an opportune time in a camping-place, as afterwards transpired, shot all three men first through the body and then through the head to make sure. There was no human witness to the event. But when these men did not turn up at the next point on the trail, and O'Brien did, the Police began rapid investigation. If there were no eye-witnesses in the case a web of circumstantial evidence would have to be woven around the figure of the fourth man of the party if the facts that would emerge justified it. This was done with consummate skill but with absolute fairness by the Mounted Police, Inspector Scarth, officer commanding at Fort Selkirk, being the directing hand, Corporal Ryan doing some important parts and Constable Pennycuick being the "Sherlock Holmes" genius whose keen detective instincts and arduous persistent work won high praise from the judge at the trial, being those mainly instrumental in bringing this cold-blooded and cruel murderer to justice. The Police have always had a free hand as to expense in the enforcement of law, and the O'Brien case ran up a bill of over $100,000. But the reputation built up throughout the years by these guardians of public safety, that they would get a criminal if they had to follow him to the ends of the earth, saved the Dominions uncounted expenditure in other ways, and established Canada in the opinion of the world as a country where desirable citizens could come, build homes, rear their families and pursue their avocations freer from molestation than in any other similarly situated place on the face of earth. And that was an enormous gain for a new land which needed immigrants to populate its vast territory and develop its immense latent resources. Somewhat briefly, the way the Police got O'Brien was in this fashion. The Police, as above mentioned, kept close "tab" on travellers by trail or river for the sake of their safety, and a few days after Olsen, Relphe, Clayson and O'Brien left Fossal's road-house at Minto, Sergeant Barker, who was in charge at Five Fingers, and who had been notified of their departure, wired to White Horse that the party had not been heard of since. And the wires were kept hot in all directions, while patrols also were sent out to locate the men who had not turned up at the usual points. At that time murder was not necessarily a theory connected with their disappearance. Nearly ten days after Christmas the alert Police at Tagish post saw a man with horse and sleigh making a detour of the trail on passing their quarters. This aroused their suspicion, and they gathered in the man and his outfit, after pulling them out of a hole in the ice to which the detour had brought them. The man said his name was O'Brien, but he was sullen and would say no more. They took no chances, but brought him before the commanding officer, who sentenced him to "six months" for vagrancy. Several big bank notes were found on his person, also packed in crevices on the sleigh, and also a strange nugget of gold, shaped like a human hand holding a smaller nugget. It was found out that O'Brien had displayed this nugget as a curiosity at a road-house a few nights before, and later on it was found that Relphe, one of the men who had vanished, had a penchant for curios, and amongst them had this nugget and a specially odd coin. Things were beginning to look interesting and, as Inspector Scarth wanted a man who answered O'Brien's description for robbing the cache of Mr. Hansen at Wolf's Island, O'Brien was sent up to Fort Selkirk and held on that charge. Then Sergeant Holmes (rather a curious coincidence in detective names) was sent on detachment to Fossal's road-house with Constable Pennecuick to see if there were any traces of the lost men. Pennecuick proved himself a veritable sleuth. In a short time he discovered a place on the river bank where some one had climbed, although snow had fallen plentifully since. He also found to his surprise a clear view of the river up and down for miles. This was unusual in such a place, and on investigation he found that trees had been cut down so that a look-out could be kept. He examined the tree stumps closely, and found they had all been cut with an axe which had three flaws in it, one at one end and two near together. He kept portions of the wood, and later on discovered that when O'Brien had been released from jail in Dawson, some months before, he had been given his stuff back, and the police-sergeant testified at the trial that he had furnished O'Brien with an axe (a very necessary thing for travellers on the northern trails) in place of one that had been lost. The sergeant said, "It was a spare axe and I sharpened it for him, and gave it to him with a sort of apology because it still had three rather large nicks in it, one at the top and two close together at the bottom." Of course, Pennecuick did not know about this axe when he found the trees chopped down, but his examination of the stumps shows that he omitted nothing in his scrutiny. When Pennecuick noted that, he hunted for traces of a trail, and found such traces leading to the river. He got a broom and swept the whole way down. Klondikers recall Christmas '98 as soft in the morning and freezing at night. So marks made that morning would stay, and Pennecuick found that some heavy body or bodies had been dragged down to a place in the ice where, though now frozen over, these bodies had been put in the river. Pennecuick reasoned that if O'Brien was going to kill these men he would not do it on the river where he might be seen. So the sleuth went back up into the bush and swept away till he came to some evidences of blood, then he found three .32 revolver bullets, and one in the earth from a .45 rifle. Next day, as Pennecuick came back to work he met a dog on the river. Dogs crop up all over the Northern history, and many times they were important links in the chains of evidence. Pennecuick recognized the dog as O'Brien's, which had been kept in barracks at Dawson by the Police and fed and petted when O'Brien was in jail there before. The dog recognized the uniform, fawned on the wearer of it, and when Pennecuick said "Go home, sir, go home," the dog turned and trotted up the bank and then turned aside where some slight trail showed. Pennecuick, of course, followed, and came to a tent cabin in which he found the .45-calibre rifle. Raking in the snow, he discovered that clothing had been burned, for he found some buttons with the name of a Seattle firm. Then he went in and searched the stove and found more relics. But he felt that probably O'Brien had emptied the pockets of his victims' clothes before he burned them, and likely had thrown the things away from the fire that might lead to his identification with the murder if he kept them. So Pennecuick did the same thing with articles out of his own pocket, watching where they fell. Then he carefully swept again, and found not only his own things, but a key that fitted Clayson's safe in Seattle and the strange coin that Relphe had carried. When the spring came the bodies were found on sand-bars and were easily identified, even by the fitting of some fragments of teeth that Pennecuick had found where the men had been shot in the head by the revolver after they had fallen before the rifle. And at the trial also the large bills that had been found in possession of O'Brien were identified as having been the property of Clayson, as the nugget and coin were shown to have been Relphe's. There were other items of evidence, the exhibits nearly exhausted the alphabet, and there was a very long list of witnesses brought from many quarters. The Crown Prosecutor was Mr. Fred O. Wade, K.C. (now Agent-General for British Columbia in London), and he handled the case with consummate ability. His address to the jury was a marvel of logical, irresistible emphasis on every point of evidence. Inspector Scarth gave Mr. Wade most valuable assistance during the long trial. The prisoner O'Brien was ably defended, but there is no evidence so strong as circumstantial evidence when it is compactly pieced together, and the jury took only half an hour to reach the verdict of "Guilty." O'Brien received the death sentence, and spent a lot of time before his execution in cursing the Mounted Police who, as another outlaw once said, "would give a gunman no chance in this blamed Canada country." It was a long and costly effort on their part, extending nearly two years in the case of O'Brien, but it gave notice to the world that Canadians would not tolerate lax views on the sacredness of human life. It seems appropriate that in that same year, 1900, an injustice to the Mounted Police should be at length removed by the granting of medals to the men of the Force who had served in the North-West Rebellion of 1885. At the conclusion of that rebellion, medals had been granted to all others who had been on military duty against Louis Riel's revolt, but they were only given to the Mounted Police who had been actually under fire in an engagement. We do not care to know who was responsible for this extraordinary piece of invidious distinction. The Mounted Police have practically always been on active service and always liable to be under fire at any moment. Those who know the history know that all the members of the Force rendered service of enormous value to Canada and the Empire during that war time, whether in an engagement or not. They policed the vast plains and, with endless patience and cool courage, held at peace the thousands of Indians who might have swept the defenceless settlements with destruction. These men deserved the medal and should have had it at the outset, but better late than never. It is anticipating a little in one respect, but in another it is looking backwards. During the years since their organization the Mounted Police had furnished escorts and convoys for the successive Governors-General in their official tours over the vast North-West. Before the railway era this involved long journeys and much extra duty, cheerfully undertaken and chivalrously as well as skilfully carried out for the comfort of these distinguished travellers, amongst whom were our present good King and his much-loved son, the Prince of Wales. In recognition of these services the Commissioner has received for himself and his men warm thanks, as well as expressions of high admiration for the courtesies and services rendered by the Police, as well as for their fine bearing as soldierly men. And all these find fitting climax in the fact that His Majesty King Edward, "First Gentleman of Europe," gave his personal recognition of all the splendid services rendered to the Empire by the Police by conferring on the Force the title "Royal." This intimation was made in the Canada Gazette in 1904 in this manner: "His Majesty the King has been graciously pleased to confer the title of 'Royal' upon the North-West Mounted Police Force." Referring to this honour, Commissioner Perry said in his report of that year: "The force is deeply sensible of the high honour conferred upon it, and I trust it will continue by loyalty, integrity and devotion to duty to merit the great distinction which His Majesty has been so graciously pleased to bestow upon it." The Commissioner has always trusted and believed in his men, and he has not been disappointed. CHAPTER XIII MODESTY AND EFFECTIVENESS "The population of the Territories has doubled in ten years and the strength of the Force has been reduced by half. Our detachments have increased from 49 to 79." This was one of the striking and illuminating statements made by Commissioner Perry in his Annual Report for 1901. The Commissioner was looking around and ahead and did not intend that the Government should be left ignorant of the rapid changes which were taking place. The reduction of the Force was a tribute to the extraordinary efficiency of its members in establishing peace and order throughout a vast domain. But it is not fair or human "to ride a willing horse to death," and with increased population and widening areas to oversee, the strain being put upon the men in the corps was too great. In even the organized portions of the Territories there was only an average of one constable to every 500 square miles. It was highly important that with half the population foreign born, alien to our laws, unacquainted with our institutions and disposed to bring with them a sort of a hatred of authority born of experience under old-world despotisms, there should be present the educative and restraining influence of an adequate number of the riders in scarlet and gold. Without that influence the newly-found liberty of these European immigrants would soon degenerate into licence. Those of us who recall those critical formative days agree with the statement that the constables took a large view of their duties and that their tact and discretion led these strange people not only to obey the laws but to look upon the Police as friends willing to aid and assist them in every way. The Commissioner therefore strongly urged not only the maintenance of a sufficiently large force to meet the situation, but pressed for the adoption of his particular policy to have a reserve of at least fifty men always in training at headquarters who would be qualified for detachment duty whenever occasion arose. He gives adequate reason for this policy when he says, "The men on detached duty are in responsible positions; they have to act on their own initiative, often on matters of considerable public concern; their advice is sought by new settlers. To carry out their important duties satisfactorily they must be well trained, have experience, and be of good character. It is therefore unwise, contrary to the interests of the public and the good reputation of the force, to send on detached duty men who have not the proper qualifications, necessary experience, and who have not yet established a reputation for reliability and sobriety; in other words who have not been tested and proved." There was an old song, written perhaps in the days of the Peninsular War, to attract men to sign up for service in the possible hope that some one of them might be instrumental in putting the tyrant out of commission: "A raw recruit Might chance to shoot Great General Buonaparte." But the Mounted Police Force was not built on those lines. Their business was to keep avoidable shooting off the programme altogether either by themselves or others, and to effect that desirable end they must be self-controlled, disciplined and tactful men. In order to be of that type every man must get thorough groundwork training in the depôt division before he goes out with the possibility of being on detached duty at any moment. Successful insistence on these points of policy was one of Commissioner Perry's early achievements. It was in the best interests of the country and the Force that such things should be recognized by the authorities. How necessary it was that the Police should be wise and at the same time firm is evidenced that very year when Superintendent Charles Constantine was in command at Fort Saskatchewan. Amongst the Rutherian or Galician people there arose a religious controversy, and a religious controversy is a hard thing for civil authority to tackle. But Constantine was a very discreet officer. He saw how easily a serious conflict on the subject might be precipitated amongst an excitable people. "Religion," writes Constantine, "is a very real thing to the Galician and on this matter he feels very strongly." Constantine made special study of the situation. There were three different branches of the church amongst these people, the Roman and Greek Catholic and the Orthodox Russian or Uniate Church, which was in creed and ritual a sort of half-way between the other two. The Russian church people had put up a church building near Star, but having no pastor of their own, they divided on which of the two others, the Roman Catholic or the Greek Catholic priest, should conduct services. The discussion became quite warm and threats of violence were common. Constantine would not interfere as between the controversialists, but he kept his eye on the situation and gave special direction to certain of his men. Matters came to a climax on Easter Sunday, when the two rival priests, each accompanied by some 200 followers, came to hold service in the church. Constantine knew of the situation beforehand, and he had sent a sergeant and two constables, prudent men, to see that there was no breach of the peace. Both parties claimed the right to hold services in the church and neither would yield nor would they hold a joint service. So the Police held the balance level by locking the door and then asking the parties to go one to each side of the church outside and hold their own services. This was done and there was no ill-will. After the services they dispersed to their homes and the danger passed. Constantine thought well of people who could be earnest about religion and law-abiding. And he makes this general remark about them: "On the whole my observation leads me to believe that the Galician immigration has brought a very desirable class of settler to the North-West and one which will in a short time be of material assistance to the productiveness and prosperity of the Dominion." And the record of these people during the years since this wise officer wrote these words has amply borne out his opinion. In the earlier years the excitable character of the Galicians, and the absence of instruction in their old haunts as to rights of life and property, led them into the commission of a good many offences against our laws, but no alien race has been more anxious to become Canadian and especially, amongst the young people who have grown up in this country, we have met many who are a large asset to the Dominion. As a rule they are industrious, and Constantine's vision of their future has become a reality. [Illustration: FORT SELKIRK, YUKON.] [Illustration: ESQUIMAUX FAMILY.] Up in the Yukon that year there were continued echoes of the famous O'Brien murder case detailed in our preceding chapter, the leading note being that the capture and execution of this desperate criminal had attracted world-wide attention to the efficiency of the Police and had made the Klondike country safer for everybody. For instance, Superintendent A. E. Snyder, who took over the command at White Horse from Superintendent Primrose, says, "I am very pleased to be able to state that there were no very serious cases of crime during the year. I am satisfied that it was not for want of material that we were indebted for such a happy state of affairs, as among the class of people continually on the move coming in and going out there are quite a few that would be capable of attempting anything if they were certain of escaping detection. I can only attribute the lack or comparative utter absence of serious crime to the extreme watchfulness of our men which renders it well nigh impossible for loose characters to engage in doubtful enterprises and stay in the country. The (under the circumstances) speedy and condign punishment meted out to O'Brien elicited favourable comment from citizens generally irrespective of nationality, the Americans especially commenting favourably on it and contrasting it with their experience of similar incidents in mining regions of the Western States." Referring to the same case Inspector Starnes, then in charge at Dawson, says, "This case has cost the Government a great deal of money, but I am sure it had a very salutary effect on the bad element, as it has shown them that nothing will be left undone and no expense will be spared to prevent crime and bring the guilty ones to justice." Starnes has a reference to the verdict of a coroner's jury in the case of one Dr. Bettinger which indicates that he thinks the jury "played safe." It appears that the doctor had started from Dawson for the coast on foot and that he was not clad well enough for such a trek. When he did not turn up at points he ought to have reached, Inspector McDonnell was put on the trail and all the detachment men along the river took up the search. In a few days the body of the unfortunate man was found seven miles off the Yukon trail up the White River. Inspector Wroughton, who was out on an inspection trip, held an inquest in order to have the body properly identified, so that any matters connected with the estate might not be confused. And this jury concluded that the body was that of Dr. Joseph Bettinger and that the said Bettinger "came to his death from some cause or causes unknown to the jury, but are of the opinion that death was caused by exposure during extreme cold weather." The opinion of the jury was no doubt correct, though they expressed it with proverbial caution. Starnes refers with proper sarcasm to the cases in which people imagine the Police ought to save them from the results of their own carelessness. He says, "There have been a number of sluice box robberies on some of the creeks, and we have been fortunate in securing one or two convictions, but in many instances it was impossible to find the thieves. This class of crime is one of the hardest to detect, owing to a great number of miners leaving their sluice boxes unprotected when there is a lot of gold in them, and another reason being that it is impossible to identify gold dust. We may have our suspicions in many cases, and in some feel sure of our man to a moral certainty, but it is almost impossible to prove the guilt unless we catch the man in the act. The distances being so great, it is out of the question for us to place guards on every claim, and the miners who wish to keep their gold must take proper precautions. It would be just as well for a farmer in the East to leave ten dollar bank notes in his stable yard with no one to watch them, as to leave gold in the sluice boxes the way some of the miners do." Starnes here hits at the all too common assumption of people who, with sense enough to be responsible for their acts, think that some one else is under obligation in matters of health and property to save them from the consequences of their own practices. And he delicately suggests to the careless miners that they have missed the fact of contributory negligence when they have thus led others into temptation. These policemen were making a constant study of the unveneered humanity on the frontier and developed a keen perception of right and wrong, and had a rugged conviction that every one should get a square deal, but should realize that he must bear his own burden of responsibility. A fine instance of the Police opinion that men should get fair play is found in the report of Inspector A. M. Jarvis, who in 1901 was in command of the Dalton trail post in the Yukon country. He says, "The Dalton trail, which is the pioneer route to the 'inside,' is much in need of repairs. A vast area is tributary to this trail. From the Yukon River to the 141st parallel and as far north as the White River the Dalton trail is the main artery. Three years before the Klondike was heard of, Mr. Dalton blazed his route into the interior, acting as guide to the explorers into the country where he had done important work or trading in furs. When the rush into the gold-fields took place, he spent large sums in bridges and corduroy, especially between Dalton House and Five Fingers, which, now that the Yukon has the monopoly in freight and passengers, brings him no return. While the construction of this trail was a business venture, yet it remains a benefit to the country, and is of great value to the prospector. I should like to see Mr. Dalton recompensed for his unprofitable outlay." What came of this suggestion history does not record. The world is under immense obligation to adventurers who have blazed new trails to hidden natural resources. But the world is not always as fair as this Police Inspector in recognizing its obligation. In his report in 1902 Commissioner Perry, in view perhaps of comments made by some who were ignorant of conditions, and such are occasionally found in public bodies, frankly says that the expenditure on the Mounted Police is large, but that when it is looked upon as a factor in the peaceful settlement of a vast territory, such expenditure is a splendid investment which will pay big dividends to the country for generations in the form of a contented, happy and prosperous population. The Commissioner's words are that "the benefits will be reaped by posterity when the Force has disappeared and its work is forgotten." It is hard to get these policemen to estimate their work highly enough. They have the usual British reticence intensified by definite practise of it, and that is why no man who has been a member of the Force will ever give a true history of its achievements. He is afraid to give the Force its due lest he should seem to be boastful when he records deeds that are stranger than fiction. And so when the Commissioner speaks of the Force disappearing and its work being forgotten we must enter a protest against this being read except in the light of the well-known habit of these men to keep religiously far away from the braggart spirit. The Force has undergone changes and may ultimately disappear in so far as the present form of organization is concerned, but those of us who have known the country and the men all through the years affirm without reservation that it can never be forgotten. The work of the corps has been so indelibly stamped upon the history of Canada that the record can never be erased as long as this country endures. How, for instance, can any country forget a Force concerning one of whose members this same Commissioner Perry, proud always of his men, writes in the very next paragraph, "To one who is unacquainted with the country it is difficult to convey any adequate idea of the labour involved in policing such a vast region and carrying out the multifarious duties imposed on us. As an instance of this I may mention the work done by Corporal Field last winter. He is stationed at Fort Chippewyan, Athabasca. He was informed that a man had gone violently insane at Hay River, 350 miles from his post. He proceeded there with dog train, accompanied by the interpreter only and brought the unfortunate man, who was a raving maniac, back to Fort Chippewyan, and thence escorted him to Fort Saskatchewan, travelling a distance of 1,300 miles with dogs and occupying forty-four days on the journey. This is not an isolated instance. It represents the work of Inspector West and his men in the Northern Country." All this is written by the Commissioner with the most admirable and characteristic police restraint. He gives the facts in outline and leaves the rest to the imagination of those who know the country. He says nothing about Corporal (later Inspector) Field having just come in from a long patrol, tired and entitled to a rest, albeit he was a noted trail-maker. Nor does he relate any details of the trip after the insane unfortunate. But those who have travelled the broken plain can see much between the lines of the simply worded report. We can see the vast white expanse of snow and ice wind swept at times by the fierce blizzards out of the north. We can see the return journey when the violent man would have to be watched day and night and yet given liberty enough at times to keep him from being chloroformed with the cold. A fine humane act was this and one that could only be done by a man who embodied in himself the coolness, courage and gentleness that form so splendid a combination. This and countless deeds of a like kind ensure the Mounted Police an enduring place in our Canadian temple of Fame. It appears that there were always some people who believed that all they had to do when any mishap occurred in their experience was to sit back and get the Police to put things right. This was a tribute to the way in which the Force had exercised paternal oversight in their districts. But it was carrying things rather too far and forgetting that the best help comes to those who help themselves. There was a good deal of horse-stealing and horse-straying in progress in 1902 and when their horse got out of sight some settlers imagined they were stolen when in reality they had only strayed. These people thought the Police should assume the task of securing the return of their herds and droves. This calls a mild protest from Inspector J. O. Wilson, when at Regina. Wilson says, "Settlers are still prone to report a horse stolen when it is missing without making any special effort to find it themselves. There is a case on record where a settler named Hansen, who for the past seven years has lost horses, now expects the Police to find them for him. Much time has been spent in fully investigating his complaints, but this gentleman is not yet satisfied and has written to say that he considers it the duty of the Police to hunt up lost horses." And then the Inspector indicates the lines along which the efforts of the Force are properly directed. "In connection with this," he says, "I beg to state that when horses are reported lost, descriptions are forwarded to all detachments and instructions issued that should they be seen or heard the owners are to be notified. A large number of horses have been returned to their owners in this way." But to leave their police duties and hunt the stray horses of careless settlers was a little too much to ask. Up in the Yukon that year there were contrasting pictures of events in a country that could always be counted on for happenings of interest. There is a fine touch in a report from that tender-hearted officer, the late Inspector Horrigan. Two gallant Police Constables, Campbell and Heathcote, were drowned at the mouth of the Stickine River, where they were crossing in an old boat as no other was at hand. Campbell's body was not found, but Heathcote's was recovered and brought to the nearest point, Wrangel, in the United States, for interment. "I am informed that the funeral was one of the largest and most impressive ever held in Wrangel. The service was conducted by the Rev. Mr. Reirdon, of the Presbyterian Church, with a full choir. The edifice was crowded to the doors, and the majority followed the remains to the last resting place. I chanced to be in Wrangel on June 30, Memorial Day, and noticing a procession of children clothed in white, several veterans of the Civil War and a number of citizens, I followed them to the cemetery and witnessed a very touching sight. To my surprise I noticed that Constable Heathcote's was the first grave decorated with bouquets and sweet-smelling flowers by kind and loving hands. It mattered not to them what altar he knelt at or what flag he had served under. They knew him in life as a policeman, proud of his uniform and his country. In death they honoured his memory." This is well put by Horrigan, and the whole incident indicated the deep-seated attachment existing between the two great branches of the English-speaking race. Incidents like this go far to destroy the "ancient grudge" which some Americans have against Britain because a century and a half ago a foolish British King and a still more foolish set of advisers treated British subjects overseas in an absolutely un-British way. And then in the same northern area we have in the report of that exact and capable Inspector, W. H. Routledge, another side of life in the account of a murder case which, in cold-blooded deliberateness and treachery, perhaps puts the O'Brien case into the shade. O'Brien was a very inhuman and brutal murderer, but he, though on the look-out for prey, seems to have somewhat accidentally fallen in at Fossal's road-house with the three men he murdered a few miles farther along the way. But there is no particular evidence that he had made special efforts to be their ostensibly friendly companion beyond the usual comradeship of mutual helpfulness on the trail. But in the case Routledge reports two men, La Belle and Fournier, seem to have gone to White Horse with the deliberate intention of ingratiating themselves with some of their fellow-countrymen by the use of their French mother tongue, joining them on the way down to Dawson, and then murdering them when they arrived at a convenient place. And so these two creatures found at White Horse, Leon Bouthilette, Guy Beaudien, and Alphonse Constantin from Beauce County, Quebec, who had recently come from the East, going to Dawson. La Belle and Fournier got passage with these men on a small boat, travelled with them, camped, ate, and slept with them till one night in camp on an island near Stewart River they murdered their three hosts, probably in sleep, and after rifling their pockets, and to hide their crime, they tied the bodies up, weighted with stones, and threw them in the river. Then they burned up all evidences of their crime, got in the boat and went to Dawson, from which place they proceeded farther, found another compatriot named Guilbault and murdered him on the way to Circle City, Alaska. Once again it was a case where the murderers left no possible witness to testify and considered they were safe. But they forgot they were in the Mounted Police country--in the land of the men in scarlet and gold who never let go till justice is done. The Police at White Horse had the number of the boat, 3744, and the names of all the men in it. Other boats, starting from White Horse about the same time, arrived in Dawson. But boat 3744 and its occupants, though seen by several on the way, dropped out of sight at Stewart River and was not seen again till Constable Egan discovered it empty at Klondike city. The body of a man who had been killed by bullets was found in the river, and there was a small key tag with the name "Bouthilette, Beauce, P.Q." on it. This gave the Police a clue, and it was followed with characteristic energy and skill. A web of circumstantial evidence had again to be woven. Later on another body was found and Surgeons Madore and Thompson were satisfied that another death by violence had occurred. The body corresponded with the description given of Guy Beaudien. Constable Burns, of the Dawson Division, who could speak French like a native, haunted the mines and creeks in plain clothes, unearthed Fournier, who was identified by one Mack, who had seen him at White Horse, as one of the men in boat 3744. Detective Constable Welsh, Sergeant Smith, Corporal Piper, Constables Burke and Falconer with others were on the scent. Welsh went to Skagway and found the sailing list of the boat _Amur_ on which the murdered men had come from Seattle. To that point and others he went, and then acting on information from Constable Burns, who had combed the French Colony for evidence, Welsh went on through six different States and finally caught and arrested La Belle in Nevada. La Belle said enough to indicate the whereabouts of the murder event and Welsh wired this information. Corporal Piper and Constable Woodill and the Dawson photographer went, located the "Murder Island," gathered some incriminating articles and took photographs from every angle. Then the work went on and the Police accumulated such an unbreakable chain-mail web of evidence starting with a man who had come with the murdered men from Montreal to White Horse, continuing with others who had seen all the parties on boat 3744 and then with men who had seen articles and money on La Belle and Fournier which they knew to have been the property of the murdered parties, that these cold-blooded monsters practically confessed, each throwing the blame on the other. They were committed for trial, found guilty by judge and jury, and paid the extreme penalty for their horrible crime. Down on the prairie the Police were equally intent on duty and equally successful in serving notice on all and sundry that tampering with human life and prosperity would not be tolerated. And every one who came into the Canadian West was wise if he governed himself accordingly. An accomplished young forger and potentially worse, by the name of Ernest Cashel, barely twenty-two, drifted up to Calgary from the State of Wyoming and proceeded to test the calibre of Canadian authority. He was arrested, but escaped from the city authorities. Then the Mounted Police, whose officer commanding at Calgary was Superintendent Sanders, D.S.O., were called upon and discovered that Cashel had stolen a pony at Lacombe to help in his escape. Shortly afterwards D. A. Thomas, north of Red Deer, notified the Police that a relative, J. R. Belt, had disappeared from the latter's ranch east of Lacombe. Constable McLeod investigated and discovered that when Belt was last seen a young man, who gave himself the name of Elseworth, was staying with him. The description indicated that Elseworth and Cashel were one and the same. Belt's horse, saddle, shot gun, clothes and money, including a $50.00 gold bill, had vanished. It looked like a murder case, and so Superintendent Sanders put our old friend Constable Pennycuick, who had unearthed O'Brien in the Yukon, on the trail of Cashel. Every detachment of the Police was put on the scent. In a while a man, answering Cashel's description, stole a diamond ring up in the edge of the mountains and, despite great cunning, was arrested by Constable Blyth at Anthracite. He was wearing some clothes like Belt's and had the diamond ring. Then Constable Pennycuick, hearing that Cashel had been staying at a half-breed camp near Calgary, went there and got some clothing Cashel had left there. Part of it was the rest of Belt's corduroy suit. Pennycuick also got track of the $50.00 gold bill which had been seen by some of the half-breeds with Cashel. Pennycuick traced Cashel's route from Belt's to near Calgary with Belt's clothes, horse, saddle and the aforesaid $50.00 gold certificate. But thus far there was no evidence that Belt was not alive somewhere, and so Cashel was tried for stealing and sentenced to the penitentiary. Two months later the river gave up its dead, and the body was identified by certain marks and by an iron clamp on the heel of the boot. Bullet holes in the body of the same calibre as the revolver and rifle carried by Cashel completed the evidence. He was brought back from the penitentiary, charged with murder, and after a trial in which he was brilliantly defended by Mr. Nolan of Calgary, was sentenced to be hanged. But the end was not yet. John Cashel, a brother from Wyoming, had come up and was given permission to see Ernest in the cell. As he entered the chaplain was leaving and the guard being relieved. Taking advantage of the situation, John Cashel slipped his brother two loaded revolvers with which that evening Ernest held up the unarmed Constables and made his escape. It was a dark night, with heavy snow falling, and this clever and daring criminal well armed got clear away. Then the alarm was sent out, detachments were notified and Commissioner Perry, accompanied by Inspector Knight, went up to Calgary to take personal direction of the search. Evidently, as happens in such cases this outlaw had friends, who, supplied him with information, telling him what was being done and to add to the confusion, people all over the country became nervously excited and began "seeing things," so that several supposed Cashels were reported from a dozen directions. A drunken half-breed in Calgary caused excitement by telling that he had Cashel tied up in his camp, but the cool-headed Sanders saw through his yarn and locked up the half-breed for being drunk and disorderly. Superintendents Primrose and Begin, on the Commissioner's orders, sent patrols out through the ranches. Here they came across ranchers who had been held up for food and money by a man whose description tallied with that of Cashel. As the Police could not cover the whole country, some civilian volunteers were called for and these were placed along with police detachments. Finally Sanders mapped out the country, got detachments together to the number of five under Major Barwis, Inspector Knight, Inspector Duffus, Sergeant-Major Belcher and himself, and the order was to search every building, cellar, root house and haystack with instructions that if they found Cashel they were, if human life was to be saved thereby, to set fire to the building or stack where he was and smoke him out. The detachment under Inspector Duffus, consisting of Constables Rogers, Peters, Biggs, Stark and McConnell, while searching Pittman's ranch 6 miles from Calgary, came across Cashel in the cellar. He was found by Constable Biggs, who was fired at by Cashel out of the dark hole. Biggs returned the fire and backed up the steps to tell the rest. Constable Rogers then ordered the men to surround the house and sent word to Inspector Duffus, who came and called on Cashel to surrender. But he would not answer and the building, a mere shack, was set on fire. When the smoke started, Cashel agreed to come out and was arrested. This was the close of an arduous hunt, a great many of the Police having been almost continuously in the saddle day and night in cold weather for weeks. They were determined that no one should boast of eluding the Police by making a clear "get away." This time there was no escape, and the daring murderer was hanged in Calgary, first confessing his crime to the Rev. Dr. Kirby, his spiritual adviser. Once more the unbreakable net of the famous riders of the plains had been thrown out to show that the whole country became a prison for anyone who offended against its laws. It was perhaps the recurrence of cases of this kind where the Police were proving the enormous value of the Force to the country that caused Superintendent Primrose in 1903 to make a plea for some increased recognition of his men. In his report he says, "In nearly every walk of life in the past twenty years wages have gone on increasing, but, I regret to state, the same scale of wages still obtains in the Police Force. For instance, I am at present employing a constable on detective work whose pay is seventy-five cents a day for which we have to pay a Pinkerton man eight dollars a day." And it is no disparagement to the Pinkertons to say that the Police could give them some "pointers" when it came to work on the frontiers. The question of pay for their men was a constant anxiety for the officers, who were themselves receiving a mere pittance in comparison with the salaries paid to men of equal education and experience in other departments of the civil service. So we find, in 1904, that fine officer, Superintendent Wood, in the Yukon making reference to the fact that though an increase of pay had been granted to others the pay of the Police had remained practically the same since their organization. Wood feels that it is humiliating for the men. "A constable's life," he writes, "is not altogether an enviable one. He is liable to be exposed to the inclemencies of the weather at all seasons of the year, and is at times called upon to risk his life in the performance of his duty. He is under much closer and severer restraint than private individuals." This is putting it all very mildly, as was the manner of the Police when they were speaking of themselves. Then Wood goes on to say, "It is of importance that a member of the Force should be made to feel that his position is an honourable one, and that he is entitled by virtue of his office or calling to the respect of the community at large. This state of things could be arrived at if he felt that his position was equal to those in other walks of life, and that his services were rated equally as high. But the mere fact of his receiving 50 cents to 75 cents a day with his food and clothes while carpenters, blacksmiths and labourers on the outside receive five times as much and in the Yukon ten times as much, is enough to instill a feeling of inferiority so far as his calling is concerned." This is an important view. And Wood in the same report emphasizes his argument, though he does not refer to it in that connection, that the Police are expected to do work as mail-carriers, postmasters and such like, outside proper police duty, because the country could not get civilians to do it at the remuneration offered. The whole thing troubles Wood, who was of a sensitive temperament and very anxious to retain high-class men in the Force. And so he refers to it again in the following year and says that a constable who was a skilled mechanic and was saving the country great expense by looking after the manufacture of stove pipes, tinware, etc., had been offered as much an hour by town merchants as he was getting in a day in the corps on the scale allowed by the Police Act. And Wood, who feels keenly for the men, says, "Our poor circumstances are so generally known that it has become usual to send members of the Force complimentary tickets for entertainments and reduce the fees in clubs and societies for them." Probably what was in the minds of those who sent tickets and reduced fees was that it was an honour to have with them the men in scarlet and gold who made human life and property safe on the frontier and whose standards of manners and education made them most desirable company. But the comparative poverty was there amidst abounding chances to be rich in the gold country and elsewhere in a new land. Men who served through the dangerous formative periods of Western history died poor in worldly goods. It is a fine thing to know that all through the years these men out of the sheer love of adventure and their high ideals of devotion to duty did such service, but the facts should not be lost sight of when the pensions of the "old guard" survivors are being considered from time to time. The quality of the non-commissioned officers and men is often brought out in their detachment reports. These reports reveal not only men of ability and insight, but throw light on the kind of people these Police in the north had to guide. Sergeant Frank Thorne, for instance, was in charge at a place called Tantalus. The man who gave that name to the elusive mining prospects of the region had a sense of humour and the fitness of things. Thorne says, "Hundreds of people landed at Tantalus en route to the new White Horse diggings. Most of these people had been misinformed as to the best place to start from. I informed some of them, but found that a person with gold fever is very unreasonable and stubborn. Those that returned this way wore a very dilapidated and sorry appearance." But the Police, I suppose, helped them out of their troubles, for these red-coated giants did not lose their humanitarian disposition even amidst the follies of the foolish. And the Police knew well the strain under which these deluded and disappointed people often found themselves, for Wood tells us of the Police at Dawson and White Horse having as many as forty lunatics committed to their care in a single year. This involved heavy and anxious work, and the Superintendent shows the spirit in which it was done when he laments the lack of suitable accommodation and fears lest some of these unfortunates may hurt themselves in the unsuitable quarters provided. Speaking of the humanitarian disposition of the Police, one finds many incidents to show how they resented offences against the helpless, and how relentlessly they brought the perpetrators of such offences to book. In the same year, 1904, of which we have been writing, Sergeant Field, of Fort Chippewyan, to whose rescue of a lunatic we have already referred, got word that an Indian had, at Black Lake, 250 miles away from the Fort, deserted two little children, two and three years of age and that these two children according to the testimony of other Indians had been devoured by wolves. Part of the clothing had been found and all around the blood-stained ground was trampled by wolves. The Indian was at Fond-du-Lac, but could not be advantageously arrested unless Field could get some evidence from others who were not there. So Field bided his time till all the Indians were at Fond-du-Lac in the summer. Some eight months had gone by, but Field did not forget. Fond-du-Lac was several hundred miles from Fort Chippewyan, but Field got there at the proper moment, arrested the Indian, took the witnesses along and started for Edmonton, where the Indian was tried and given a term in the penitentiary. It had cost Sergeant Field a strenuous trip by trail, river and train of nearly eighteen hundred miles, but he had by his action told the Indians of the whole region to deal properly with their children and their old people. A very remarkable case in 1904 was that in which after an extraordinary display of mastery over difficulties, the Police under Staff-Sergeant K. F. Anderson (now Inspector) brought one Charles King to justice for the murder of his partner Edward Hayward, near Lesser Slave Lake in Northern Alberta. The case was not only a portrayal of the persistent methods of the Police, but it threw a fine sidelight on the way in which the Police had won the friendship of the Indians through guarding the Indians against exploitation by white men. It moreover gave a good exposition of the Indians' unique powers of observation. [Illustration: CORONATION CONTINGENT. LONDON. 1911.] [Illustration: CORONATION CONTINGENT. LONDON. 1911.] [Illustration: INDIANS RECEIVING TREATY PAYMENT ON PRAIRIE.] [Illustration: FORT FITZGERALD, ATHABASCA.] [Illustration: ICE-BOUND GOVERNMENT SCHOONER.] In October, Moos Toos, the headman of the Indian Reserve at Sucker Creek, came to Sergeant Anderson and told him that white men were cutting rails on his Reserve. Anderson immediately went over with the Chief and found men employed by a very prominent firm of contractors cutting rails. The Sergeant stopped them at once and made them pay the Indian for what they had already cut. This, of course, was pleasing to Moos Toos, who, on returning home with Anderson told the Sergeant that some days before, two white men with four pack-horses had come from Edmonton and camped on the Reserve near a slough. They had stayed there some three days or so and then one of them left, but there was no sign of the other. An Indian boy had noticed that the dog that had come with the white men would not follow the one that left. This was observation number one. Then some Indian women, as their custom is, went over to the place where the men had camped to see if anything was left that might be of service. One Indian woman noticed that the camp fire-place was much larger than required for ordinary use. Another Indian woman stood at the edge of the fire-place and looking up noticed, on the underside of the leaves of a poplar tree, globules of fat where the thick smoke had struck the cool leaves and the evaporating fat had condensed. She said, "He was burning flesh in this fire." These two things, added to the fact that a shot had been heard by other Indians in the direction of the white men's camp, made them suspicious. They told Moos Toos, their headman, and he, in recognition of the goodness of the Police to him, told Anderson about it, and added that he thought something was wrong. Anderson thought so too, and with Constable Lowe went down to the place. They raked in the ashes and found fragments of bone and other substances which they carefully sealed up and kept for analysis. Moos Toos, who was on hand with some of his Indians to help, found a large needle with the eye broken, then by going barefooted into the slough where the water was four feet deep, discovered a camp-kettle which some of the Indians had seen with the white men. Later on Moos Toos and Lowe found in the slough a pair of boots in one of which was stuffed a rag with various articles, including the other part of the broken needle. In the meantime, Anderson had got into touch with the surviving white man at the home of a trader some distance away and asked for his story. This man, who gave his name as King, said that his companion was a man he had overtaken on the trail over the Swan Hills. His name, he said, was Lyman, and he had been on the way on foot. King said Lyman had left the camp on foot for Sturgeon Lake and that he supposed he was on the way there. Anderson sent out in that direction, but there was no trace of such a man at any point, and a Hudson's Bay employee who had just come from Sturgeon Lake met no one on foot and there was no trace on the trail of anyone so travelling. Anderson and Lowe then arrested King on suspicion and held him while they pursued further investigations. Anderson was convinced that the bed of that slough, if uncovered, could unfold a tale. And so he hired the Indians to divert it by digging a ditch that would drain it into Sucker Creek a half-mile away. It was quite an undertaking, but the Indians, who have lots of time on their hands in the summer and fall, offered to do the work for a hundred dollars. The work was well done and Anderson's expectations were not disappointed. He found amongst some minor articles a sovereign-case which was fairly conclusive evidence that the man who had vanished from the earth was probably an Englishman. The sovereign-case was traced back to the manufacturer in England and to the man who had sold that number to a certain Mr. Hayward, a man up in years, then deceased. The clue was followed up and a son of Mr. Hayward was found who recalled that his father had presented a sovereign-case to another son when that son left for Canada. The son who had gone to Canada was known to be in the Edmonton and Northern country, but the people at home had not heard from him for some time. Regardless of expense and without delay, the Police brought Hayward all the way from England to Edmonton for the trial. He identified the sovereign-case as the one given by his father to the missing man Edward Hayward. A specialist in analysing had been brought from Eastern Canada who pronounced the blood, brains and bones found in the ashes of the camp fire to be human elements. There were some twenty witnesses in the case, those outside the Police being Messrs. J. K. Cornwall, George Moran and the rest half-breeds and Indians. Once more the police had the chain of circumstantial evidence welded solidly link by link. King was declared guilty, but on a legal technicality a new trial was ordered. By this time the witnesses were all back home. But they were brought back, including the brother of the missing man from England. The verdict again was guilty and King paid on the scaffold the penalty for his mean and cold-blooded murder of a travelling companion. A very curious thing in this trial was the sworn statement of Hayward, the witness from England, that his sister had told him there, the morning after the shot was heard by the Indians near the Lesser Slave Lake, that she had dreamed that their brother Edward had died by violence in Canada. This was not offered or accepted as evidence, but was mentioned incidentally as at least an extraordinary coincidence. The Mounted Police were evidently determined not to allow crime to make any headway because if the impression ever got abroad that men could play fast and loose with law and go unrebuked, there would be no end to it. So we find Superintendent Sanders saying again that the Force should have more men to cope with the demands of the immigration movement. "It is only natural," he says, "to expect that a percentage of criminals should accompany a large migration into a new country. A malefactor who finds it necessary to lose his identity for a while cannot choose a more convenient location than a country just filling with new settlers and where one stranger more or less is not likely to be noticed." This is sound reasoning, and Sanders is looking into the future when he is asking for men enough to deal with the new order of things so as to prevent trouble in the future. "Once," says he, "get the new-comers within our gates imbued with the proper respect for British law and British justice, and prevent the criminal element getting a foothold, and a work will be accomplished of inestimable value hereafter." And up in the Yukon, Assistant-Commissioner Wood, out of wide experience, says, "It is a well-known saying that prevention is better than cure, and any innovation in our system tending to the prevention of crime in Canada, and more particularly in the North-West and the Yukon Territories, is to be welcomed." And then Wood goes on to advocate the adoption of certain methods for the detection of criminals which for that period showed that these men were keeping a little more than abreast of their times though they were on duty in the wilderness places of the earth. He advises the establishment of a Criminal Identification Bureau at Ottawa with branches in all the cities and at the headquarters of each division of the Mounted Police Force. He goes on to define methods by photographs of every one arrested, measurements under the Bertillon system and the use of the finger-print method, which he quite properly declares, as we now know, to be the most infallible means of identification. That Wood had made a special study of the subject is evidenced by the fact that he backs his argument by appeal to history. He says the finger-print system had been in use in Korea for 1,200 years as a means of identifying slaves and was adopted in India in 1897 as a way of preventing impersonation amongst the natives. The Scotland Yard authorities accepted the system in 1898, which was the year of the Yukon Gold Rush, and it is very interesting to find the Officer-Commanding on that frontier being so forehanded as to be amongst the first in Canada to advocate the use of methods now generally adopted. These men of the Mounted Police were wide awake and were determined, we repeat, to prevent the criminal class from getting a foothold in this country. It is interesting to find in the same period that the Police never seemed to forget. As related above, Fournier and LaBelle had been executed in January, 1903, for the murder of Beaudien and Bouthilette. A third man of the same party had vanished at the same time, but no body had been found. Two years afterwards a body was found in the river, taken to Dawson, the clothes removed and washed by Sergeant Smith and the body identified by these clothes and a paper dried out, as the body of the third man, Alphonse Constantin. Thus was the fact of his death established in the interests of relatives and estate--a matter of vital importance for the satisfaction of all concerned. And thus did the curtain fall on the final act in a dark tragedy of the North. But all these incidents were making for the future peace of the country. It was the establishment of the "Pax Britannica," as Commissioner Perry said with justifiable pride in the record the Police had made throughout the years. He quotes the words of a famous Indian Chief to which we have already called attention in the chapter on Indian treaties when that Chief, referring to the Police, said, "Before you came the Indian crept along. Now he is not afraid to walk erect." "For thirty-one years," said Perry in 1905, "neither white man nor Indian has been afraid to walk erect, whether in the great plains, the far North or the distant Yukon." And even at the time he was writing those words Corporal Mapley was on patrol over an unknown route from Dawson to the Peel River, Inspector Genereux of Prince Albert was away on a 1,750-mile trip North, of 132 days by canoe and dog-train to investigate a case of alleged murder, Sergeant Fitzgerald was on patrol to the mouth of the Mackenzie River and Inspector Moodie was establishing new posts around the Hudson Bay--all having a reassuring and stabilizing effect on the vast uncivilized North land. And again turning to another side of their work there were many cases that were charged full of a Victoria Cross type of valour which went unnoticed except as things done in the ordinary course of duty unless some tragic element intervened to call special attention to it. Constable Pedley, of Fort Chippewyan, for instance, a noted trailmaker, had made many a trip (as others did) fraught with tremendous hardship. But it was not till one day when he broke for a while under the tremendous strain that his extraordinary efforts got into the light of public notice. Here is part of his modest report when he was detailed to escort a lunatic from Fort Chippewyan to Fort Saskatchewan: "I left Chippewyan in charge of the lunatic on December 17, 1904, with the interpreter and two dog-trains. After travelling for five days through slush and water up to our knees, we arrived at Fort McKay on December 22. Owing to the extreme cold, the prisoner's feet were frost-bitten. I did all I could to relieve him, and purchased some large moccasins to allow more wrappings for his feet. I travelled without accident until the 27th, reaching Weechume Lake. Here I had to lay off a day to procure a guide as there was no trail." This is put with great suppression of anything like telling what a difficult time he was having, but again we read between the lines. The trip is "without accident" but there was "extreme cold." Pedley was nurse and doctor as well as guard over the unfortunate madman who raved as they travelled along almost impossible roads. Then Pedley goes on: "I arrived at Lake La Biche on the 31st, and secured a team of horses to carry me to Fort Saskatchewan. I arrived on January 7, 1905, and handed over my prisoner." Pedley had spent his Christmas and New Year not in a happy social circle, but in the company of the unhappy victim of insanity. And he ends his report by saying, "During the earlier part of the trip the prisoner was very weak and refused to eat, but during the latter part of the trip he developed a good appetite and got stronger." Pedley's care was improving the madman's condition, but it was taking it out of himself. The unfortunate was transferred to Calgary guardroom, and that Pedley's nursing had worked a change is evident because Assistant-Surgeon Rouleau reports that it was "a remarkable case." He was taken to hospital and discharged in February. Says Rouleau, "His mind and speech were as good as ever. His life was saved." But the sequel is told in Commissioner Perry's report, "Constable Pedley began his return trip to Fort Chippewyan. When he left Fort Saskatchewan he was apparently in good health, but at Lake La Biche he went violently insane as a result of the hardships of his trip and _his anxiety_ for the safety of his charge. He was brought back to Fort Saskatchewan and then transferred to Brandon Asylum." But we rejoice that this is not the end. Perry goes on, "I am glad to say that after spending six months there he recovered his mind and returned to headquarters. He was granted three months' leave and is now at duty as well as ever." And that this gallant man who was not conquered by cold and danger was not going to be conquered by the recollection of the breaking of a cord that had been subjected to too great a tension is attested by Perry's closing reference: "In spite of all, he has recently engaged for a further term of service." Comment on this is unnecessary. It is like a flash which dispels the night in a prairie thunderstorm. CHAPTER XIV ON LAND AND SEA Reference has been made several times to the studied and determined reticence of Mounted Policemen concerning their own achievements. That characteristic is stamped on all their reports and probably accounts for the fact that no member of the corps would ever attempt writing a full record of its work as a nation-builder. And any outsider who knows the country's history, the manner of life on the frontier and who has also been in contact with these scarlet-coated riders, not only finds it necessary to read between the lines for the facts but will enjoy the ingenious efforts of these men to avoid anything savouring of egoism. Without being so intended some of these reports are positively humorous on account of this determination to keep "display" in the background. Here is a gem of that type. It is a report written by Corporal C. Hogg, who was stationed at North Portal on the Soo Line near the international boundary. Such localities are often a sort of "No Man's Land" where would-be desperadoes think they can set law to defiance. Corporal Hogg's report of an evening's proceeding in that region, with a foot-note by his superior officer who had received it, makes interesting reading. We quote them in regular order as follows: "On the 17th instant I, Corporal Hogg, was called to the hotel to quiet a disturbance." Hogg put the state of disorder mildly. He proceeds: "I found the room full of cowboys and one, Monaghan or 'Cowboy Jack,' was carrying a gun and pointed it at me, against sections 105 and 109 of the Criminal Code." It was taking long chances, but the Mounted Police generally waited for the other man to start things. In this case they were started right there and then. For the Corporal goes on to say, "We struggled." This is terse, but it involved much more than was said, as will later appear. "Finally," proceeds the Corporal, "I got him handcuffed behind and put him inside. His head being in bad shape I had to engage the services of a doctor who dressed his wound and pronounced it as nothing serious. To the doctor Monaghan said that if I hadn't grabbed his gun there would have been another death in Canadian history. All of which I have the honour to report. "(S.) C. HOGG, Corporal." The Officer who received this report puts on the finishing touch by a memorandum upon it to this effect: "During the arrest of Monaghan the following property was damaged: Door broken, screen smashed up, chair broken, field jacket belonging to Corporal Hogg damaged, wall bespattered." It looks as if Monaghan's ancestors may have hailed from Donnybrook, and it must be admitted that he lived up to the traditions of Fair day in that region. But he had never met a North-West Mounted Policeman before and would probably be wiser in the future in regard to raising a "disturbance" when one of them was at hand. Another evening a "bad man" from Idaho "blew in" to Weyburn. He was a sort of travelling arsenal and got very bold when he got into an unarmed Canadian town. He began shooting holes in verandahs, and if any one went to look out of a window the Idaho desperado threatened to "make him into a sieve." A prominent citizen was made to hold out his hat as a target for this pistol artist. This citizen remonstrated and warned the Idaho man that there was a Mounted Policeman not many miles away who would probably hear of the situation and come over. This enraged the "gun-man," who offered to bet that no Mounted Policeman could arrest him, adding, "if he comes to butt in to my game I will eat his liver cold." A telephone message was sent to Corporal Lett. It took some time to ride in, but Lett located the Idaho citizen terrorizing a bar-room. Lett walked in and the Idaho man had his gun up in a second. No one knew just how it happened, but Lett sprang at the desperado. There was a grapple and a fall, but when they got up Lett had the Idaho "gun" in his hand. The rest was simple. The gun-man had to hold out his hands for the "bracelets." Whether he paid the bet or not no one has recorded, but Lett got an extra stripe for his daring. This recalls another real incident which my friend, Robert Stead, the well-known writer, has put into verse under the title, "A Squad of One," though he gives fictitious names. A certain Sergeant Blue of the Mounted Police who was alone at a prairie post got a letter from a United States Marshal asking him to find and arrest two men who had committed murder and escaped to our side of the line. There was always cordial reciprocity between the police officials along the boundary, and so the Marshal warns the Sergeant to send out his strongest squad of men to make the arrest of these fellows, for he said: "They's as full of sin as a barrel of booze and as quick as a cat, with a gun, So if you happen to hit their trail be sure to start the fun." The Sergeant was alone, but started out next morning clad as a farm labourer, called at the farm suspected, found the men with shooting-irons, but got them talking and then got them separated and bagged them both at "the nose of a forty-four." And when he got back to his lonely post he wrote and mailed the following note: "To U.S. Marshal of County Blank, Greetings I give to you: My squad has just brought in your men and the squad was, Sergeant Blue." Of a different variety but with the same brand of cool courage is an old friend Donald McRae, still speaking with the Gaelic accent and now living in Vancouver, who when I saw him first wore the scarlet and gold in Steele's command. We were in action and McRae was shot rather severely in the advanced skirmish line. The ambulance men were on hand in a few minutes, but McRae refused to leave his position. He said he had half his cartridges left and would not budge till he used them. He stayed there till he used them, and years afterwards our gallant old Commander, General Strange, grizzled soldier of the Mutiny, met McRae on the coast and said jocularly to some in the company, that he had seen lots of service but that this Mounted Policeman was "the stubbornest man he had ever met." General Strange had Scottish ancestors and while quite stern about it at the time of the incident probably rejoiced in secret at McRae's tenacity. These stories have been thrown in to indicate that all over the country the Police in their determination not to allow lawlessness of any kind to get a hold on the country, were doing remarkable exploits without advertising. But we exhume them from old documents to show how these things were done. And so as we resume our story we find Superintendent Wood in 1905 up in Dawson busy with the finger-print system in which he, as before mentioned, was a pioneer believer. Thus when a cabin had been robbed of a gold watch and other valuables, Wood was satisfied, without any other clue to the thief, when he found a finger-print on a lamp-chimney which the man had to light in order to see what he could annex. Then Wood proceeded to hunt for a criminal of the thief class, for he says, "It is well known that the criminal class at large are segregated into groups according to the line to which their abilities are applied." By following this idea he settled on a group of five who would likely do that sort of thing. Four of them did not answer to the finger-print test, but the fifth showed a facsimile of the print on the lamp-chimney. He was the man. So the Police were making it daily more impossible for criminals to ply their trade even in the remotest points. In those days in quite another direction and with the purpose of inquiring into the possibilities of the Hudson Bay and Arctic regions, Inspector J. D. Moodie was engaging in his explorations, and his reports, with those of Starnes, Beyts, Pelletier, Howard, French, Sellers, Rowley and others, are being consulted anew in view of the project of railways to the great bays of the North. Some of these famous patrols we shall discuss later. But speaking of railways it is interesting to find statements from that observant officer, Superintendent Constantine, who despite the fact that his health had been undermined by the hardships of the Yukon was still on duty in the Peace and Athabasca regions. In 1907 he discusses the development of the Peace River country from an agricultural standpoint. He covers very carefully the great areas that include the Grande Prairie, Spirit River, Fort Vermilion and the rest and makes careful analysis of their agricultural capabilities. He sees great possibilities, but places forcibly in his report the absolute need of railway communication with the eastern centres before much can be expected. His forecast has proven correct in every particular. These regions now have railway and river transportation and are prospering accordingly. One wonders now why extracts from the reports of these men on the ground were not put before the people in general instead of being allowed to suffer from being buried alive in the departments of Government. All through these official reports from the Mounted Police officers and men, we find statements and suggestions that might have influenced the progress of the country greatly had they been given wider publicity throughout the years. The Yukon country was undergoing a good many changes. The mad rush of miners into the Mining areas had dwindled away and big companies with new hydraulic processes were crowding out the individual miners and causing them to seek new fields for exploitation. But the vultures and vampires of human society were slow in letting go their victims, and the Mounted Police had to be constantly on the watch to prevent the unwary and the foolish from being caught in their dens. That reliable officer, Inspector Wroughton, who was in command at Dawson City in 1907, says, "Dance-halls and their accompanying evils have been more or less accountable for a good deal of the existing crime. But for these institutions the wanton and the sneak-thief and the confidence man and woman would find their opportunities seriously curtailed. During the last session of the Yukon Council, I am glad to state, the ordinance licensing these places was repealed after a hard and bitter struggle. This does not mean that the evils are entirely eradicated. Our great difficulty is to get evidence. It is, however, more difficult now to carry on evil businesses." The law in the Yukon as elsewhere was fulfilling the function assigned to it in the famous words of Gladstone, "A good law is intended to make it easier for people to do right and harder for them to do wrong." That great mining frontier, with its money-mad and heterogeneous population (albeit there were many splendid people there), was at the same time the problem and the glory of the men in scarlet and gold. It was their problem because the criminal class which always makes a dead set on a frontier was determined from the outset to make the Klondike country a sort of hell on earth, and it was their glory because they prevented the thug and the outlaw from getting a foothold where the old flag flew. There also the lawless individual sought to get away to some other clime, for he said there as he said in the mountains, "These blamed Mounted Police won't give a man a chance." That was one of the biggest testimonials ever given to guardians of the law in any country. It is not at all generally known that a real "red" revolution that aimed at seizing the banks and mines with the hope of dividing the spoil amongst the "revolutionists" was planned in the Yukon a decade or more before the Bolshevistic terror was let loose in Europe. "Soapy Smith" the unsavoury but reckless gunman of Skagway, had developed a school of imitators. There were probably a couple of thousand or so of these tough characters scattered all through the north country camps, and the idea was to rally them to a centre, overpower the few policemen, establish a sort of "liberty" government, seize the money and anything else that could be carried, divide it up and then scatter to the outside before any reinforcements could come to the aid of the Mounted Police from the East. It was an ambitious programme and the "revolutionists" had gone some distance in their preparations. They had arms stored in certain localities, they had a seal for the temporary government (which seal I have personally seen), they had maps prepared indicating the centres to be attacked as well as a record of the Mounted Police posts with the number of men in each. But these same Mounted Police were not asleep. They never hunted after publicity for themselves. They never thought of the grandstand. It would have been often more spectacular to have allowed things to come out into the open and then fight them in a dramatic way. But the preventive power was what they preferred to exercise. It brought them less advertisement and public notice, but it was best for the country and that was the main thing with the scarlet and gold men. So Superintendent A. E. Snyder, who was in command at White Horse, where the principal leaders of the plot had, unfortunately for themselves, located, discovered the half-hatched conspiracy. A knock-about kind of fellow who had a wholesome fear of the police gave Snyder a hint about some meetings in a stable loft. Snyder got his men to search the stables and they discovered some incriminating literature as well as the White Horse seal of the "republic," which latter Snyder still has in his possession. Then he wired to Superintendent Primrose at Dawson and to Comptroller Fred Whyte in Ottawa, at the same time dispatching Inspector Horrigan to Skagway to put the matter before the American officials. This energetic type of action frightened the conspirators. They scattered to the four winds and most of them rushed out of the country. It was "good riddance of bad rubbish" and the Canadian authorities decided to let it drop at that point. But the incident, which hardly anyone outside the police officers above mentioned knew anything about till some years had passed, is another proof of the statement that the Mounted Police have headed off more crime without killing than any other body of men in the world. In his report for 1908 Commissioner Perry quotes with justifiable pride from a judgment given in an extradition case by Mr. Justice Hunt of the United States Federal Court. Counsel for one Johnson who was fighting extradition put up the plea that Johnson would not get a fair trial in Canada and the Judge answers that plea very squarely in his pronouncement. He felt that a strong case had been made out against Johnson, and he practically ridiculed the suggestion that Johnson would not get fair play north of the line. The Judge said in part, "The fact that the officer (Mounted Police) who made the arrest of this defendant promptly notified him that whatever he said would be used against him, is a powerful bit of testimony, tending to show the care with which officers of the law proceed under British systems of government. Extraditing a prisoner for trial in Canada is not like returning him to a country where the institutions and laws are so at variance with our own that the courts might be apprehensive that he might not be protected, but in ordering that he be returned to Canada, certainly the courts in the United States will proceed on the well-founded belief, justified by the light of experience, that he will be afforded ample protection and that no injustice will be done him. The testimony of the defendant regarding a conspiracy against him, and his statement that he cannot get a fair trial, do not appeal a particle to a Judge sitting in a proceeding of this kind. He will get a fair trial up there." [Illustration: HERSCHELL ISLAND. YUKON TERRITORY.] [Illustration: ESQUIMAUX VISITING R.N.W.M. POLICE TENT.] [Illustration: BARRACKS AT FORT FITZGERALD, GREAT SLAVE RIVER.] [Illustration: R.N.W.M. POLICE SHELTER, GREAT SLAVE LAKE.] [Illustration: CABIN OF REV. FATHERS LE ROUX AND ROUVIER. Murdered by Esquimaux, as found by Mounted Police, September, 1915.] And it is very interesting to find in the same year Superintendent Wood, who was in command of the Yukon country with headquarters at Dawson, standing up against reports in Eastern papers which stated that the enforcement of law is lax in that country and morals at a low ebb. Wood heaps up testimony to the contrary. He quotes from two Judges, Dugas and Craig, both widely known and respected, who affirm that law is enforced there as well as anywhere else, and that there are few cities where men and women can go about at any hour as freely and safely as in Dawson. The minister of a prominent church wrote to the London _Times_ and said, "Regarding Dawson, our city is most orderly and seldom is a drunken man seen on the streets. The Mounted Police rule with a firm hand, and life and property are safer in Dawson than in London." A gentleman who spent eleven years in Dawson, interviewed in 1907 in an Eastern city said, "I have seen more trouble and immorality here in a week than I saw all the years I was in Dawson." And Wood winds up by the strong admonition of a man who will not allow his corps to be slandered for laxity in law enforcement: "Let those who are so anxious to redeem the people of this Territory commence their crusade in their own city or town. Judging from the outside Press there are few if any places in Canada that can presume to give Dawson a lecture on morals." But the Yukon service where the Police were at the beck and call of every case of need or distress or danger, no matter how much hardship and exposure they involved, was taking its toll. The men of the corps were paying the price for the proud privilege of preserving the Pax Britannica in a remote region inhabited by a mixed population and showing a record for justice and law-enforcement such as no area of a similar character in any part of the world had ever seen. For in that year 1908 Inspector D'Arcy Strickland, an officer of kindly generous nature, who had gone into the Yukon with Constantine at the very beginning, died at Fort Saskatchewan, the report stating that he had never recovered from the effects of that pioneer service in the North. In the same year Inspector Robert Belcher, C.M.G., who had won that decoration in the Boer War, retired after thirty-four years' strenuous service. It was Belcher and Strickland who had first flown the flag and established custom-houses amid the snow and blizzards and tremendous cold of those deadly summits of the White and the Chilcoot passes in the days of the gold rush. Wood himself, and Constantine the pathfinder, never threw off the effects of the Yukon days, though the former moved back as Assistant Commissioner to the prairie and the latter did much strenuous work in the Athabasca district where conditions were almost as severe as in the Klondike country. Many others there were, gallant officers, and no less gallant men, who bore the mark of their northern vigils and patrols to the end of their days. And this applies not only to the men of the Yukon but to those who in the Hudson Bay, Peace, Mackenzie and Athabasca areas were abroad in polar seas or on land that for months was hidden deep by snow and ice. The year 1908 witnessed some notable trips and patrols. In order to wind up all matters connected with the Peace-Yukon trail Inspector A. E. C. Macdonnell was instructed by the Commissioner to proceed from Fort MacLeod via Calgary, Vancouver and the Skeena River to Hazelton in British Columbia to dispose of stores that were there and bring the horses back to Fort Saskatchewan. The Peace-Yukon trail was begun in order to have a road to the Yukon mines over British territory, and during its construction a great deal of valuable information as to the country was acquired and given out in reports by the Mounted Police. But the dwindling down of the rush to the mines rendered the trail practically unnecessary. The British Columbia Government did not desire to assist and police detachments could not be spared, hence Macdonnell's trip. It involved a route by saddle horse and pack train of over 1,200 miles, but it was carried out in perfect order. Inspector J. D. Moodie, a noted sea and land patrolling officer, was asserting the jurisdiction of Canada in the regions of the Hudson Bay where there was much trading by people from the outside. Sergeant McArthur, who held a lonely post at Cape Fullerton, receiving word that the natives were being urged by traders to kill musk-ox contrary to law, undertook on his own initiative, in the Arctic midwinter, a patrol which lasted fifty days. Sergeant Donaldson, soldier and sailor too, who was to meet a tragic death the next year, made a dangerous voyage from Fort Churchill to Fullerton and return. A patrol with mail went from Regina to Churchill, Assistant Surgeon LeCroix being sent with this patrol. Staff-Sergeant Fitzgerald, hero of many trails, and who also was to find a tragic end in the "white death" frosts of the Yukon, made that 1908 winter a patrol in a whaling ship to Baillie for the purpose of ascertaining the condition of the natives and asserting Canadian jurisdiction. Superintendent Routledge, going from Regina to Smith's Landing, some 1,100 miles, looked into the matter of wild buffalo herds, as did Sergeant Field and Sergeant McLeod, who went from Fort Vermilion to Hay River on a similar errand. The most extensive patrol of that year was the one undertaken by Inspector E. A. Pelletier, who, accompanied by Corporal Joyce, Constable Walker and Constable Conway and at a later stage by Sergeant McArthur, Corporal Reeves and Constables Travers, McMillan, Walker, McDiarmid and Special Constable Ford, left Fort Saskatchewan on the 1st of June for Athabasca Landing on the way to Hudson Bay via Great Slave Lake, which latter point they left on the 1st of July. They in due time reached Chesterfield Inlet on the Hudson Bay. They were met at that point by Superintendent J. D. Moodie with the Hudson's Bay steamer _MacTavish_ (called after a famous Hudson's Bay Company family). By this boat Pelletier and his men started for Churchill, but the _MacTavish_ in a storm was driven on a reef and totally wrecked. The men all escaped and went to Corporal Joyce's lonely post at Fullerton. Pelletier was anxious to go on to Churchill, but had difficulty in persuading even the natives to go, for they said, "No one travels in December and January--the days are too cold." But the Inspector was thinking of others and writes in his report: "I knew what a lot of anxiety the delay of this patrol would cause and we hurried preparations." The trip was fraught with constant danger from cold and privation, but they made Churchill on January 11. Pelletier modestly says they did not suffer and shows how well off they were when he can state that their dogs were never without food for more than four days at a time! The men ran out of sugar and coffee, but he makes light of that, though both are a great help on a cold journey. They met no natives from whom their stocks of deer and other skins could be replenished, and so when they were stormbound for a day here and there they darned and patched so as to prolong the life of their shoes. The Inspector lets in some light on the general situation when he writes: "The worst feature of a long journey like this in a country where no fuel is to be procured, is the absolute impossibility of drying clothing, bedding, etc. The moisture from the body accumulates and there are no means to dry clothing to get rid of it in any way, and every day sees it harder to put on in the morning and the beds harder to get into at night, until both clothing and bedding become as stiff as a board from the ice. It is a very uninviting task and disagreeable procedure getting into an icy bed at night and in the morning getting into icy clothes." When both clothes and food were frozen and even the prospect of getting an occasional piece of driftwood was dim, one can imagine the situation and wonder at the endurance as well as the daring of these men. And when this state of affairs is realized one can appreciate the action of Constable Ford as related by Corporal Reeves and forwarded in the usual way by Superintendent J. D. Moodie, from Fort Churchill. Some driftwood had been secured, and clothes dried when the party, consisting of Sergeant Donaldson (in charge), Constables Reeves and Ford with two natives, were off Marble Island and anchoring their boat, the _MacTavish_ (which was wrecked later, as mentioned). Ford went over to another island in a small boat to get some walrus meat, as they sighted some walrus there. He came back and reported having killed some, and the three constables went over to cut off their heads and bring these over. As they were engaged in this task it began to get dark, so Donaldson and Reeves left for the _MacTavish_ with some heads, leaving Ford on the island to cut up the rest of the meat and one of the natives would come back for him later. On the way to the _MacTavish_ a walrus struck the boat and Donaldson was drowned, but Reeves, who had done his best to help Donaldson, managed to swim back to the island where Ford had been left. Reeves was completely numb with cold and weak with his struggles. There was no means of getting a fire on that island, but gathering all his strength he shouted in the darkness and Ford, who had not seen the wreck, came to his help. Reeves writes vividly of an act of sacrifice on the part of his companion: "By this time I was very numb and helpless through being in the water so long and getting into the night air, which was very cold. My clothing being soaked through, I would certainly have perished had it not been for Constable Ford, who took off my wet clothes and gave me his dry ones--wringing out as much water from my clothes as he could he put them on himself." Then, in this icy suit, Ford searched all night for Donaldson in vain. It was running a most desperate risk of losing his own life, and if done under the eyes of others would have been declared as valorous as the deed of any man who ever rode back to rescue a wounded comrade under fire of the enemy. Inspector Pelletier's patrol returned to Regina after nearly a year's absence, during which they travelled by trail and water about 3,500 miles, a most extraordinary feat. The report of the patrol decided some important points as to the nature of the country, the conditions of the natives and the places where detachments of Police should be located. Up in the sub-Arctic regions in the other directions, the Mounted Police were keeping their lonely vigils and making their hazardous journeys. Staff-Sergeant (later Inspector) Fitzgerald, who after several years in charge at Herschell Island was relieved in 1909 by Inspector Jennings, gives a little pen-picture of the place when he says, "Herschell Island is one of the most lonely places when there are no whaling ships. There is no place one can go except to visit a few hungry natives, and there is no white man to visit nearer than 180 miles." After speaking highly of his comrades, Constables Carter and Kinny, he refers to one journey incidentally and says, "The heavy ice between Kay and King points formed large pools of water and we struggled with the large sleds all day, sometimes up to our waists in water." One wonders how these men stood it. The Commissioner was right when he indicated that service in the north required men of robust health and hopeful temperament. Inspector A. M. Jarvis says the sailors regard Herschell Island as a "blowhole." The wind blows one way or the other constantly, and he quotes the captains as saying that "a nor'-easter never dies in debt to a sou'-wester." But Jarvis introduces a fine human touch when he says of the inhabitants, "They are quite religious, holding services on Sunday and doing no work on that day. They neither beg nor steal, and slander is unknown amongst them. They are as near 'God's chosen people' as any I have ever seen. After my experience of this world I could almost wish that I had been born an Esquimaux. They are very fond of their children and take the greatest care of them. The children never require to be chastised and are very obedient. One never sees any quarrelling or bickering amongst them. They show the true sport in their games of football and baseball. The other day I noticed a crowd of little tots, in their skin clothes, playing on the snow for several hours as though they were in a bed of roses." This is a delightful picture and in rather painful contrast to our more artificial life, so that one can understand Jarvis' wish. These policemen had a fine regard to the human side of the world's work, and often indicate their keen desire for the things that they deem in the highest moral interest of their districts. In the year we have been discussing, Inspector Horrigan went from Dawson to the Upper Pelly River to look into the matter of a supposed murder and to bring about a reconciliation between two groups of Indians that had fallen out about something. He found that the Blind Creek Indians were in the wrong and effected a better understanding all around. Of the Indians on the Upper Pelly, he writes in his report, "The Pelly Indians are sober, honest and provident. Morally their standard is very high. It seems too bad that so far no provision has been made for a school for the children, as they are a very bright, clever-looking crowd. I see a great field here for good, active Christian work." This is finely spoken--a good admonition both to Church and State--but incidentally also a rebuke to certain phases of a so-called higher civilization which often gives to the unspoiled children of nature its worst rather than its best features. And up in the Mackenzie River district where we left Inspector Jennings in charge we find that able officer also engaged in prescribing certain rules regarding the conduct of visiting ships which tend to ward off from the unsuspecting natives some practices which would not be for the good of these innocent people. Down in the Middle West the Mounted Police were having difficulty with people whose type of religion, being unmixed with intelligence, led them into fanatical excesses. The Doukhobors, or "Spirit Wrestlers" as their name means, were a body of people who had come from Southern Russia, where they had not enjoyed anything like liberty. When they arrived in Winnipeg, where I recall speaking to the first band through an interpreter, they sent back a cablegram to their friends, which was shown me at the time by Mr. McCreary, Commissioner of Immigration at that point. The cable read, "Arrived Canada safe are free." The change was a little too much for them, and they did not realize that they were not free to become nuisances to others. They were ignorant, illiterate, but had the merit of being conscientious and being willing to suffer for conscience' sake. This latter characteristic always prevented me from condemning them wholly. Once their ignorance was removed they would become industrious and orderly citizens. But in the early stages they were fanatics and used to go on pilgrimages, they said in search of Christ. Inspector Junget, Sergeant (now Inspector) Spalding and others of the Police had a lot of trouble in rounding them up, giving them food and preventing them from shocking communities by their parades. The Police used great tact and in the end succeeded in impressing these strange people with some sense of responsibility. In the midst of the difficulty a half-crazed man named Sharpe crossed from the States with some others. He said he was "Christ" going to "God's people, the Doukhobors," but as he was heavily armed and threatened to shoot anyone who tried to stop him, his claim was naturally rejected. Inspector Tucker and a detachment went to see Sharpe and reported that an arrest could not be made without shooting, so it was decided to wait and watch. Sharpe sent the following letter to Tucker: "To save bloodshed use some judgment. I will not give up alive, so some of us would be shot. If I have to continue amongst sinful men I had rather die. No one can say that Jesus is the Christ only by the Holy Ghost. The spirit came to Christ in the form of a dove. It came to me in the form of a lion. When the Doukhobors receive me, then the Lord will prove me and your eyes can open wide." But the Doukhobors were getting their eyes open and the Police, rather than kill anyone, pursued a waiting policy with close supervision. Finally Peter Veregen, the czaristic leader of the Doukhobors, warned the Doukhobors not to receive Sharpe. This nonplussed the fanatic, who had come possibly with an eye to business. He expressed disgust at the way the Doukhobors were in subjection to Veregen, "But they must be the people of God," he said, "or they would not be in such subservience. Veregen has a fine graft and I would like to run the spiritual side of the business for him." However, the redoubtable Peter wanted no partner, so Sharpe and his following crossed back to the States, informing Constable King, who saw them safely across, that "they would be back next spring." However, they came not. The Doukhobors, particularly the new generation, have made much progress and have prospered in establishing some useful industries. But for several years they were a source of a good deal of anxiety to the red-coated riders, who wished to guide them to better conditions without harshness. Events have justified the attitude of the Police. Of course, these law-enforcers still had the ordinary class of offenders to deal with, for crimes like horse-stealing and "cattle-rustling" die hard. For instance, a man named Marker, then south of the line in North Dakota, who, having been allowed out on bail by the Canadian authorities, when he was under a charge of horse-stealing, lost no time in going across beyond the reach of the Mounted Police. Corporal Church, on detachment work, kept his eye on the border for a sight of Marker, who might come over to replenish his stock of horses. Church got word of his intention at a given time, and taking a man named Kelly with him he rode all night, and finding a companion of Marker's, he got the information that the horse-stealer would likely cross over some 20 miles westward. Their horses were pretty tired, but Church and his men kept on, and concealed themselves near a trail crossing the boundary about that distance away. In a few hours Marker and another man rode over and Corporal Church, galloping up to him, ordered him to halt. Marker wheeled, drew his revolver and made for the line. Kelly headed him off and Marker shot at him, but missed. Kelly then charged, knocking both Marker and his horse over. He quickly remounted and rode on, but Church intercepted him, telling him he would shoot if he did not stop. Marker attempted to shoot the constable, but his revolver missed fire. Church then shot Marker's horse and captured the horse-stealer before he got to the line. Church then hired a team to take the prisoner to the detachment headquarters. But when the wagon on a winding road seemed to be on the American side of the line, Marker threw himself from the conveyance and reaching a house at the spot, rushed in and slammed the door. Church reports: "I forced the door open and was met by a blow in the eye from Marker, who had taken his spurs off and used same as a weapon. I grappled with him and threw him on the floor, and with assistance tied his hands and feet after a good rough and tumble scrap." Church had done his duty surely, but whether lawyers and surveyors would prove that the arrest was made a few feet over the line or not we cannot say. The lads of the scarlet tunic always got their man, but the courts sometimes let him go again. In support of the position taken by Superintendent Wood, already quoted in regard to the orderliness of the Yukon, it is interesting to quote from Inspector Wroughton, who was in command of the Dawson Division. He says, looking back over 1908, "I am pleased to report that there has been very little crime in this district during the last eleven months and, I might say, none of a serious nature." In the list of cases for gambling and such like one can gather from the names that the Mounted Police did not confine their efforts to suppressing gambling amongst aliens as some have done elsewhere. The majority of names mentioned are of our own race. The Mounted Police played no favourites. In his report for 1910, Commissioner Perry makes the almost incredible statement that twenty-five new detachments have been established during the past year without any increase in the strength of the Force. The corps seems to have had all through the years an extraordinary elasticity. It seemed to be able to stretch itself over constantly growing areas of settlement and to meet the situation created by the increasing tide of immigration that was flowing over the great new West. That could only be effected because of the superior quality of the individual men, their ability to act separately and upon individual initiative. They did not require to have mass formation to keep their courage up to the necessary pitch. And still better they had the training that would make them reliable in judgment when sudden and unexpected conditions arose. Perry's policy to have a goodly number of men always in training at headquarters so that unready recruits should not have to go out to face emergencies, was being approved by events as highly statesman-like. But he was right in constantly keeping before the Government the need for increasing the numbers of the Force, because, although the men were wonderfully efficient and could be trusted even in "detachments of one," the fact was that burdens were laid upon one man that should have been borne by two or three. To many a man the increase in the number of detachments meant doubling his hours in the saddle and lessening his hours for recuperation. One wonders that more men did not break down under the strain. But for their invariable high calibre this would have been the result. An indication of the way in which the arduous labours of the Police were appreciated is found in the 1909 report of the Commissioner of Agriculture in Saskatchewan, who speaks of the "invaluable assistance given by the officers and men in enforcing the various ordinances of the department. In particular I refer to the Horse-breeders Ordinance, the Fire and Game Ordinances and the Public Health Act, the latter calling for vigilant work in patrolling foreign settlements quarantined for outbreaks of infectious and contagious diseases. Had it not been for the excellent service rendered to the department by this hard-working and highly-trained force of men, the spread of disease would probably have reached epidemic proportions." Speaking of the kind of men required to keep up the reputation of the Force, Commissioner Perry has this illuminating statement: "We require sober, trustworthy men; those who are not, only remain in the Force until they are found out." During the year 1910, there were some notable changes in the Force. Wood, who had served for thirteen years in the Yukon, ten of which as the highly efficient Officer Commanding, was promoted to be Assistant Commissioner; Starnes, who had done difficult work in many places, latterly in the Hudson's Bay district, was promoted to the rank of Superintendent; Sergeants Sweetapple, Raven, Fitzgerald and Hertzog became Inspectors; while two excellent officers, Inspector John Taylor, son of Sir Thomas Taylor, Chief Justice of Manitoba, and Inspector Church, the famous riding master, were called by death. Superintendent Cortlandt Starnes gives a rather chilling picture of the Mounted Police surroundings at Fort Churchill where the weather indicator was for months hitting the bottom of the thermometer bulb, and where there was a general monotony in surroundings. He says, "The place is a dreary one, and there is nothing in the way of recreation for the men except reading and no place to go except the Hudson's Bay post and the English Church mission on a Sunday." This is a good tribute to the self-sacrifice of the missionary. Starnes goes on to say, "There was a gramophone, but it is broken and out of order. The mess-room is a cold and forbidding place." Starnes has a good appreciation of the value of some cheerful environment for his men, for he says, "I have had some chairs put up instead of the long benches, and I have requisitioned for a few pictures to put on the walls. I would also like to have the tin plates and cups replaced by the ordinary white crockery, or crockery of a cheap standard pattern." Starnes is not extravagant in his requisition. Canada is a rich country, and these men holding her lonely outposts deserve consideration, but some picayune arm-chair censor may cut things out, and so the Superintendent goes warily, but he will not desist altogether because he knows the place better than the censor, and he knows that his men should have some reasonable comforts. "A small billiard table," he says, "and some additional books and magazines would be acceptable. The library is well patronized, but in a year's time the most of its books will have been read." A year is quite a while to wait for a mail. It was at a post something like this one that one early Hudson's Bay Company official heard of the Battle of Waterloo a year after it happened. But he held a celebration even then, for were not these grim old traders men of British stock who were holding a new Empire for the British Crown? Of course, things were improving since the advent of the Mounted Police, for they had instituted what Inspector Jennings facetiously called a "rural mail delivery" through regions near the Pole. Jennings himself and his men had patrolled through snow and ice very extensively that year, and the sense of humour that could speak of this white wilderness as a "rural route" would be a saving make-believe in the midst of Arctic blizzards. And the thought of bearing a loving missive to solitary men from friends thousands of miles distant, might well thrill the imagination of these knights of the modern day. CHAPTER XV GLORY AND TRAGEDY IN THE NORTH In the recent Great War a somewhat casual visitor was present when a vagrant shell smashed the refreshment dug-out where a young Red Cross man was handling some comforts for the khaki-clad boys near the front line. And when the alarmed visitor explained to the dispenser of refreshments, "I would not stay here for a hundred dollars a day," the answer came back swiftly but kindly, "Neither would I." He was not there for the hope of gain, but out of a sense of duty and adventure so strong that both danger and remuneration were forgotten. There was a good deal of this spirit manifest in Mounted Police history from the beginning. Not the pittance in the way of pay drew men to the corps, but the love of the adventurous and the desire to do work in the out-of-the-way places, where new trails had to be blazed beyond the accustomed sky-line. This was especially true of the men who served and volunteered to serve again in the vast spaces of the white and frozen North. Not for a hundred a day would they have so risked their lives, as others risk them still in that region. It was because the jurisdiction of their country's flag had to be asserted, and because lonely outposts and scattered groups of sometimes starving natives challenged the best that was in them, that these uniformed crusaders went out again and again on their hazardous patrols. And so, when in 1911 Inspector Fitzgerald, Constables Kinney, Taylor and Special Constable Carter, four men of the finest type and the most thorough experience in those desperate, trackless and frozen areas, men cast in so fine a mould that some of them were to be selected for the King's Coronation, perished on a patrol from Herschell Island to Fort Macpherson and Dawson City, Canada was stabbed broad awake to what the men of the Force had been doing for their country in those Arctic lands. It seems as if such catastrophes are periodically required to make a selfish world aware of what some men are enduring in order that others may live in comfort and ease. But the world does not always receive such lessons in the right spirit. The tendency is rather to raise a protest against the authorities who permit men so to sacrifice themselves. Thus, when those four gallant men fell in the Northern wilderness, the first note from the press seemed to indicate that this patrol was an exceptional occurrence, and that it should not have been allowed to take place in view of the possible sacrifice it might involve. This gave Commissioner Perry, than whom no one was more deeply distressed and grieved at the tragic event, an opportunity to remind the country that such patrols had been for years a common and every-day event in the work of his men in the North. From year to year, under the Polar sky, in scores of different directions, the Police had carried on this work, performing definite duties, carrying mails, visiting camps of Indians and Esquimaux who were the wards of the nation, maintaining law and order beyond the confines of civilization and generally exercising a wholesome oversight in the loneliest spaces in the world. "This is dangerous work," wrote the Commissioner; "in our rigorous winter climate and in spite of every precaution, a tragedy may occur at any time. It does not deter our men from seeking service there, and it is to the North many prefer to go." The spirit of adventure was in the blood of these men, and the tragic possibilities which no one foresaw as well as they did themselves erected no barrier which could discourage them in their endeavours. If there was the constant looming up of danger through the "white death" fog, there was also the glory of adventure under the flashing splendour of the aurora borealis. [Illustration: R.N.W.M.P. BARRACKS, CHURCHILL, HUDSON BAY.] [Illustration: POLICE WITH DOGS AND EQUIPMENT ON SPLIT LAKE. N.W.T.] And when Commissioner Perry wrote in his report as above quoted, he was able to support his statement by actual facts from that very same year. He said: "All over the North-land members of this Force are carrying out these difficult journeys. Attached to this report you will find many reports of equally dangerous patrols. Sergeant Hayter, 700 miles return journey from Fullerton along the West Coast of Hudson Bay to Rankin Inlet, to meet Sergeant Borden, who went up from Fort Churchill, carrying mail and taking a census of the Esquimaux; Sergeant Walker from Fort Churchill to York Factory and return; Sergeant Nicholls from Norway House to Fort Churchill and return to Gimli; Sergeant Edgenton from Split Lake to Fort Churchill, arriving with dogs abandoned by the way, and three days without food; Sergeant Munday from the Pas to Lac de Brochet and return, 900 miles in fifty-one days; and Sergeant MacLeod from Fort Vermilion across the Caribou Mountains to Great Slave Lake." This is a most formidable list, and to anyone who knows the country and the climate it affords the imagination a moving panorama, in which constant danger and almost incredible endurance are portrayed. All this forcibly reminded Canada of the devotion of her sons in the Northern hinterland, and that was the purpose of it being definitely stated. And it gives us a sort of veneration for the memory of the four men of the Fitzgerald patrol whose magnificent strength, after having been tried and proven on many similar journeys for years, succumbed before a combination of intolerable cold, blizzard-swept trails, unfamiliar river passes, shortage of provisions and starving train-dogs. For it was the death of these men that brought home to the people the astonishing achievements and heroisms of Canadian chivalry on the frontiers. Fitzgerald himself, as we have already seen, had been famous for years as an intrepid patrol man, and had been promoted to the rank of Inspector for his services. All the others, Kinney, Taylor and ex-Constable Carter, had been more than once mentioned in dispatches. This is a legitimate expression, because in reality the Mounted Police were always on active service, and their merits were made known in the reports of their superior officers. Strangely enough, from the human viewpoint, it was at Fitzgerald's own request that he was selected by the Commissioner in 1910 to take command of the Mackenzie River district. It was only the year before that he, then a staff-sergeant, had handed over that district to Inspector Jennings, but after receiving his promotion, Fitzgerald heard the insistent call of the great familiar North so overwhelmingly that he asked to be sent back into the white wastes again. And further, to vindicate some divine purpose running through it all, he suggested the patrol in that direction himself. The patrol had always been from "Dawson to Fort Macpherson and Herschell," but Fitzgerald asked to have its order reversed, and offered to go from Herschell Island to Macpherson and Dawson, from which latter point he could get into touch by wire with headquarters at Regina and report on his district. To this the Commissioner agreed, and so notified the Comptroller at Ottawa, as well as the officer commanding at Dawson, who was told to expect the patrol from Macpherson about the end of January. When the patrol started from Fort Macpherson everything seemed favourable for a mid-winter trip. The men were all in fit condition, thoroughly acquainted with conditions of winter travel, and so keen to make a record journey that they did not burden themselves with more food than necessary for themselves and their dogs, of which they had fifteen for their three trains. The sequel proved that had they been able to keep the route they would have made Dawson in good shape. The trouble came upon them when neither map nor compass or any previous knowledge availed them in the maze of rivers and mountains that lay in their way. Taylor and Kinney had never been over the route, Fitzgerald had been over it once on another trail from the Dawson end. Carter had been over the new trail once a few years previously, but he, too, had come over it from Dawson to Macpherson, and a route with its piloting marks of bluffs and trees or banks by the way-side looks quite different when traversed the opposite way. Carter was a powerful, experienced and thoroughly reliable man, who had seen much service in the Force. Though not in the corps at the time of the patrol, he had been confident of his ability to guide the party to Dawson, and Fitzgerald had taken him on in that capacity. The weather was intensely cold, and the going heavy, with here and there the rivers bursting up through the broken ice and creating very difficult trails. But they were all used to that, and did not mind it. Over a portage at a certain point they secured the services of an Indian, named Esau, to break trail and guide them to a certain point from which Carter was sure he knew the way. There the Indian was discharged and returned to his camp, Fitzgerald probably feeling that extra expenditure of Government funds for a guide was not justified when Carter was along. The scene changes to Dawson. The patrol did not arrive when expected, and Superintendent A. E. Snyder, an experienced officer, who was in command there, began to get anxious, and when some Indians arrived from the Fort Macpherson direction he got in touch with them at once. From them he learned that Esau, who had been discharged at a certain point, expected the patrol to be in Dawson many days before the day of Snyder's inquiry. Snyder, fearing the worst, became alarmed. He wired the Commissioner as to the situation, and at the same time called Corporal Dempster from Forty Mile and instructed him to get ready a party to go in search of the lost patrol. The Commissioner flashed back instructions to send out a search party, and it went without delay. It is evident from his telegram that the Commissioner, who knew the perils of the trail and had his hand on every part of the country, thought the trouble was with the failure of the guide, because he asks why the Indian, who was mentioned by Snyder, was discharged, and in order that no undue risks be taken he says, "Send a well-outfitted party." The party sent out was fully up to requirements. Corporal Dempster was a noted traveller of those Yukon trails, and at the date of this writing is out on the same difficult route, his strength unbroken by the intervening years. For his party in search of Fitzgerald he chose Constable Fyfe, ex-Constable Turner, and an Indian, Charles Stewart. They had all been over the country again and again, and so knew it well. They were all eager to go in the hope of reaching their missing comrades. The broad outline of their duty was given them by Superintendent Snyder, with the Spartan simplicity and directness characteristic of the Mounted Police. It ran thus: "Corporal Dempster. You will leave to-morrow for a patrol over the Fort Macpherson trail to locate the whereabouts of Inspector Fitzgerald's party. Indians from Macpherson reported him on New Year's Day at Mountain Creek. Fair travelling from Mountain Creek is about twenty days to Dawson. I understand that at Hart, no matter which route he took, he would have to cross the divide. I think it would be advisable to make for this point and take up his trail from there. I cannot give you any specific instructions; you will have to be guided by circumstances and your own judgment, _bearing in mind that nothing is to stand in your way until you have got into touch with this party_." Dempster and his men made a record trip, both going to Macpherson and coming back. And this they did despite the fact that they had to face high winds, blinding snowstorms and flooded ice, besides searching the rivers that branched off the main route. They arrived back in Dawson on April 17, 1911, gaunt and haggard. "It's the hardest patrol I ever made," said Dempster, and that not by the perils of the way, which he was well able to meet, but because, as had already been told to the world, he had found the dead bodies of his four gallant comrades, where they had perished of cold and hunger on the way. The first two bodies, those of Kinney and Taylor, were found some 35 miles from Macpherson, and those of Carter and Fitzgerald within a score of miles of that place. Only a short day's run from Macpherson. If those who were there had only known, how speedily they would have gone to the rescue! It appears clear from what Fitzgerald had written in his diary, the first date in which was December 21, 1910, and the last February 5, 1911, that not many days after Indian Esau had left, it became apparent that Carter had over-estimated his ability to remember the route which he had only passed over once a few years before, and that the reverse way. Many landmarks may have been removed by fire and otherwise since that time. Poor Carter! I sometimes feel he suffered more than any of them when he found that he could not find the way he thought he knew. How hard he tried day after day, leaving camp with one or other of his companions and going up one river after the other, only to find that they ended as "blind alleys," along which they could proceed no farther. And so Fitzgerald has to write on January 17: "Carter is hopelessly lost and does not know one river from another. We have only 10 lbs. of flour, 8 lbs. of bacon and some dried fish. My last hope is gone, and the only thing I can do is to return and kill some of the dogs to feed the others and ourselves. We have now been a week looking for a river to take us over the divide, but there are dozens of rivers and I am at a loss." One asks why they had not turned back days before, and as soon as they found the route uncertain. The answer is that it was not the Police way to turn back when they were out on a definite errand. These men were of the same calibre as the young constable in the foothill country who was caught in a blizzard while out on duty, and on whose body, as already quoted, was found a paper with the words: "Lost. Horse dead. Am trying to push ahead. Have done my best." But Fitzgerald was not alone, and had to save his men if he could. Kinney and Taylor, less strong than the others, suffered from cold and severe pains, the results perhaps of the dog meat and dog liver diet. The dogs would not eat this food, and so the men gave them the fish they had for their own use. So, in a last effort to save his men, Fitzgerald ordered the return, in the hope of making Fort Macpherson, from which they had travelled over 300 miles. He and Carter could have made it had they not been hampered by the other two, who were sick. But they would not leave them, as shown by the fact that Dempster found the camps each night were only a few miles apart. Finally, it appears that in the hope of reaching Macpherson and getting help Fitzgerald and Carter gave all the food, such as it was, and all the warm sleeping-bags to their comrades, and tried to reach Macpherson, which was only 35 miles away. They made 10 miles and then gave out and fell. Carter was evidently the first to go, for his body was laid out, his hands crossed, and a handkerchief put over his face. Then the gallant Fitzgerald succumbed, first having written with a charred stick on a paper found in his pocket his will in the fine words: "All money in dispatch bag and bank, clothes, etc., I leave to my dearly beloved Mother, Mrs. John Fitzgerald, of Halifax. God bless all. F. J. Fitzgerald, R.N.W.M.P." Many times have the initials of the old corps been written in important and honourable connections, but never with greater honour to the Force than when they were thus set down with the thought of his mother and a benediction for all by the numbed fingers of the heroic Inspector who was faithful unto death. When Dempster and his men found the emaciated bodies and the mail which the dead men had carefully guarded they covered the bodies over reverently with brush, for their dogs were too far spent by the hard, swift trip to draw them, and went on to Fort Macpherson with the sad news. Those at Macpherson never dreamed but that the four strong, splendid men who had left them weeks before had long ere the date of Dempster's arrival reached Dawson City. The news that now came blanched all faces and cast a great gloom over that little company in the far North. Next morning, March 23, Corporal Somers and Constable Blake got together three fresh dog-teams with which, accompanied by two Indians, Somers started out at noon and returned on the 25th with the bodies of the men who had given up their lives in the line of their duty. A grave was prepared, the only one of its kind in the Northland, where the four bodies were buried side by side, in coffins made and covered with black by Somers and Dempster. The funeral was held in the Anglican Church, that devoted missionary, Rev. C. E. Whittaker, conducting the service in the presence of Mrs. Whittaker, nine white men and the native residents. Dempster says finely here: "Even though the funeral was held in the most northerly part of the Empire, away in the Arctic Circle, hundreds of miles from civilization, I am glad to be able to assure you that everything was done in connection with the last sad rites that could possibly be done under the circumstances, and I am sure that the relatives and friends of the deceased will be glad to know that it was possible to have Christian burial services read by an ordained minister of the Gospel over the bodies of their loved ones." The honours were duly paid also by their comrades, for there was a firing party of five, Somers, Blake, Dempster, Fyfe and Turner, to give the farewell salute at the graveside. In the solitude of the vast Northland the rattle of that musketry would not carry far in one sense, but it awaked echoes in hearts that understood in far places of the Empire. When Commissioner Perry sent his final report on the matter he voiced the feelings of all when he wrote: "Their loss has been felt most keenly by every member of the Force, but we cannot but feel a thrill of pride at the endeavour they made to carry out their duty. I cannot express it better than in the following extract from a letter addressed to me by His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor of Saskatchewan: 'While the occurrence brings deepest sadness to all, we feel that such an event gives greater lustre and enduring remembrance to the splendid Force.'" And Inspector Sanders, then at Athabasca Landing, who knew the men well and had received a report from Corporal Somers, wrote a statement to the Commissioner, in which these fine sentences occur: "It would appear that Inspector Fitzgerald was the last to succumb, and that he and Carter would probably have made Fort Macpherson had they not heroically stood by their stricken and weary companions. The pathetic attention evidently paid by Inspector Fitzgerald to his dead companions was in keeping with his brave and manly character." Memorial services were held in Dawson and other places, and at the service in Dawson Governor Alexander Henderson said: "They did not fall in the shock of battle, but, none the less, they all died nobly in the discharge of their duty and in the service of their country." The members of the Mounted Police Force raised a large amount for the purpose of a memorial tablet, but perhaps the most eloquent, if humble, testimonies were in the wide North, where the men and their achievements were so well known for years. Corporal Somers, at Fort Macpherson, cut a copper camp kettle into strips and engraved upon them the names of the brave departed, while more recently the famous old name of Smith's Landing at the end of the Athabasca River navigation was changed to Fitzgerald as a tribute to the memory of the gallant Policeman whose name was a household word in all that country. The fatal ending of the Fitzgerald patrol remains as the most tragic happening in the long and remarkable history of the Mounted Police. But, as already suggested, it startled our people into a fuller realization of what the men of the Force were and are doing so unobtrusively for the country at such constant risk to themselves. The passing of Fitzgerald and his companions on that frozen way will not have been in vain if our Canadian lads learn new lessons from the men whose silent tents are, at the end of the trail, pitched on the eternal camping ground of Fame. If these lessons of heroism and devotion to duty are learned and practised by the young men of to-day, then that lonely fourfold grave under the Arctic sky will prove to be one of the bulwarks of the nation. CHAPTER XVI STRIKING INCIDENTS The White North was taking its toll of the men who were at the outposts of Empire as exponents of British administration. When Fitzgerald left Herschell Island on his last patrol, Sergeant Selig and Constable Wissenden remained in charge of that remote and lonely point, but in January, despite the efforts of his solitary white companion Wissenden, Selig, after much suffering, passed over the Great Divide. Wissenden, with the help of the natives, made a coffin and placed the body in a storehouse to await Fitzgerald's expected return. Corporal Somers and Constable Blake at Fort Macpherson heard through Hudson's Bay Company men that Selig had died in January, and before they could take any steps to go to Herschell Island, Dempster came from Dawson with the news of the death of Fitzgerald and his comrades. One can imagine the strain upon these men Somers and Blake at Macpherson, and Wissenden alone on Herschell Island, where, besides suffering loss by the death of his companion, he was so isolated from the civilized world that he did not see the face of a white man from November, 1910, till March, 1911. But as soon as Dempster's patrol left Macpherson for Dawson, Somers, who throughout acted with a thorough sense of what was necessary and fitting, left Macpherson for Herschell Island, where he arrived in April. The body of Selig, as above stated, was awaiting the expected return of Inspector Fitzgerald. Instead of that Wissenden received now the news of the death of the members of that patrol, and not only he but the natives of the Island were greatly shocked and grieved. Then the funeral of Selig was held, Somers bringing Mr. Fry, of the Church of England Mission, from Escape Reef for the service. The mourners were the two Policemen and every Esquimaux on the Island, all following behind the dog sled which carried the coffin to the bleak burial ground. "Sergeant Selig," said Superintendent Sanders in his report of the district, "was one of the best N.C.O.'s in the Force." And Fitzgerald, who knew men in that country at first hand, said in his previous year's report: "Sergeant Selig, S.E.A., is a most efficient N.C.O., and has done excellent work in the North. Since he has been in this country he has been on every patrol, both summer and winter. He is a most capable man for any kind of work in the Northern country." He, too, fell like a good soldier, dying at his post, in the swift illness brought on by the terrific exposure of years in the Arctic. The passing of Selig at Herschell Island and in Dawson of Sergeant E. Smith, who had done notable work in the Yukon, as well as the Fitzgerald patrol, showed a heavy casualty list in 1911 as the price of holding the North and protecting its inhabitants. In some other ways that 1910-11 period was quite notable. The years were beginning to tell upon the Force, which was always popularly considered as a corps of young men. But in reality it had travelled through time for wellnigh two score of years, and men who had joined up while scarcely out of their teens had given a long day's work and were entitled to go on the pension list. Most prominent of these was Assistant Commissioner John H. McIlree, who was one of the original group. He joined up when organization was first mooted in the autumn of 1873, coming West over the difficult mud-and-water Dawson Route to the historic Lower Fort Garry, where these pioneers who were to lay the foundation of a famous corps were sworn in by Lieut.-Colonel Osborne Smith, as already related. McIlree was then Sergeant, but in the coming years, by reliable and distinguished service, worked his way up to the Assistant-Commissionership. Before his retirement he received the decoration of the Imperial Service Order in recognition of the contribution he had made to the welfare of the country. Surgeon Pare, Inspector Camies and Inspector A. M. Jarvis, who had won his C.M.G. in the South African War, also retired to pension, as did a number of well-known non-commissioned officers and men, Flintoff, McClelland, Haslett, Nicholson, Butler, Smith, Thompson, Aylesworth and Carter. On the other hand, several non-commissioned officers moved up to the Inspectorship rank; Shoebotham, Telford and Newson, who had done good service on the plains and the Northland; and Beyts, Field and French, whose remarkable patrols on the Hudson's Bay, Athabasca and Mackenzie River areas had attracted wide attention. In that period, also, a detachment consisting of seven officers and seventy-five non-commissioned officers and men, selected from all the divisions of the Force, including the Hudson's Bay and Yukon areas, went over to the King's Coronation. Commissioner Perry accompanied them, and was given a very prominent place in connection with the Coronation ceremonies. The whole contingent formed a special guard of honour on different occasions, and won high appreciation for their splendid bearing and gentlemanly character. For this highly creditable bearing and reputation which reflected honour on Canada they were specially thanked in London by Sir Wilfrid Laurier, who took great pride in the corps all through his public life. And all the time, at the far-flung outposts of the King's Empire, the Mounted Police at home in Canada were keeping the British peace and looking after the administration of British law where the banner of Britain flew. That versatile officer, Superintendent Deane, then in command at Calgary, tells us of a peculiar case which arose out of the disappearance of an eccentric old-time rancher, named Tucker Peach. He had been known for years as "Old Tucker," and it is said that only the postmaster at Gladys, where he got his mail, and an implement agent and rancher, named Jack Fisk, knew the Peach part of it. But Peach had a big roll of money, which had been seen by one or two when he was making purchases, and this old recluse kept it about the shack he occupied, as in his eccentricity he had no use for banks. No kith or kin had he in the country, and he had mentioned to a neighbour that he was going to sell his ranch and go back to England. One day he was absent from his accustomed haunts, but as no one expected that he would say good-bye to anyone his disappearance was not considered in any way odd, and it was not reported to the Police. Some young fellow came to live on the ranch, and he was supposed to be the purchaser or his agent. And as no one on the frontier in those days cared whether his neighbour was a "duke's son or a cook's son," as long as he "played fair," nothing unusual was suspected and things resumed the even tenor of their way. The young man on the ranch later said he was tenant in charge of the place for Mitchell Robertson, who owned it, but who was then working on the train as a brakesman out of Calgary. Robertson had left word with the postmaster at Gladys that any mail coming for Peach should be forwarded to Robertson's address in Calgary. Some months later a body, headless, was found in the river, but it was so decomposed that the Coroner, Dr. Revell, finding no trace of foul play, ordered it buried. It might have been a drowning. Later still, a skull was found near by with a hole in the centre, batting in one ear and a dent on the forehead to one side of the centre. Then Dr. Revell had the body exhumed and called an inquest. The Mounted Police took a hand and Inspector Duffus watched the case. In the meantime, Robertson vanished suddenly off the train, but was caught at MacLeod by the Mounted Police there and brought back to the inquest at Okatoks. Meanwhile, Inspector Duffus got hold of some strong evidence. Ranchers had expressed the opinion that the skull was "Old Tucker's" by its shape and by the batting, and one "old-timer" was found who said the dent in the skull near the side was from a kick by a horse years before, and that he knew it because he had helped "Old Tucker" bind up the wound at the time. Robertson was called to give evidence, and became so mixed in his testimony that Inspector Duffus called his attention to the discrepancies. Robertson would say nothing more and Duffus, with the Coroner's permission, took him into another room, and after warning him asked him if he had anything to say. The result was a full confession of the murder. It appears that Fisk, who was disposed to terrorize people, had told Robertson that he was going to do away with "Old Tucker," and that Robertson must come with him. After it was over Robertson was to have the land and Fisk the horses in the place. They went to Tucker's shack early one morning and, knocking at the door, Robertson told who he was. The old rancher got up and admitted them, and as he was dressing Fisk shot him through the forehead, and putting the revolver into Robertson's hand said, "Now you shoot also," which Robertson did. Then they got the money, hitched up the team and drove to the river, where they dumped the body. But the river again gave up its dead. When the confession got this far word was wired to Calgary, from where three Mounted Police went out in a motor in the night and arrested Fisk, who was taken off guard or he might have made a fight. Both Fisk and Robertson were convicted. Fisk was hanged, but Robertson, who had turned "King's evidence," was given imprisonment for life. The community breathed easier when Fisk was out of the way. A curious and interesting sequel was furnished by a handsome dog, which had belonged to Fisk, and was with him when he murdered Peach. When Fisk was arrested the human-hearted men of the scarlet tunic, who had pursued the inhuman murderer, adopted his innocent dog and called him "Fisk." The dog attached himself to Constable Davis, and was with him when he was shot by "Running Wolf," a desperate Indian whom he was arresting. Then the dog became attached to Corporal Watts, accompanied him for four years on special duty, and was with him at Exshaw, when Watts narrowly escaped death at the hands of a desperado there. Finally, when Watts (now Sergeant, and a man who has seen much service) was moving to Vancouver with the Division, "Fisk," who had become infirm and old, was run over by a street car in Calgary. This star-witness of many crimes, concerning which he could not speak, thus closed an exciting and adventurous career. Back further in the years another case of a somewhat similar type occurred, and all these cases indicate not only the certain and deadly precision of the Mounted Police methods in relation to the capture of criminals, but they also suggest to the imagination what the lonely prairie would have been to settlers without the presence of this watchful corps. The case to which I now refer was one in which the body of an evidently murdered man was found near Lacombe, in Alberta. There was no clue to the murderer, but Superintendent Constantine, himself a keen detective, put Sergeant Hetherington on the trail. Hetherington proved to be a persistent sleuth. All he had to start on was a buckle on the vest of the victim, indicating Kalamazoo as its place of origin. It was a far cry from Michigan, but by process of investigation one James Smith from that State came and identified the body as that of his stepson, whose name was Leon Stainton. The young man, who had some money, had left Kalamazoo, in company with a more or less chance acquaintance, generally called "Bud" Bullock, though his right name was Charles B. Bullock. But Bullock had disappeared, leaving not a trace behind. He was known to be a miner, and Hetherington got on the track of mining areas. He first went to Kalamazoo and got a sample of Bullock's writing from an hotel register. Hetherington did not expect to find Bullock's name on hotel registers after the date of the murder, but the Sergeant studied handwriting and the formation of the letters in the name. Then he came back to Calgary and searched the hotel registers till he got a name where the same letters looked alike. Bullock had changed his name, but he could not get away from the alphabet. Then Hetherington haunted the mining districts all the way from Michigan to the mountains, and searched hotel registers and pay rolls for three long months. That took a lot of dogged determination, but though he was getting new names all along the way the Sergeant detected similarity in letters, and by mingling with the miners, found out where the man had gone from place to place. Then the handwriting would be compared in that new locality. Finally, in Montana, Hetherington found on a pay roll a new name where similar letters corresponded, and the man was at work there. The Sergeant went amongst the miners, recognized Bullock, and putting his hand on his shoulder said, "Hello, Bullock." The man started and said, "My name is not Bullock." "Oh yes, it is," said the Mounted Policeman, "it is Charles B. Bullock, _alias_ Bud Bullock, and I am here to arrest you for the murder of Leon Stainton, near Ponoka, in Alberta." Then the man caved in and said, "I always felt that the red-coats would get me, even if it took years." He owned up, and as it was useless to fight extradition he came back with Hetherington and after trial paid the penalty for his crime. But think of the endless patience and doggedness of Hetherington, who, with only a scrap of handwriting on a fragment of paper, searched for months, day and night, over half a continent for similar letter formations till he landed his man. It was the Mounted Police way. [Illustration: INSPECTOR FITZGERALD. Died on Yukon Patrol. _Photo. Rossie, Regina._] [Illustration: SUPT. CHARLES CONSTANTINE. Pioneer Policeman in the Yukon. _Photo. Steele & Co., Winnipeg._] [Illustration: INSPECTOR LA NAUZE. With prisoners "Sinnisiak" and "Uluksak," at Bernhard Harbour. June, 1916.] In 1912 we find Commissioner Perry still battling to the end that the services of all ranks in his command should receive recognition in the form of higher remuneration for the good reasons that the cost of living was going up; that men in civil life were getting much more for less important and dangerous work, and that the enormously increasing population of the West made ever larger calls upon the efforts and the initiative powers of the officers and men. And the Commissioner, who is always intent on keeping the Force on a high level, said that if the increased pay was granted there would possibly be more applications than vacancies. In such a case he would aim at constantly improving the personnel of the corps by accepting recruits on probation only, by discharging those lacking in energy, intelligence and character, and by making dismissal the most severe punishment that could be handed out to any member of the Force. The Commissioner's far-sighted policy in this and other regards has always told favourably on the high prestige of the Corps. That year 1912 witnessed an unusual number of changes in the Force. Chief amongst these changes was the loss sustained by the death, in California, of Superintendent Charles Constantine, who had served in the Force for twenty-six years, after having seen active duty in the suppression of the two Riel Rebellions. I have already made special reference to the work of this officer, with whom I served when he was Adjutant of the Winnipeg Light Infantry. He never advertised or pushed himself forward, but by sheer force of character his merits became known increasingly throughout the years. His death was widely mourned, not only by his comrades, but by the people of the vast country where he had done so much foundation work. At the time of his passing out, Commissioner Perry, who knew the Force so well, wrote: "Because of his strength of character, sound judgment and physical strength, he was selected for much of the pioneer work of the Force. He was the first to command in the Yukon Territory, and in the early days of the gold rush his tact and firmness established the reputation of that gold camp as the most orderly in the world. Subsequently he was employed in the far North, and in the strenuous work of the Peace-Yukon road-making, contracted the disease which eventually caused his death." Constantine had taken a large share in Western history, and his name will not be forgotten on the roll of the makers of the country. In that same year also two prominent officers who, as this record shows, had done splendid service in very difficult places all over the frontiers, and who had served with distinction in the Boer War, Superintendents G. E. Sanders, D.S.O., and A. E. Snyder, retired to pension. Others in recognition of merit were moved up to fill vacancies, Inspectors T. A. Wroughton, F. J. A. Demers, F. J. Horrigan, all tried men, becoming Superintendents, and such well-known non-commissioned officers as F. A. Gordon, A. E. Acland, J. W. Spalding, T. Dann, and G. W. Currie being promoted to the rank of Inspectors. Dr. S. M. Fraser was raised to the full rank of Surgeon, and Drs. W. H. Mewburn and E. A. Braithwaite, all of whom had been prominent on the frontiers, were made honorary Surgeons. Thus were men coming and going. That year, over 200 recruits were added to the Force, which even then was less than 700 to patrol a territory larger than half-a-dozen European kingdoms. To illustrate how the Mounted Police always sprang in to help in emergencies we recall at that time that a disastrous cyclone hit the City of Regina, where the Mounted Police Headquarters were at that time. Cyclones are rare occurrences in Canada, but after one sultry day this black tempest arose on the prairie and tore through the city, leaving death and destruction in its wake. The whole resources of the Mounted Police were placed at the disposal of the city. Officers and men worked with a will, unresting in their efforts to rescue the injured and make the city safe for the living. Every night till the trouble was over they kept guard over life and property, always in danger at such times, and the following, in a letter from the Mayor of Regina to Commissioner Perry, is a fine testimony. Referring to the work of the various organizations that had been at work during that time of trial, Mayor McAra says: "We have had so much reason to be satisfied with the working of the various organizations that had in charge the different features of the work in connection with this storm that it is difficult to express oneself adequately as to the services rendered by these several organizations. We believe, however, that the services of the various organizations have only been made possible by the service rendered by your Force. I believe that perhaps more was done to establish a sane understanding of the situation by the officers and men of your patrol than in any other way and, appreciating this, it is difficult for me on behalf of the Committee in charge, to properly express the feeling of gratitude we have." Herein did Mayor McAra, who knew the Force well, express a truth that had application not only to the situation after the Regina cyclone, but to the history of the West, namely, that the presence of the Mounted Police made the country safe for those who desired to develop its resources in the ways of industrious peace. As another piece of evidence for the truth of this general statement, let me instance several letters of thanks and appreciation from officials, engineers and contractors on the Hudson's Bay Railway in 1913 to Inspector French, who was in command of the Mounted Police in the district. Vice-President Boyd wrote: "The services of the R.N.W.M.P. have been most satisfactory, the conduct of the Force stationed here and along our works being a credit to the honoured institution of which they are members." Assistant Chief Engineer Garrow: "In my opinion the general good conduct of the men in our employ and the prevention of trouble usually caused by illicit whisky-peddling has been obtained by the systematic campaign that you waged on the opening of this construction. In my personal dealings with yourself, Sergeant Munday and staff I found all courteous, always willing to co-operate and to take prompt action in case of emergency." Mr. M. McMillan, the Chief Sub-contractor, wrote: "I wish to compliment you and the members of the Force under your command on the very efficient manner in which you and they have policed the line of construction of the Hudson's Bay railway. I have never had a gang of men on any contract where there was less friction and less whisky on the work than on this job, and I realize that it is to you and your Force that we owe this state of affairs. I trust we shall all be together on the Nelson end of the steel." This, we repeat, is another instance of the way in which the men in scarlet and gold provided an environment and an atmosphere in which the industrial development of the country could be carried on under conditions that made for success. While never taking part with either employer or employed, the firm, impartial and tactful Mounted Police Force often became a living windbreak against social tempests, which without it might, at times, have thrown both sides into confusion and have wrecked projects that were vital to the progress of the Dominion. While going through old annual reports of the work of the Police one is struck by the frequency with which one comes across deeds of heroism, which were only noted formally in a few lines at the time, and which have lain buried out of sight ever since. But if they had been done on other fields they would have won wide publicity and many decorations. There is not much of a thrill playing on the surface of a report given by Constable Wight, who was the whole detachment at a village in Alberta. But one cannot read it in a short paragraph without finding between the lines a lot of danger in small compass. A man named Winning, who perhaps presumed on his name, decided at 1 a.m. that he did not like the room the night clerk had given him at the hotel, and wanted it changed. Rooms were not plentiful in these small places, and there was no other to be had, on finding out which, Mr. Winning, after raising a general disturbance to the discomfort of the other guests, went away and came back shortly with several sticks of dynamite. He said he was going to blow up the hotel, and this declaration did not add to the peace of mind of the hotel clerk and the guests. The town constable was on hand, but the gentleman with the sticks of dynamite flourished them, and said he would blow the constable to fragments if he interfered. Mounted Police-Constable Wight, who was some distance away, was awakened and told of the situation. Meantime, Mr. Winning, who had not committed any overt act, had retired to a camp near by with his high explosives. But Constable Wight got an information sworn out against him for having an explosive in his possession with intent to endanger life, which was putting it mildly enough when he was in fact dealing with a man running amuck with dynamite playthings. However, this served the purpose of Constable Wight, who rode out to the camp and arrested the man, explosives and all. It was not a very pleasant undertaking, but that did not count for anything with a wearer of the scarlet tunic out on duty. Several times in this book has come the necessity for expressing regret that there is no decoration for valour in time of peace corresponding to the Victoria Cross in times of war. Of the two we have good ground for thinking that a gallant deed done in peace time in cold blood and with a full sense of the danger, is at least as great as the same kind of deed done when the blood is hot with battle and the risk is unknown or unconsidered. Take, for instance, the case of Constable Moorehead, as related not by himself (the Mounted Policeman's eleventh commandment is not to talk), but in a letter to Superintendent Primrose from Dr. Nyblett, the coroner near Nanton, Alberta, where was a reducing plant of the Natural Gas Company. The letter says, "It was reported to Constable Moorehead that some men were suffocating in the high-pressure station and he immediately rode over." He had no orders to go except from his own conscience, but there was no hesitation, though he knew the supreme danger. The letter goes on. "There was a disconnected four-inch pipe, with a pressure of 125 pounds to the inch, in the building, and Constable Moorehead could see one of the bodies moving and he thought there was life." It was probably being moved by the terrific gas pressure. "Moorehead placed his hat over his mouth and went in; on getting near the bodies the jet of gas struck him and blew him to the other side of the building; there he groped for the door, but was too nearly unconscious to find it. Another man who had come up saw him and was able to reach in and pull Moorehead out. When Moorehead recovered consciousness he found a bar and prised off some of the corrugated iron near the bodies. He then crawled in through the hole with the other man holding his feet, and pulled out one of the bodies; he then went in again and got another. He was so weak and exhausted by this time that he had not strength to pull the third out, but crawled in and tied a rope to it, and after it was pulled out did the same with the fourth." "Unless one was actually there," says the coroner, "it would be very difficult to realize just how plucky this act was. The pressure of the escaping gas was so great that the caps of the men were held up against the roof of the building, and the poisoning by this gas in large quantities is instantaneous." We have not read anywhere in the annals of war a finer tale of gallantry. Constable Moorehead got another stripe for "conspicuous bravery" and became Corporal, received a small grant from the fine fund, and at a full-dress parade of the Division was presented by Judge McNeill with the bronze medal of the Royal Canadian Humane Association. All this was very suitable, but I still think there is room for a peace-time decoration up to the level of the Victoria Cross. During the year 1912 there was constant oversight exercised in the Hudson's Bay and Mackenzie River districts, as well as in the Yukon. All this involved much dangerous patrol work, but it was carried out without any untoward happening. Superintendent Demers, Inspectors Beyts and French were in the former districts with a small but excellent body of men; Superintendent Moodie and Inspector Acland were in the Yukon and White Horse districts. In the Yukon there was a serious case of dynamiting dredges which Sergeant Mapley handled with great ability. Patrols and general oversight by these non-commissioned officers and constables may, to the superficial onlooker or reader, seem of no great value, but these men, by tact and firm, friendly dealing with the natives and traders, really introduced a new code of ethics in the Northland. The questions at stake may not have been very large ones from our standpoint, but the ownership of a sled-dog or the fairness of values in exchange of furs, were as important to the children of the wild as the possession of a province might be to people in Europe. And in these local matters these patrolmen became recognized as fair and impartial adjudicators whose word was law. Thus were new ideals as to the rights of property and the sacredness of life being inculcated in the vast spaces of the Arctic. And these sturdy, courageous Policemen became so greatly interested in their strenuous work that they were always ready for a larger venture. It is interesting to find Corporal C. D. LaNauze, after returning from a patrol of some fifty-two days and over 1,000 miles, writing: "I cannot speak too highly of my dogs. I would like to see how far I could go with this train." Well, he was to get his opportunity to find out shortly. Whether with that train of dogs or not we cannot say, but when the opportunity came he used it to the limit. There were some lonely places. Sergeant Edgenton, a noted patrolman in the Arctic, writes as to Cape Fullerton on Hudson Bay: "Fullerton during the winter has been very lonely. Constable Conway and myself and two natives were the only persons there." And it is rather a striking instance of Police methods to find Edgenton putting in the usual detachment report and, under the head of discipline, speaking highly of Conway: "I have had to leave him alone during my patrols, and always found everything in good order on returning. He is a good man for duty in the North, and has made several patrols in very cold weather." Other men well known in that district were non-commissioned officers like Sergeants Handcock, Belcher, Currie, Mellor, LaNauze, Jones and several Constables. And, like the army of Sparta, which was the wall around that country, "every man was a brick." CHAPTER XVII THE GREAT WAR PERIOD The year 1914 gave us in history the spectacle of world-wide sword play, the rattle of machine-guns, and the roar of heavy artillery, along with an unprecedented loss of human life. It saw the British Empire, taken unprepared save for the Grand Fleet, hurling itself against the most colossal war machinery the world had ever seen assembled by one nation. And it saw this because Britain, pledged by a "scrap of paper," ordinarily called a treaty, to preserve the undamaged neutrality of Belgium against Germany or any one else, counted no cost too great for the maintenance of her sacred honour. But that fateful year saw our men not only on the field of struggle, but witnessed our people, whom the necessities of the case forced to remain behind, steadily keeping the wheels of industry turning at the base of supply, preventing internal discord and maintaining the integrity of the country unbroken, despite hostile influences that were at work. It is a common expression that when the Empire is at war Canada is at war. That saying has been proven again and again till it has become an undisputed axiom. It had been demonstrated before 1914, and then demonstrated again, till it needs no further proof. It is part of the Empire's history that the far-flung colonies of Britain are at her side when danger threatens their mother. Hence, at the sound of the war trumpet, Canadians rushed to the Colours. Amongst the first who desired to be sent to the Front after the general call had gone out were the Royal North-West Mounted Police, who hoped to go as a unit. The request was made at the outset, renewed in 1917 and 1918. But the Canadian Government, fully aware of certain conditions in the country, not only refused this request, but ordered that the Mounted Police should be reinforced by the enlistment of 500 more men for important duty in Canada. What those duties were could easily be gathered from the general situation. At the beginning, the United States did not go into the war, and the authorities there, who have always worked in friendly co-operation with our Police, intimated that there was a good deal of pro-enemy activity amongst alien elements south of the line. The American authorities would not knowingly allow their country to become the base of hostile operations against us, but, as in the case of the Fenian raids into Canada, it was possible for enemies along a 3,000-mile border to elude them and cross over to make serious trouble for us. Hence it was necessary that an experienced body of men should patrol the boundary region, and the riders of the plains were the only men who could carry out that task. Later on, when the United States entered the war, this work became unnecessary, but there was still special need for the vigilance of this famous corps, whose great record and prestige gave such unique authority to their presence in any locality that nothing more was necessary. There were 175,000 German and Austrian settlers in the prairie sections of Canada, a quite formidable army if mobilized. It was specially necessary that the Government of the country, backed by visible authority, should see that this large number of people was prevented from making any hostile demonstrations against the flag under whose shelter they had sought new homes. And it was equally desirable and British to see that these immigrants, as long as they observed and respected the laws and institutions of the country whose citizens they had become, should not be irritated or persecuted by perfervid and unthinking loyalists. An immigrant cannot help his racial origin, and if the country has thrown open its doors to his coming to help in its development, and if he becomes a law-abiding Canadian, he is entitled to protection. To the credit of all concerned, it is good to be able to say that there was no trouble worth noting. There were some tried and convicted for seditious utterances, but, generally speaking, they were not of alien race. Doubtless the German in the middle west of Canada was glad to be away from the cast-iron military system of his Fatherland, and the Austrian was pleased to be out of the "ramshackle Empire"; while at the same time, the Canadians around, like true British men, were willing to let these immigrants make good in this land of the second chance. But both were helped in their good intentions by the tact and firmness of the riders in scarlet and gold. Besides all that, the Government knew perfectly well that a time of war is fruitful in opportunity for the man who wishes to upset human society by revolutionary methods. Hosts of the cool-headed thinking men are away at such a time, and in the general confusion the faddist and the anarchist get a chance to put their theories into practice. But, as Thomas Carlyle said, "It costs too much to have a revolution strike on the horologe of time to tell the world what o'clock it is"; and so it was important that destructive movements should be held in check. And, accordingly, the Dominion authorities felt that the Mounted Police should be on the ground. Further, in order that the Mounted Police could have an oversight of conditions and situations which, though more pronounced at some points, were in reality nation-wide, the Dominion Government decided that absorbing the Dominion Police, the famous Royal North-West Mounted Police should have their jurisdiction extended over the whole of Canada, from the Yukon and the Arctic clear across to the Atlantic coast. This involved the moving of headquarters from Regina to the seat of Government at Ottawa, the placing of detachments all over Canada, and the substitution of the word "Canadian" for the words "North-West" in the title of the corps. This change in the title gave to the "old-timers" who had served in the Force, and to us who had known it under the old name, a sort of sentimental shock, and was the subject of several protests, but it soon became apparent that the change of name was the necessary accompaniment of the extension of jurisdiction. It would be manifestly improper to retain the limited territorial designation of "North-West" when the territory to be covered by the Force was from sea to sea. In fact, the changes as to title and jurisdiction now commend themselves to all who study the whole situation, and credit in this connection is due to the Hon. N. W. Rowell, who, as the governmental head of the Force and a great admirer of its work, brought these changes to pass. There was some discussion in the House of Commons when the changes above mentioned were proposed. But in answer to questions as to the necessity for the change being made in extending the jurisdiction of the Mounted Police and placing detachments all over the country East as well as West, Mr. Rowell gave clear and cogent reasons. It was pointed out by him that there had been for years a Dominion Police Force, under Sir Percy Sherwood, and that, as this Dominion Force was now absorbed by the Mounted Police, there was no duplication of law administration agencies. Broadly speaking, the Mounted Police have to discharge most important duties all over Canada for all branches of the Federal Government in seeing the laws observed in which the Federal Government is particularly interested, because these laws relate to the public revenue or to special Departments of Dominion administration. Thus, for instance, the Mounted Police have to investigate all matters in which Federal property is lost or misappropriated; they have to assist the Customs Department in preventing the all-too-common crime of smuggling, and the Department of Inland Revenue in regard to illicit liquor traffic. They have to co-operate with the Department of Indian affairs, and the Department of Colonization and Immigration in regard to the admission of citizens who may or may not be desirable, and also look into all matters connected with the nationalization of aliens. And more than once of late the Dominion Department of Agriculture has asked the assistance of the Mounted Police in stamping out epidemics amongst stock. And that the placing of the Mounted Police all over Canada was opportune is evidenced by the fact that, under the guise of legitimate strikes, movements were begun which led to a sort of reign of terror in some communities, and in connection with which the real motive of some who manipulated them was shown, by evidence convincing to Judges and Juries, to be nothing short of seditious conspiracy to overthrow the constitutional government of this country. Incriminating papers were found in many Canadian cities in the possession of many who were suspected of sedition. And a curious thing arose when these suspected men raised their voices in appeal to the very law of the land which they had been denouncing to protect them from prosecution. Or, as Commissioner Perry, who gave very special and serious study to the whole situation, says: "Appeal is made by these men to British fair play to protect them in their efforts to destroy British fair play." Winnipeg was chosen by the agitators as the storm centre of their movement, and it began in the shape of a strike by the metal-workers, led by radicals of a pronounced type, who used the strike idea to further their revolutionary aims, and who devoted themselves to bringing about a general sympathetic strike in order to paralyse the business of the city and thus help their enterprise. The radicals succeeded in securing a general strike even to the post office staff and mail clerks, and this led to similar sympathetic movements in Brandon, Saskatoon, Edmonton, Calgary and Vancouver. No doubt a great many in the various organizations going on strike acted honestly with the idea in their minds that the Winnipeg movement was of a genuine type and for usual and legitimate purposes. But the leaders at that point showed their real aim plainly when they started to take the control of the city out of the hands of the Mayor and Council, and indicated by printed cards that the only industries that would be allowed to continue were those that would run "by permission of the Strike Committee." Winnipeg was about the last city that would stand dictation from any other than their own elected representatives, and so citizens organized themselves to withstand the methods of the radicals and to uphold properly constituted authority. It was a critical hour in the history of that city and the whole of Canada. The Mounted Police that were in Winnipeg in pursuance of the policy of distribution over the whole Dominion were under the competent command of Superintendent Starnes, who, as we have seen, had done important work in the Yukon, Hudson's Bay and prairie districts, and was known as a man of experience and sound judgment in emergencies. The Mounted Police did not interfere in the "strike," except by taking steps to protect life and property, and to see that public services, such as the carrying and distribution of His Majesty's mails, were not hindered. But on the 21st of June, 1919, the Mayor, being unable to cope with the situation, called for the assistance of the Mounted Police to prevent a parade of thousands who were defying the city authorities. Thereupon fifty-four mounted men, under Inspectors Proby and Mead, with thirty-six men in trucks, under Sergt.-Major Griffin, were sent out from barracks, Commissioner Perry, as well as Superintendent Starnes, being present with the Attorney-General of Manitoba. A reserve was held in barracks, under Sergt.-Major Greenway, but it was not required. It did not take the mounted men of the old corps long to get control of the situation, though they were only a handful. When they arrived on the scene near the City Hall, they were received with showers of stones, shots and other missiles. But they maintained their reputation for restraint, and it was not till two of the men were in danger, through their horses falling and through a charge from the mob, that the officer commanding the Mounted Force gave the order to draw their revolvers and use them. This had the desired effect of clearing the street and of dispersing the rioters. Some sixteen of the Mounted Police were wounded with missiles, while on the other side one foreigner was killed, one fatally wounded, and several others hurt. This shows that the Mounted Police preserved their reputation for refraining from taking the aggressive until there was no other course open. But from that day the "strike" lost its strength. Hundreds of the strikers began to see through the real aims of their radical leaders and returned to work. A few days later the "strike" was officially called "off," and the sympathetic movements in the other cities died at the same time, to the general relief of all concerned. Events of a somewhat similar kind were happening sporadically here and there during the war period, and they still appear occasionally. We may get to a stage where government is not required in an angelic state of human society. But so long as there remains a proportion of human beings who glory in disorder and revolt against lawful authority in a democratic country like ours, where people through their elected representatives really make their own laws, there will be need for the men in scarlet and gold to preserve the peace, to prevent wanton damage to necessary industries, to protect human life, and generally to prevent society from sliding into the abyss of chaos. We have emphasized at several points in this story the efforts made by the Mounted Police to get into the war from the outset. And we have indicated the grounds on which the Government declined to allow them to go abroad, when the situation at home demanded their presence. Of course, many of the Police, probably not less than a thousand, in various ways, by resigning individually or buying discharge, or by virtue of their term of enlistment lapsing, had managed to get away to the war during the years before a unit from the Force was permitted to go overseas. These men served with great distinction on many fields of the colossal conflict. In the House of Commons, the Hon. N. W. Rowell, in speaking on the subject, said: "I wish I had time to tell the House of some of the deeds of those gallant men. I will only mention two. The famous Michael O'Leary, V.C., was one of the North-West Mounted Police, and he set a standard for courage and bravery during the early days of the war which many other gallant soldiers have since emulated. The other, a constable in the ranks for two years--Constable Parkes, a young man now twenty-seven years of age. In 1915 he purchased his discharge to go to the front; he rose to the command of the 116th Battalion, C.E.F., and won the V.C., the D.S.O., and La Croix de Guerre. He proved himself an officer of the highest efficiency, and has been selected by the Canadian Corps to attend the staff college. I might mention other members of the Force and the gallant service they have rendered, but time does not permit. I should also mention that ex-members of the Force--that is, men who had served on the Force--provided our Canadian Army overseas with two major-generals, four brigade-generals, and colonels, majors and captains by the score. It shows the type of men who are serving in our Royal North-West Mounted Police." And one thinks at once in this connection of such men as that old campaigner and ex-Policeman, the late Sir Samuel B. Steele, who went over in command of the Second Division, but whose health, undermined by an injury on the way, did not permit him to lead his men in the field; of that dashing and distinguished Cavalry Officer, Sir Archibald Macdonnell, now Commandant at Kingston, and of Brigadier-General Ketchen, who came up from the ranks, and of many others. And then Mr. Rowell went on to say: "All the sons, of military age, of the present and past officers have served overseas, and no less than ten officers' sons died on the battlefield. The son of the first man who joined the Force in 1873 is an honourable and gallant member of this House--Brigadier-General Griesbach (of Edmonton), who has rendered such distinguished service in this war. He is one of the many gallant officers, sons of members of the Force who have served overseas." One would like to place special stress on the way in which the sons and even the daughters of the first generation of the Mounted Police kept up the great tradition of their fathers, who had instilled into them that devotion to duty and that desire to maintain the right which made the old Force so well known in every part of the world. The names of these gallant young men and women are found in practically every unit of service in the Great War as combatants, nurses and so on, all showing that blood tells, and that the theory of heredity can find in such cases a real and indisputable demonstration. And, while touching upon this phase, let me also mention that another unique tribute to the way in which the Force got hold of the imagination and enlisted the devotion of those who served in its ranks, is the fact that ex-members all over Canada organized in evidence of their desire to support the parent body in any crisis that may arise. Several hundred of these men, experienced in every detail of the work and trained to the minute, left their occupations and put themselves at the disposal of the Commissioner during the war, when the Force was depleted by enlistments for the front. Any organization that can thus count on the assistance of its former members in the hour of need, must have had elements in it that appealed to the best qualities of real men. Hence we find that the war and the social unrest called into being Police Veterans' Associations, whose aim is to continue the traditions of the corps, and whose members hold themselves at the service of the Government of Canada whenever required. In other words, anyone who tries to play "rough house" where these veterans' associations exist will have to reckon with the "old boys," who once wore the unforgettable scarlet and gold. And what is here said of the men is equally true of the wives and mothers and sisters of the riders of the Western plains. But one of the most conclusive pieces of evidence as to the real quality of the men of the Mounted Police was given when, in those dark and deadly-looking days near the close of the war, the British Government let it be known that another cavalry unit from Canada would be acceptable. A call was placed before the Mounted Police to provide reinforcements for the Canadian Cavalry Brigade, which had suffered serious losses, and also to furnish a squadron to add as a distinct Police unit to the Cavalry Corps. In one sense it was not a good time to appeal for recruits. The allied army was fighting with its back to the wall. Our cavalry brigade had been decimated and all along the line our men were falling-- "Grimly dying, still unconquered With their faces to the foe." But every man in the Mounted Police wanted to go and help hold that line. Five hundred men were desired, but there was a rush, and before word could be got out by wire to stop recruiting, over 700, including some ex-members, had enlisted and had to be accepted. This contingent was divided into four squadrons, the whole coming, of course, under orders of the Militia Department as part of the C.E.F., and on May 19, 1918, the following order was issued from Militia Headquarters at Ottawa: "The following provisional appointments of Officers in the C.E.F. are authorized: To be Major, Inspector G. L. Jennings; to be Captain, Inspector H. M. Newson; to be Lieutenants, Inspectors A. B. Allard, A. E. Acland, Thomas Dann, S. T. Wood, J. McD. Tupper, W. C. Proby, C. H. King, Denis Ryan, C. D. La Nauze, H. Townsend, Sergts.-Major T. H. Irvine, F. J. Mead, R. H. L. MacDowell." These were all Officers and Sergts.-Major in the R.N.W.M. Police, and were recommended by the Commissioner for the positions named. Inspectors Jennings, Allard and Newson have since been promoted Superintendents, and Sergts.-Major Irvine and Mead have been granted commissions in the Force. Putting the draft into regular military form as a provisional Regiment, it was composed of four Squadrons and Headquarters Staff as follows:--To command the overseas Cavalry Draft and special Squadron, Major G. L. Jennings; to be second in command, Captain H. M. Newson; to be Acting Adjutant, Lieutenant R. H. L. MacDowell; to be Acting Regimental Sergt.-Major, Sergt.-Major G. F. Griffin; to be Acting Regimental Quartermaster-Sergeant, Staff-Sergeant A. H. L. Mellor (since promoted Inspector). Squadron Officers: "A" Squadron--Lieutenants A. B. Allard (in command), H. Townsend and F. J. Mead. "B" Squadron--Lieutenants T. Dann (in command), S. T. Wood and D. Ryan. "C" Squadron--Lieutenants W. C. Proby (in command), C. D. La Nauze, and J. McD. Tupper. "D" Squadron--Lieutenants C. H. King (in command), A. E. Acland and T. H. Irvine. Also to be Acting Sergts.-Major of the above Squadrons in order named, the following Mounted Police N.C.O.'s, viz.:--Sergts.-Major W. A. Edgenton, C. R. Peters, C. F. Fletcher and F. E. Spriggs. The whole draft was taken on the strength of the Canadian Expeditionary Force, and all members who were actively connected with the Mounted Police were on leave of absence from their corps until they would be demobilized on return to Canada. On reaching England the men of the contingent were pretty well scattered by being assigned for duty with various units, but, finally, the Mounted Police Squadron to be attached to the Canadian Light Horse was sent over to France, arriving, to their disappointment, too late to take part in the Battle of Cambrai, where cavalry played a conspicuous part. But Major Jennings was requested to detail some of his men for "Dispatch Riding" in the 2nd and 3rd Canadian Divisions. Lieutenant Dann with 2nd Troop was sent to the 2nd Canadian Division, and Lieutenant Wood with 3rd Troop was sent to the 3rd Canadian Division, and remained there till the Armistice was signed. This was dangerous and difficult front-line work, and was done to the entire satisfaction of the Division Commanders, as was to be expected when the riders of the plains were on duty. The Squadron also furnished every day N.C.O.'s and men to go to different points immediately back of the front line to collect prisoners of war, and escort them to the different camps. And one who knows the record of the Mounted Police needs not to be told that not one prisoner escaped from their custody in France, Belgium and Germany. On October 28, probably in recognition of the thoroughness with which these trained and disciplined men from the Canadian plains had carried out every duty that had been assigned them, orders were issued that the Mounted Police were to be detached from the Canadian Light Horse and become an independent unit, to be known as the Royal North-West Mounted Police Squadron. This was the situation up to the Armistice, when the dispatch-riding troops, under Lieutenants Dann and Wood, rejoined the Squadron. Instructions came to have a troop sent to Mons, to be there at the triumphal entry, but this was found impossible. The horses of the dispatch-riding troops were completely fagged out with their strenuous work, another troop was on prisoners-of-war service, while the horses of the fourth were unshod and could not make the 32 kilos. over the paved road to Mons. Later, Acland's troop went on duty to a point near Bonn, in Germany, and Lieutenants King and Allard were sent on special service into Belgium. Things were in much confusion, and the presence of the scarlet riders seemed to give the people satisfaction. The whole Squadron was kept busy at various points till December, when the Canadian Government, realizing that conditions at home demanded the presence of these recognized champions of law and order, sent a cable recalling the Mounted Police to duty in Canada. There was much to be done in the way of detail arrangements, gathering up the scattered members out of other units, re-enlisting for service in Canada, but in due course, after having added another highly creditable page to the history of the corps, the Squadron reached Winnipeg. It was rather a striking coincidence that at the very time when Winnipeg was boiling over with red radicalism, this Canadian Mounted Police unit, that had been on service at the Front, arrived in that city. Things being as they were at that point, the Commissioner had Jenning's command detrain there. For some days they were held in reserve in the barracks, and no doubt the presence of these seasoned and disciplined men had a reassuring influence on good citizens, and a very deterrent effect upon the lawless advocates of violence and sedition. Their active participation was not necessary, and so they continued out into the various detachments all over the West and North. It is interesting to know that at the time of this writing Major (Superintendent) Jennings, who knows the vast North-land and its perils well, is in command of the Mounted Police at Edmonton, the front gateway to the new oil-fields. These men will see that human life and property are as safe there as in any part of Canada. The "gunman" and the disorderly and the lewd exploiter of camps and frontiers will not get into the country at all, and the unfit and unprepared and unequipped, however respectable, will be saved from the reckless folly that would send them on a wild rush into a country whose perils they do not know. In summing up his report of the Overseas Squadron, Major Jennings indicates that the fine reputation for good behaviour made by the Mounted Police when in the Old Land, at Coronation or Jubilee celebrations, was fully maintained amid the temptations incident to war. He says, "The moral conduct of the men was most satisfactory." In regard to matters of discipline he states: "To my knowledge there was not one member of the Overseas Cavalry Draft brought before a Court Martial. The offences were few and of a minor character, mostly due to ignorance in new surroundings, but the principal reason for the small number of offences was without doubt due to the discipline enforced by the old N.C.O.'s of the Force." "Sergeant What's-his-name" has always been one of the mainstays of the Army. And the Major adds: "No charge was ever brought against an officer." A good record in war. In noting men's services, Major Jennings says: "Where all ranks showed such a spirit of loyalty to the unit and to the Force and such determination to do their duty, it is difficult to single out individual cases." This is fine, but there are some always who have special opportunities for service come their way, and so the Major specially mentions Captain H. M. Newson, Lieutenants Acland, Allard, Dann, Wood and MacDowell; and amongst the N.C.O.'s, Mellor, Darling, Edgenton, Peters, Fletcher, Spriggs and Hogan. The Major recommends for decoration Sergeant C. A. James, a highly efficient man who, while on dispatch-riding duty, captured single-handed five of the enemy and brought them into camp. Also Constable A. Brooker, a dispatch rider, who took a pack horse with telephone wire through heavy shell and machine-gun fire to advance Headquarters, thus enabling them to send back valuable information. Finally, Major Jennings expresses his own obligation for having been given the command, but his heart is with the corps, and he says: "No officer would ask to command a finer body of men. The high standard of discipline inculcated through years in the Force was adhered to throughout." It will be recalled that shortly before the Armistice date it was thought that Canada ought to be represented, as well as the Americans and the Japanese, up in that perplexing land of Russia. Accordingly, a squadron of cavalry, to be known as "B" Squadron R.N.W.P., Siberia, was authorized. The officers were all of well-known names in Mounted Police annals, being: Major in Command: George Stanley Worsley. Captain, Second in Command: Arthur William Duffus. Lieutenants: Richard Young Douglas, Thomas Mulock Belcher (now Superintendent), Frank Henry French, Thomas Caulkin. Of these French, of the famous Bathurst Inlet patrol, related in the next chapter, was prevented by illness from going, and was replaced by Sergt.-Major Wilcox. Caulkin, whom we met before in this story in the vast spaces of the Arctic, was awarded about this time the King's Police Medal for service in that white North-land. This Siberian Squadron passed through some trying experience by reason of epidemics, and by reason also of the unsettled conditions in Vladivostok and other points where they were quartered. They passed through train wrecks at the hands of Bolshevists, and various other exciting experiences. And Constable Pilkington, who penetrated into the interior of the country, gives some vivid stories of Bolshevik exploits. The Squadron did its whole duty, and did it well, but in a few months the Canadian Government decided to withdraw from the Russian situation, and so recalled the Force to duty in the Dominion, after an absence of several months in the enigmatic land. Thus, whether amid the puzzling problems of the war period in the homeland, or in the face of new situations abroad, did the riders of the plains, to the full extent of their opportunity, make their usual thorough-going contribution to Canada's part in the making of human history. East, West, North or South, they have always answered the call to duty. In a word, they have always been on active service. CHAPTER XVIII GREAT TRADITIONS UPHELD In the foregoing chapter I have, in order to preserve the continuity of the Police story through the war period, gone a little ahead of the chronological order of general events in the history of the corps. But history was being made all the time by these remarkable men, whether they were serving at home or abroad. They were always and everywhere on active duty, and "peace hath her victories no less renowned than war." Riding with dispatches in France was not more active and dangerous service than patrolling over the immense areas of trackless snow and ice in the Arctic Circle or facing overwhelmingly superior numbers where mobs were surging restlessly and riotously in our own country. Here and there on the plains or in the mountains little detachments were without display or advertisement carrying out tasks that were onerous and disagreeable in the extreme. For instance, we have the story of a great mine disaster at Hill Crest, Alberta, where by a terrific explosion 188 men out of the 237 who had entered the mine on a June morning in 1914 lost their lives. The Mounted Police as usual rushed to the scene to see what they could do to relieve the situation, Inspector Junget taking charge. Experienced miners were at work bringing out the bodies, it being evident from the first that none but the few men who had come up in an exhausted condition were alive. The detachment of Mounted Police only numbered six, but they took effective oversight at once, first closing the bar of the local hotel in order to head off the danger of drunkenness breaking out in the camp. Corporal Searle and Constable Kistruck, from Pincher Creek, and Constable Wilson, from MacLeod, were posted at the entrance to the two mines to keep the crowd back and preserve order generally, while Corporals Mead and Grant and Constable Hancock looked after the mutilated bodies as they were brought out of the mine. Mead and Grant kept the check numbers of the bodies where they could be found, kept an inventory of the money or other property found on each, then washed the bodies, and wrapped them in cotton sheets. Then these bodies were taken to the Mine-Union Hall, where Constable Hancock looked after them, placing them in rows upon the floor. Handling 188 mutilated and grimy bodies in the warmth of June weather was a gruesome, depressing and difficult task, but these men, assisted by relays of miners, did this work for four days and nights until funeral services were held over the mangled remains of these unfortunate victims of the disaster. Mead, Grant and Hancock especially had a terrible undertaking, and they won the praise not only of the citizens of Hill Crest, but that of the miners also, many of the latter, though extreme radical Socialists who resented the very existence of the Force, saying, "We have no use for the Police, but we cannot help respecting its members when we see them working under such trying conditions." Thus were these gallant men winning the applause of revolutionists who hated them because they stood for law and order in the country. And I think it well to say here, after knowing the Mounted Police throughout the years of their history, that the only enemies they have had have been the elements that resented the fearless and impartial enforcement of law. Sometimes these elements were found amongst the reckless promoters and denizens of the underworld. Sometimes amongst those who would fan the embers of social discontent into a blaze that would destroy society and not infrequently in the ranks of those who would not scruple to plunder the public treasury. It has always been annoying and disconcerting to such elements to find that they could neither cajole nor frighten nor bribe these inflexible men in the uniform of scarlet and gold who stood for the administration of British law in a British country. _Noblesse oblige._ If the recruits of to-day measure up as they have been doing to the established reputation of the Force, that reputation will become increasingly one of the saving assets of Canada and the Empire. Up in the Arctic areas during those days of war when some were on duty in France and across our own plains and mountains, the Police were battling against hostile climatic conditions that the sacredness of human life might be impressed on the inhabitants of the most remote regions under the flag. And sometimes their equipment was not very ample. One laughs when he sees attacks made upon Mounted Police expenditure. A country vaster than several European Kingdoms cannot be kept in peace and quietness for a trifle. If the Mounted Police were withdrawn and lawlessness was allowed to run riot in the country, people would soon realize that it is not the proper administration of law, but the absence of it which bankrupts a country. As a matter of fact, as this story has shown again and again, these men of the Police were constantly practising economies in regard to the very necessaries of life in case they should be considered as asking for too much. Here, for instance, in that war year when millions were being poured out elsewhere, we find Superintendent Demers, who with his men had to patrol the dangerous northern coasts in the Hudson's Bay region where wrecks and drownings are frequent, asking apologetically for six life-belts, as "patrols by water have to be made without any precaution against possible accident." We hope he got them. These men were not playing on a mill-pond, but were fighting storms in the fields of ice and reefs with bull walrus thrown in as an extra peril to guard against. War echoes are heard during that period, but for the most part alien enemies soon recognized the wisdom of pursuing their work quietly, and in such cases they were not molested. And amidst it all we find the record of quiet heroisms as these Mounted Policemen who were not allowed to go to the Front pursued the steady round of their duty at home. Here, for instance, in 1915 we find Superintendent West, who was in charge at Battleford on the Saskatchewan, telling us of a piece of work whose fine courageous quality those who know the country can especially appreciate. West says, "Typhoid fever broke out amongst the Indians on the Island Lake Reserve and Constable Rose was sent from here to see that quarantine was enforced." Typhoid is a serious business in the dry season, and the constable would have done his regular duty if he had just put the place under quarantine and kept anyone from going or coming. But that was not the police way, and so Rose went beyond his duty. West goes on, "One man, Patrice Dumont, a half-breed, living close to the reserve, fell ill, as did the members of his family. Dumont, who was the sole support of the family, died. The rest of the family became hysterical and Rose had to be there continually. He dressed the body of Dumont for burial and made a coffin fastened with wooden pegs in the absence of nails, and as the flies were bad he buried the body next day with the help of some Indians. The circumstances under which Constable Rose worked were most trying, as he had to sleep in the same room with the dead man, while Dumont's children kept crying and clinging round his neck all night." The children, half-crazed with grief and delirium, recognized that the big policeman was a friend and very human in his practical sympathy. It is evident that the Dominion Government feared that at one time the whole Mounted Police Force, if allowed, would have enlisted for service overseas unless their attention was very specially called to the vital necessity for their presence at home. Accordingly, in 1916, when many of the Force were renewing the efforts to go overseas, the Premier of Canada, Hon. Sir Robert L. Borden, than whom there was no one who understood the world situation better, sent the following special communication to the Mounted Police Force, "The Prime Minister desires to express to officers, non-commissioned officers and constables his very deep appreciation of the patriotic and devoted service which they have rendered, and of the faithful and efficient manner in which they are performing their important duties. "He fully realizes the great desire of the members of the Force to enlist for overseas service, and he is aware that practically the whole Force would offer their services at the Front if permission could be given. This patriotic spirit is entirely commendable; but all members of the Force must remember that the service they are now rendering to the Dominion and to the Empire is not less important than that which they would perform if serving at the Front. Further, it is a service which can only be efficiently performed by a force which has been trained in the discharge of the duties it is called upon to undertake. For these reasons the Prime Minister has found himself unable to consent to the retirement from the Force of many officers and men who have asked that permission for the purpose of enlistment." Sir Robert is especially wise when he mentions how only the trained men of the Mounted Police could do certain duties. Men with less tact, firmness, fairness and discipline would have had the whole country in a turmoil a dozen times over during these recent decades. For during this period the West has been seething with an inrushing tide of polyglot people who have been naturally disposed to consider that the liberty of a new land gave them unrestrained licence to do what they pleased. Under proper oversight they have found their feet without losing their heads. That year, 1916, Commissioner Perry reported that the Mounted Police had subscribed $30,000 to the Canadian Patriotic Fund. This later reached $50,000.00. These men were serving on a small wage, but if they could not get away to the Front they were going to help the cause to the limit and when the opportunity would be given they would show their readiness to go themselves wherever needed. That year also the Commissioner reported the death of Assistant Commissioner A. E. R. Cuthbert, to be followed a few years later by the sudden demise of one of his successors, Assistant Commissioner W. H. Routledge. Both had given splendid service. Cuthbert had been thirty-one years with the Force and had served with distinction in South Africa. Routledge had served in all parts of the West, including the Yukon. He was a master of detail and system, and did work of unique value in arranging the reports and working out orderly methods in the use of documents. In the same report the Commissioner expressed the regret of himself and the Force at the retirement of Mr. Lawrence Fortescue, who had joined the corps at the very beginning, had made the trek to the West and then was recalled to Ottawa to assist with the work of the Department there. At the time of his retirement he was Comptroller of the Force. The corps has been fortunate in its Comptrollers, the men who are official administrative heads and have the general oversight of expenditures. Lieut.-Colonel Frederick White, who for long and faithful service was given the C.M.G., was the first Comptroller--a man of great ability and indefatigable disposition. The present popular and able Comptroller is Mr. A. A. McLean, a sturdy Highland type from Prince Edward Island, who was a prominent lawyer and legislator for years. Much of the steady frictionless movement of the whole department depends on the administrative talent of the Comptroller. When we have heard arm-chair critics attack police expenditure, we have thought not only of the practice of economy as already indicated in the case of reports from officers at many points, but of the amount saved to Canada by the devoted and self-sacrificing efforts of these men to head off lawless movements and to create in the remotest points of the country a wholesome respect for constituted authority. There were many wonderful patrols in the Arctic circle, but those which had to do with the detection of crime or the unravelling of mysteries connected with the disappearance of explorers and traders or others naturally attracted most attention. There were not many of these particular patrols, for the Esquimaux were not by any means murderously inclined. The cases investigated showed that they had been moved by provocation. One of these cases resulted in the famous Bathurst Inlet patrol. In 1911 two men, Mr. H. V. Radford, an American, and Mr. T. G. Street, a Canadian, went on an exploring and specimen collecting journey into the North. They reached Bathurst Inlet in 1912, having wintered at Schultz Lake. In May, 1913, that well-known northern patrol man, Sergeant W. G. Edgenton, of the Mounted Police, who was in command of the post at Fullerton, reported that a rumour had come to him through Eskimo that Radford and Street had been killed by the Eskimos in June, 1912. A few days later one of the Eskimos, by name Akulack, who had travelled part of the way with the explorers, came to Chesterfield Inlet and gave Mr. H. H. Hall, the Hudson's Bay Company officer there, an account of what he had heard. It appeared that the wife of one of the Eskimos who was travelling with the explorers had fallen on the ice and was seriously hurt. So the Eskimo refused quite properly to leave her in that condition, upon which Radford tried to enforce obedience by repeatedly striking the Eskimo till a general row started and the two explorers, or whatever they were, suffered death. It took three years or so to get at the facts, with the final decision that, the murder having been traced to the perpetrators, the whole evidence showed that it was a case where the Eskimo had acted in self-defence and that, while in imminent fear of being killed by the white men, they had taken the lives of the latter. But the Mounted Police had to travel many a long and dangerous mile through many a weary month before these facts were discovered. We give an outline of the process in the following pages. Superintendents Starnes and Demers recommended that an expedition be equipped for two or three years and sent out to investigate, but the wrecks of schooners and other untoward incidents interfered. But in July, 1914, over two years from the date of the alleged crime, Inspector W. J. Beyts, an officer of much experience in the North, left on a Government schooner from Halifax with a sergeant and two constables. The weather was so bad that they did not reach the Hudson's Bay Coast till it was too late to establish a post at Baker Lake. The next year, after enormous difficulties, he succeeded in planting the post, but the winter of 1915-16 was such that two brave attempts to get to Bathurst Inlet failed. Game on which they had to rely for dog-feed was so scarce that supply could not be secured. Dogs died by the score also amongst the Eskimo that year, and Beyts reports one case where there were only six dogs amongst ten families, and another case where the sleigh was being pulled by one man, two women and a dog. In the summer of 1916 Beyts, by previous arrangement, returned to headquarters, and his place was taken by Inspector F. H. French, who arrived at Baker Lake in September. This was more than four years after the murder, but the Police never let go their hold once they started on a case. Commissioner Perry's instructions to Inspector French were these: "It will be your duty to get in touch at the earliest possible moment with the tribes said to be responsible for the deaths. You will make inquiries and take such statutory declarations as may seem necessary in order to obtain a full and accurate account of the occurrence. From information received, it is assumed that there was provocation. If this is found to be the case, it is not the intention of the Government to proceed with prosecution. If, however, there was found to be no provocation, the Government will consider what further action is to be taken." French was "to the manner born" in the Police service. He was a son of that gallant officer, Inspector "Jack" French, leader of "French's Scouts" in the second Rebellion, who was killed by a half-breed sniper after having driven Riel's men from their coverts in one section of the fight at Batoche. And he was also the nephew of Colonel Sir George French, the first Commissioner of Mounted Police after their organization, although Colonel Osborne Smith, as already stated, was Commissioner for the purpose of swearing in the men. And this younger French was evidently a "chip of the old block," because he does not contemplate failure. In January, 1917, he wrote: "I hope to make a successful trip, commencing in March next," but he knows it will be a fight against the elements and against want, for he adds: "my only difficulty will be the inevitable dog-feed question, which rises at every point where a man moves in this country." He will have to depend on game and game is always uncertain. French was fortunate in his party having with him Sergt.-Major T. B. Caulkin (later Inspector), a most reliable and persevering man who knew the Eskimo country, and he had also police natives, Joe and "Bye and Bye," with two other natives to assist. They were absent from their base at Baker Lake about ten months of almost incessant travel amongst the Eskimo, to whom on all occasions of meeting French explained the law of the country in relation to human life and property. In that regard it was a kind of missionary tour and did lasting good. Getting into contact with the Eskimo tribe at Bathurst Inlet, French secured many statutory declarations which established beyond all doubt that two Eskimos who were known to be quiet and inoffensive men, had been goaded by ill-treatment into turning on their tormentors and putting an end to them. French had fulfilled his mission and did not consider it necessary to arrest these men. But the patrol had impressed upon these "ends of the earth" the lessons desired. French's return was attended by great hardship. Game was scarce and wild. So food for both men and dogs ran out again and again. Dogs were shot as they became exhausted and fed to the other dogs. Deerskins were chopped up and made into soup. Fuel oil became exhausted and sleds had to be burned. As one of the party, French himself said, "It looked like their last patrol," but they struck some deer and got food, which toned them and their dogs up so that "they made the grade." But it was a close call and every member of the party deserved the eulogy expressed by French in which all who know the history include as chief the Inspector himself. He had done good service throughout the years, but the Bathurst Inlet patrol will always remain as an outstanding mark to his credit. Similarly will the Bear Lake patrol go to the credit of Inspector C. D. La Nauze, who also was fortunate in having splendid support from his men. The occasion of the Patrol was the disappearance of two priests, Fathers Rouvier and Le Roux, who in 1913 had left Fort Norman on the Mackenzie River for a two years' absence in establishing missions amongst the Eskimo of the far North. When the two years were well on and no news had been received from them, their friends began to get anxious, and of course appeal was made to the Mounted Police, who were expected to unravel all mysteries and solve all perplexing problems. And it is to their credit that they never turned a deaf ear to such appeals. It took nearly two years and a half to get the solution of the mystery. There were others in the patrol when it started, but Inspector La Nauze, Constable Wight, Special Native Constable Ilavinik and Corporal W. V. Bruce were those who were in at the end when two Eskimo men, Sinninsiak and Uluksak, were arrested by them at Coronation Gulf as the self-confessed murderers of the two priests. Leaving Great Bear Lake in April, 1916, La Nauze, Wight and Ilavinik reached Coronation Gulf a month later and here they met Corporal Bruce, who had been sent out by Inspector Phillips from Herschell Island to gather information that would help to locate the priests, if alive, and if they were not found to discover the cause of their disappearance. Bruce knew the whole region and knew many of the Eskimos personally. Without exciting their suspicion he had found amongst them and purchased several articles of priests' wear which strongly indicated that the priests had perished. Ilavinik proved a treasure. The party found two of the explorer Steffanson's men and they had heard of Ilavinik, so that the way became easier. Finally La Nauze and Ilavinik began to talk to the people in their igloos, and inquire if any white men had been that way at any time. They said Yes, and then La Nauze sat back and let Ilavinik do the talking. In a little while he turned, trembling with the excitement of it, to the Inspector and said, "I have got on the track. These men know who murdered the priests and they are very, very sorry that any of the Eskimos should have done it." This led very soon to the arrest of Sinnisiak, who was said to be the chief instigator of the crime, his companion being of a milder type. After examination of the prisoner and witnesses, the Inspector formally committed Sinnisiak for trial by a competent court. Then La Nauze left the prisoner in charge of Constable Bruce, while he, accompanied by Constable Wight and a bright young Eskimo "Patsy" who was attached to the Canadian Arctic Expedition, went to South Victoria Land and arrested Uluksak. He was of a gentler type. Sinnisiak had rather demurred to being arrested and had indicated his power to make medicine that would sink the white man's ship if they tried to take him away. But Uluksak came forward at once and gave himself up. La Nauze asked him if he knew what they had come for and the Eskimo said, "Yes, to kill me by striking me on the head as the other white men did." He was formally arrested by Wight and committed for trial by the Inspector. From the evidence it seemed clear that the priests in their eagerness to get ahead had attempted to force the two men to go along with them. Uluksak said one of them put his hand on the Eskimo's mouth and would not let him say anything. Generally speaking the priests showed their lack of understanding of the Eskimo nature and fell victims to their own impetuosity in dealing with them. The prisoners were brought all the way to Edmonton and then to Calgary, where they were finally tried. They seemed to be as guileless and simple as children, and gave absolutely no trouble from the day they were arrested. They became much attached to their captors and cried when they had to leave them. But they had told their story with clearness, and the jury brought in a verdict of "Guilty with the strongest recommendation to mercy a jury can make." They were sentenced to be hanged, but this was commuted to imprisonment for life, and they were finally sent back amongst their own people in the far North. It was felt that justice had been vindicated and that their story to their own people would be of great value to prevent any such event occurring again. These two patrols of French and La Nauze, along with a recent arrest of an Eskimo in another part of the Arctic Circle by Sergeant Douglas, revealed again to the world that the long arm of the Mounted Police was unavoidable once anyone had transgressed laws in regard to human welfare. And thus are the men of this famous corps patrolling the vast white North in all directions at the time of this writing. That such patrolling is excessively difficult and dangerous may be gathered from such a report as that sent in by Inspector J. W. Phillips, who was in command of the Herschell Island detachment in 1918. He, with Constables Cornelius and Doak, was wrecked 8 miles off Herschell Island, when their whale boat was crushed to pieces in the ice. They had to jump on the floating ice. The cakes were small and were churning round and up-ending. At times the piece on which one would be standing would up-end and then it was a case of jumping or being crushed to death. Finally they reached the shore ice. Then they started for Herschell Island, but found great cracks or leads in the ice too wide to cross. They changed their course and made for the nearest land. They found the leads narrower. By joining their belts and suspenders together a line was made. One of them would swim the lead and then assist the others over by this life-line. They crossed over more than a score of leads in this way before reaching the nearest land. We read this over and then think of men in comfortable armchairs finding fault with police expenditure. But the remaining part of the report in this connection is still more amazing. Let me quote it. "The time spent by us from the wrecking of the boat on the ice to our reaching the land was ten hours. A gale from the north-east had been blowing all the time and in our soaking wet condition we suffered severely from the cold." One would imagine they would when he reads on. Phillips says, "The only clothing we wore at this time was our under garments, trousers and muckluks. Our Artiggies we threw away, as we found they hampered us too much when getting across the leads. Herschell Island post was still 12 miles away. We started to walk it. After travelling about a mile I noticed that Constable Doak was delirious. Constable Cornelius and I helped him to walk, but owing to cramps in the legs we could not manage. Constable Cornelius at this stage offered to go to Herschell Island for assistance, food and matches, and I permitted him to go. After he left I built a windbreak of driftwood. Constable Doak and I crawled into it. Here we remained till 11 p.m. the following day. Then we were rescued by a whale boat and taken to Herschell Island. We kept a sharp look out for Constable Cornelius, but saw nothing of him, and on arrival found he had not reached the post. I at once started out Constable Brockie and two natives with a whale boat, and found him on a sand-spit 10 miles away. He was brought in safely. I am sorry to say that at the present time (the day after the event) the two constables and myself are laid up with swollen feet and legs due to exposure." They must have had tremendous endurance to get through at all. And one gathers that the Inspector is not thinking of his own and the Constable's personal losses and exposure, but is rather concerned that some government property had to be noted as missing in the wreck. For he adds: "I must say that I am exceedingly sorry to have to give you a report of this nature, but I think you will agree that this occurred under circumstances over which I had no control. I am happy to be able to report no loss of life. As soon as I am able to send a patrol to the vicinity of the wreck I will do so, with the idea that there may be some government stores blown up on the coast." But most of us are willing to declare our readiness to let government stores go so long as men of this stamp are saved to continue their contribution to the great traditions of a corps that has done so much for Canada and the Empire. Commissioner Perry's report for 1920 has just come to hand and is specially notable because it is the first presented under the new name of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and therefore the first since the jurisdiction of the Force was extended to all parts of Canada. It relates the change of name, the absorption of the Dominion Police by the Mounted Police Force, and removal of headquarters from Regina to Ottawa, all of which changes were made in pursuance of the policy adopted by the Government to have one Federal Force controlled by a single head and exercising authority in every part of Canada. A section of the amendment of the Mounted Police Act may be quoted here. It says, "Every member of the Force shall be a constable in every part of Canada for the purpose of carrying out the criminal and other laws of Canada and in the North-West Territories, and the Yukon Territory for carrying out any laws and ordinances in force therein." This legislation, as already intimated, involved the absorption of the Dominion Police, which in various forms had existed in older Canada from as far back as 1839. Its duties were mainly concerned with the protection of public buildings, though also with the general preservation of law and order. This Dominion Police Force came into more special prominence under the Commissionership of Colonel Sir Percy Sherwood, who was knighted for his services and under whom the Force grew to the number of some 150 men, who were scattered over Canada singly or in small groups guarding buildings, Navy yards and enforcing specific laws, as well as engaging in effective secret service work in relation to enemy aliens in war-time. After a long and highly creditable career in this service, Sir Percy Sherwood retired on account of ill-health in 1919. The absorption of the Dominion Police into the Mounted Police was not free from difficulty, as the organizations differed fundamentally, the former being on the lines of a civil municipal force, while the latter was on military lines and engagement was for a fixed term. However, conditions of engagement were offered to the members of the Dominion Police and practically all of them enlisted in the Mounted Police, their service already given in their own Force to count towards pension under Mounted Police regulations. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police is now the sole federal Force, and is under Commissioner Perry, subject of course to the Minister of the Dominion Government in whose department it comes, that minister at present being the Hon. James A. Calder, President of the Council. The duties of the Force may be summarized as follows: (A) The enforcement, or assistance in enforcement, of all laws where the Government of Canada is directly interested or responsible. (B) The protection of public buildings of the Dominion. (C) The protection of Navy yards. (D) The Intelligence Service. (E) The maintenance of law and order in all territories and Dominion parks. (F) Maintenance of finger-print bureaus. (G) Paroled prisoners' record. The Commissioner says, "The Force is distributed in the way best suited to perform its many duties. It is found along the international boundary, where it aids in protecting the revenue and preventing the entrance into Canada of undesirables. It is located on or in the vicinity of Indian Reserves to maintain good order, and to aid in enforcement of the laws pertaining to our Indian population. It occupies many lonely posts in the North-West Territories and Yukon Territory, and along the Arctic and Hudson's Bay Coasts. It is found in centres of population, and at points where industrial activities are vital to the welfare of the nation." New outposts were established in the far North: one at Port Burwell on the Hudson Straits, to act for the Department of Customs and collect duties on foreign vessels entering the waters of Hudson Bay, and the other at Tree River, on Coronation Gulf, for ordinary duty. The latter is the most remote outpost and the fact of its existence there indicates the far-flung character of the operations of this ubiquitous corps. When the Commissioner says the force is Found at centres of population he visualizes for us the fact that our modern social life has created vast cities which have eaten up the green fields and turned them into asphalt pavements. These cities become the hardest problem for the administrator of law. Into them drift the derelicts of human society, and even these are drawn down to deeper degradation by the undertow of vice and crime. More mean in their lawlessness and much less open than the dwellers in frontiers and camps, the vicious elements in cities require from the State the oversight of an adequate force of fearless men. The illegal traffic in narcotic drugs, for instance, is carried on by the most degraded and the lowest criminals of the underworld, aided and abetted too frequently by dishonourable members of honourable professions. The gambler and the "bootlegger" and the white slave dealer find their habitat in large centres of population. And no force can keep these lawless elements in check like a force free from local influences, especially when that force is the Mounted Corps which for nearly half a century has built up a reputation for a fair and fearless administration of law. The prestige of the corps that has been proof against all attempts at intimidation or bribery on the part of the lawless classes makes it a unique power for good in the cities as on the plains. And when the Commissioner says that detachments of the Mounted Police are found at points "where industrial activities are vital to the welfare of the nation" he strikes a chord that will find grateful response from every industrious citizen, whether employer or employed, who understands that "trade is the calm health of nations." There is nothing in this world of material things more to be feared than the wanton destruction of industries that have been built up by laborious endeavour and the unstinted expenditure of energy in brain and hand. Such destruction leads to endless suffering amongst the innocent and to the business stagnation which brings calamity in its wake. To guard against these dread contingencies the Mounted Police are on hand. They have never interfered in a partisan way when strikes and lock outs are abroad, but they stand by to preserve law and order and to prevent any destruction of human life and property which might take place at the instigation of irresponsible extremists. In this difficult and ofttimes dangerous duty the men who stand for constitutional order in society will always have the support of decent intelligent citizens. Not only in the centres of population but away up in the Arctic regions beyond the sky-line of civilization have the Mounted Police in 1920 as always been doing their duty in their usual unobtrusive but extremely effective way. Amongst the Eskimos there were several cases of murder of adults and of infanticide, every one of which was followed up by the closest investigation even though it took months of work and patrolling amidst the rigours of Polar weather to do it. In these cases of murder there seemed to be a complete absence of that malice aforethought which constitutes the essence of the crime in the eyes of the law. The cases were very few, but occasionally an infant was put out of the misery of starvation when there was no food in sight and a man who became a moral nuisance to the tribe and was therefore considered insane (a fairly good inference) was quietly removed by the unanimous vote of the community. But the Police taught a different code of ethics, followed and investigated every case until the Eskimos have begun to see things in a more humane light. It is of great interest to find that in these recent endeavours to get the Eskimos to see these matters aright the Mounted Police had the aid of the two Eskimos Sinnisiak and Uluksak who had been convicted of the murder of Fathers Le Roux and Rouvier, as already related, but who had been finally pardoned and sent back to tell their people of the sacredness of human life. In fact, Sinnisiak entered the service as a special constable and did useful work as a guide and hunter, thus showing, as Staff-Sergeant S. G. Clay said, that "his now rather long acquaintance with the Police has had its advantages." Two other Eskimos who had been tried and acquitted were also taken back by the Police to their own tribes to preach the gospel of the value of human life. In connection with these recent Northern patrols Sergeant W. O. Douglas with Constable Eyre and two natives left Fullerton for Chesterfield to look into rumours of a murder near Baker Lake. After a difficult patrol and serious risk Douglas arrested the alleged murderer, On-aug-wak, and brought him back to the Pas in Northern Manitoba after several thousands of miles of patrol for trial. The Eskimo made a statement as to taking the lives of two men, but there were many elements to be considered, and as the prisoner is deemed entitled to all the protection that British law affords, the Police with the accused are leaving for Baker Lake by the Hudson's Bay Company steamship _Nascopie_. A court will be constituted at Chesterfield Inlet with a jury from the crew of the steamship and the dozen or more Eskimo witnesses will be on hand to tell their story. This shows how carefully the Police work is done with due regard to every one's rights, no matter what his race or colour. But whatever the outcome of the trial the moral effect on the natives will be highly beneficial. Similarly Inspector J. W. Phillips and Sergeant A. H. Joy made a patrol from Haileybury in Northern Ontario to the Belcher Islands in the sub-Arctic, taking seventy-five days and covering nearly two thousand miles, arrested an Eskimo named Tukatauk for killing a man named Ketanshauk, but the coroner's jury were unanimous in saying that Ketanshauk was "killed for the common good and safety of the tribe." Phillips saw the force of this verdict as reasonable from the point of view of the Eskimos and was satisfied with the opportunity to give them some appropriate instruction in law and morals. One other case was followed up by Phillips at the same time with somewhat the same result. In 1920 Staff-Sergeant S. G. Clay, Constable E. H. Cornelius and Constable J. Brockie left Herschell Island and established the most northerly outpost of the Force 65 miles east of the mouth of the Coppermine River. The isolation of this post may be judged by the fact that the nearest post office is at Fort Macpherson over 600 miles away as the crow flies and the nearest telegraph office is at Dawson, over 1,000 miles distant. Here the Union Jack flies in the Arctic breeze and here revenue is collected for the Dominion from traders and trappers who venture north in schooners to ply their occupation. Sergeant Clay and his men made constant patrols to the Coppermine, to Bernard Harbour and Victoria Land, to Bathurst Inlet and Kent Peninsula with their dogs. The question of supplies of food for themselves and dogs was always pressing and at Fort Norman on the return journey there was such a shortage that the whole party had to go to Willow Lake for a month's fishing and hunting to lay in a safe supply. About 20 miles east of Cape Barrow this patrol found a tribe whom the police had not yet met. This gave the opportunity for more instruction, and Clay opines "that with the advent of the missionary and other aids to civilization" the wrongs done in ignorance by these people will cease. I have already spoken of the oilfields in the Fort Norman district, to which at the time of this writing there is a rush of people who see in their own imaginations such roads to wealth that they miss seeing the dangers of the way through these remote regions. But the Mounted Police, under the general charge of Superintendent G. L. Jennings, an experienced northerner himself, have made stringent regulations as to entry into the district which will protect the foolhardy from their own folly. And then, swinging away in our story to the old cities of the East, we find the Mounted Police at the ports of Montreal and Halifax, engaging the services of such experienced social-service workers as the Rev. John Chisholm and Mrs. Bessie Egan to meet unaccompanied women and girls who land in Canada, to see to their requirements and to attend them on board their trains, so that they may not be misled or enticed in wrong directions by the unscrupulous individuals who fatten on the wreckage of human lives. Social-service workers have always found difficulty in this work because of the brazenness and the threatening attitude of some of the evildoers, but when the stalwart men in scarlet and gold are at the call of these life-saving crews at the ports of entry to this country the harpies who prey on the innocent have to keep out of the way. A right royal task is this, also, for the old corps that has headed off more crime than any similar body in the world. And for all the work in Canada we have sketched, the total strength of the Force is about 1,700 of all ranks. There are some few people who so lack the power to sense nation-wide conditions that they gird at the expense of maintaining the corps. But men of vision know that the Mounted Police save Canada annually from moral and material losses that make expenditure upon this famous old law-and-order corps pale into insignificance by comparison. In the past year there were many changes in the way of promotions. Amongst the names our readers who have followed the story of the Force will meet many of the men who gave such ample proof of their fitness that their moving up a step came as it has generally come in the Force, as a spontaneous recognition of merit. The promotions were as follows: Promoted Assistant Commissioners: Superintendents C. Starnes, T. A. Wroughton. Promoted Superintendents: Inspectors R. E. Tucker, J. Ritchie, A. B. Allard, T. S. Belcher, G. L. Jennings and H. M. Newson. Promoted Inspectors: Sergt.-Major Fletcher, A./Sergt.-Major Trundle, Staff-Sergeant Mellor, Staff-Sergeant Forde, Staff-Sergeant Reames, Sergeants Bruce, Thomas, Moorhead, Kemp, Frere, Eames and Fraser. And these men, who had won their spurs, are with their comrades carrying on in a way worthy of the great traditions to which they are heirs. Thus has the story of the famous Mounted Police of Canada been brought down to date. An encyclopedia might be compiled on the subject by writing minute records and dry details, but an encyclopedia was not desired. It would be prohibitive in cost to the people in general and would be lacking in the personal element and the personal human touch so characteristic of the history of the corps. The aim was to bring the records of nearly fifty years into a single volume without squeezing the life out of them. Incidents and names could not all be included, but nothing has been omitted intentionally that bore upon the general trend of Western Canadian history with which the work of the Mounted Police is inseparably connected. Two years ago the Dominion Government, as already intimated, extended the jurisdiction of the Force to the whole of Canada, so that in towns and cities as well as on the frontiers of the far North and West the influence of the Force will henceforth be felt, backed by its great prestige. Referring to this the Duke of Devonshire, who as Governor-General of Canada was so close a student of its history and affairs, said recently, "The Force is now taking over a wider jurisdiction and increased duties. It will carry with it a great tradition and a great name, and we who appreciate and value its work can be assured that its record will be as successful in the future as in the past." And our gallant Prince of Wales, who captivated all Canada during his recent tour across the Dominion, graciously expressed his approval and appreciation of the Force by speaking at Regina Headquarters after inspection in the following words: "It is not only a real pleasure, but a great privilege to me to inspect you on parade this morning, and to visit the depôt of the Royal North-West Mounted Police, though this is by no means my first introduction to the Force, which I have seen a great deal of throughout my travels in the West, and I have been very impressed by it, particularly by the mounted escorts and guards that it has furnished for me in all the big cities. "I am interested in the history of the Force, how it was organized forty-six years ago, at a time when treaties were being made with the Indians, whereby the lands of the North-West were made available for settlement by the white people. So well has it administered justice between all parties that it has won for itself respect and the confidence of both white people and Indians, and no new country has ever been opened up with less crime and violence than this North-West Territory. "Up in the Klondike, when wild and lawless men thronged the Yukon gold diggings, life and property were as safe in the care of the Royal North-West Mounted Police as in any other part of the Dominion, and the splendid police work which they have done and continue to do in the frozen wastes of the North, under the most trying conditions of hardship and privation, is recognized and appreciated everywhere to-day. "I know that at the declaration of war, the whole Force wanted to join up, though that was naturally impossible. The first to be allowed to go were many Imperial reservists, who have always constituted a large percentage of its members. Then, by degrees, men could he spared, and served in the Canadian cavalry, infantry and other units, and I know many of the last joined men are war veterans. "I was with Sir Arthur Currie, Canadian Corps Commander, when he inspected the Royal North-West Mounted Police squadron when they arrived in France a year ago, so that the war records of the Force have been of the same high standard as its records in the past. "The Royal North-West Mounted Police is a splendid Force with magnificent traditions, whose fame is as wide as that of the Dominion itself. "I know the men of the Force of to-day are proving themselves worthy of those traditions and will ever uphold them." It was appropriate that the heir apparent to the British throne should thus address the Mounted Police of Canada, for their record is part of that British tradition and British sentiment which, delicate and intangible as gossamer, but strong as steel, bind our far-flung Empire into one triumphant unity. And now, as a fitting climax to the history of the corps at the time when it was undergoing changes that meant larger opportunities and increased usefulness in the years ahead, there comes this note in Commissioner Perry's report for 1920 just off the press: "On March 8 last, Sir George Perley, High Commissioner for Canada, cabled as follows: 'With His Majesty's approval Prince of Wales has graciously consented accept position Honorary Commandant Royal Canadian Mounted Police and His Royal Highness asks me tell you how pleased he is to be associated with Force in this way.' "On May 3, an Order in Council was passed making the appointment. "The Force has been signally honoured by His Royal Highness, and it keenly appreciates the distinction conferred upon it." This needs no comment beyond saying that the Prince of Wales knows Canada and knows the Mounted Police record in peace and in war. The Prince, who came to the overseas Dominions to represent our beloved King, has always shown his splendid capacity for thus appreciating the service of men who have stood and will continue to stand unconquered for the Flag "That may float or sink o'er a shot-torn wreck, But will never float over a slave." _Printed in Great Britain by_ Butler & Tanner, _Frome and London_. 
45549	----	THE AIR MYSTERY OF ISLE LA MOTTE by E. J. CRAINE Author of Cap Rock Flyers, The Sky Buddies Secrets Of Cuzko, Flying to Amy-Ran Fastness, etc. The World Syndicate Publishing Co. Cleveland, Ohio New York, N. Y. Made in U. S. A. Copyright 1930 by The World Syndicate Publishing Company Press of The Commercial Bookbinding Co. Cleveland ------------------------------------------------------------------------ This is the first book of the Sky Buddies, Jim Austin and Bob Caldwell and their plane, properly christened "HER HIGHNESS" in which they encounter many thrilling and exciting adventures. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Contents I THE STEP-BROTHERS II THE THREE MYSTERIES III THUNDERING WATERS IV A MYSTERIOUS FIND V A DISCOVERY VI A CAPTURE VII A TAIL SPIN VIII ABLAZE IX THE MAIL MUST GO THROUGH X DANGER XI THE CRY FOR HELP XII DETECTIVES ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Air Mystery of Isle La Motte I THE STEP-BROTHERS "I say now, why are you fellows landing here?" The Canadian Mounted Policeman reined in his horse as close to the cock-pit as he could get, and eyed the two occupants in the plane, which had just landed in the southern part of the Province of Quebec. "You want the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?" the blue-eyed youth in the passenger's seat drawled in an accent that could belong to only one part of the world, Texas. "If you're telling it today," the mounty replied. "If not, we'll get it later." "Very true, but you shall have it pronto. From an elevation of three thousand feet we observed you, so we came down to find out if you are riding a real horse, or merely an imitation--" "It isn't a bad plug," interrupted the pilot, whose eyes were blue and they rested with approval on the animal that had aroused their curiosity. "But, if you ever visit Cap Bock, we'll fork you on something superior--we have a pinto that can--" "Now, look here, I'm not fooling. You hop out of that and give an account of yourselves," the mounty ordered firmly. "Yes, sir." The two obeyed willingly enough and the man dismounted. When they took off their helmets he saw they were boys, both had tow heads, and they didn't look at all formidable or like a pair he might have to escort to headquarters. However, duty was duty and he wasn't making any snap judgments or taking needless risks. There was too much smuggling, to say nothing of illegal immigration across the border, and orders were strict. It was not at all outside possibility that a couple of perfectly innocent looking youths might be the tools or employees of some powerful gang. The fact that they dropped out of the skies in an airplane was in itself suspicious. "I'm Jim Austin, age sixteen years and two months. This is my step-brother, Bob Caldwell, fifteen years and eleven months," the grey-eyed boy announced gravely. "Proud to meet you, sir," Bob bowed, then added. "I'm almost as old as he is." "Well, go ahead, get along with the story," the mounty put in more pleasantly. His horse had walked close to the boy and was nosing about the pockets of his aviation coat. Soberly Bob drew forth an apple, broke it in half and fed the big fellow. "We were both born with a complete pair of parents on ranches, adjoining ones, along Cap Rock in Texas, but circumstances, over which we had no control removed my mother and Bob's father," Jim explained. "When I was twelve I discovered that my father was spending a lot of time on the Caldwell ranch and I lay awake nights wondering why a Texas gentleman couldn't shoot a lady." "And I planned to set a trap for Mr. Austin and fill him full of lead," Bob offered. "Give me your apple, Jim." Jim handed it over without hesitation and it was fed to the horse. "Then, one day, I happened along by the water-hole and found some Greasers knocking the stuffing out of Bob. We beat them off, and after that, I went to the Caldwell's. It was a nice, clean house and Mrs. Caldwell gave me a square meal, woman cooked." "My mother is the best cook in Texas," Bob offered softly. "Yes. That night I started to follow my father and I ran into Bob. We rode about and talked it over. Bob's mother wanted him to go to school." "And Bob didn't want to," the officer suggested solemnly. "Oh yes I did," Bob replied quickly. "But a mother, ranch, a string of horses and a pair of blue cranes, is a responsibility," Jim offered, "Then, we rode to the house--" "And found his father eating a piece of chocolate cake that I didn't know anything about," said Bob. "And he'd eaten the last crumbs," Jim added. "Then, we told them they were a pair of boobs. A week later the knots were tied that united the ranches and made us step-brothers. We were all at our place--" "And Bob was to be sent to school?" "Sure, but his mother said I had to go too," Jim grinned. "Not so good." "It was not so bad because his father said that when we finished the course, it was four years, we could have an airplane, he'd see that we were properly instructed in its chauffeuring. We were both hipped about flying," Bob answered. "So we went to the school, did the work in two years and a half, learned piloting on the side, then went home and made the old man keep his word. Meet Her Highness," he waved his hand toward the plane which was a beauty. "I'm glad to," the officer grinned broadly. "Now, tell me what you are doing here." "You haven't told us anything about yourself," Bob reminded him. "Later." "Bob's mother has a sister, Mrs. Norman Fenton, and she lives on a farm on North Hero Island. In the summer time she takes tourists and calls the house, Stumble Inn. We came to see a bit of the world and to pay her a visit. Arrived yesterday and this morning took a hop over British soil. We like it even if it isn't Texas." "That's generous of you. I'm Sergeant Bradshaw on border patrol duty, the horse is Patrick. He was imported from one of the western states, don't know which one, but he was a bloody beast when he was wished on me--" "Somebody had mistreated him," Bob announced. "He's got a scar on his leg. Looks like a short-hitch hobble that cut him." The boy stooped over, took the hoof in his hand and Pat submitted amiably to the inspection. "Reckon it was done with raw-hide," Jim declared. His fingers gently manipulated the old wound and Pat turned his nose about to sniff at the youngster. "Pat doesn't usually make friends with strangers. You must have a way with horses," Sergeant Bradshaw told them. "We came out of the sky to meet him," Bob reminded the man. "Dad told us before we started north to make our trip as profitable as possible by learning all we can. It's against our principles to ask impudent questions, but we should like to know what you have to do," Jim announced and Bradshaw laughed heartily. "I have to patrol this territory, watch the roads carefully, and every place where smugglers of any kind might try to break across the border. There has been no end of bootlegging--" "Thought Canada was all wet," Bob grinned. "The provinces have local option and Quebec went dry, so we have to enforce it, but the rum runners are the least of our troubles, although they are bad enough. There's a lot of objectionable people sneaking in to both this country and yours, besides drugs and jewelry. This is a pretty wild section and it keeps Pat and me on our toes." "Noticed from the air it isn't much settled. Didn't know there is so much open space outside of Texas," Bob said. "I should think you'd have a plane and you could see what's going on a lot better. With the glasses we knew all about what you looked like before we came down," Jim remarked. "There are some planes on the job, but men and horses are necessary--mighty necessary," the sergeant answered. "The airmen can tell us if anything is moving that is suspicious, but we have to be down here to get it, unless the outlaws are taking the air." "Anything special afoot now," Jim inquired. "You bet there is." Both boys looked at him eagerly. "Our men and yours have been working for months trying to get something on a gang that has put it over every time. If we don't make a killing soon, I can see where there will be a general shaking up in both forces and a lot of us will be sent to hoe hay." The officer spoke seriously and the boys listened with keen interest. "Tell you what, we didn't think we'd find anything very exciting so far north, but I reckon we'll ooze around here and see what we can pick up. Maybe we can help you. You'll recognize Her Highness if you see her sailing through again, and if we want to communicate with you, we'll circle around and drop you a message if we can't land. How will you let us know if you receive it O.K.?" "That's fine of you, Jim, but this is a man-sized job. I appreciate your offer no end, old top, but your Aunt and Uncle, to say nothing of your mother and father would come down on me hard if I agreed to let you risk your necks--" "The parents are sensible people, we picked them out for that very reason. They both told us to have a good time, and helping you looks to me like a good time--" "Besides, what would we risk? All we could do is report to you if we see anything, and like as not what we see won't be much help because we're so green. But, if we did see anything real--because we are such a pair of nuts we might put something over for you. We elect ourselves, you're in the minority, so, if you hear Her Highness, listen, stop, watch. Come on, Buddy, your aunt was making cherry pies when we left and if we don't get a move on, some cadaverous tourist is likely to come along and eat every snitch of it. They are a greedy lot." "Isn't your aunt the woman who raises such a flock of turkeys?" the sergeant asked. "Sure, she used to. She has them on Isle La Motte, but last year they didn't do so well, and she said last night that she isn't having much luck this spring. It's tough because there is money in turkeys if you can ever make them grow up," Bob replied. "I drove down there once and got a couple for my family. They were grand birds. Come on, Pat." "You haven't told us yet how we will know that you get our message," Jim reminded him. "I'll wave my hat, and if I want you to come down, I'll keep it off my head, but you fellows watch your step and don't go doing anything that will get us all into the cooler," he warned. "We'll look out." They both rubbed Pat's nose, then climbed into the cock-pit of Her Highness, this time Bob took the pilot's seat. "Need any help?" "Not a bit, thanks." Bob opened her up, the engine bellowed, the propeller spun and Her Highness raced forward, lifted her nose as if sniffing the air, then climbed into it. Jim waved at the man, who wondered if he had not better telephone the Fentons and tell them to keep the boys out of any trouble. On second thought, he decided against it. After all, their own air men were watching from above, and as they were every one of them experts at the game, they would report things long before the boys could possibly have their suspicions aroused. It would be too bad to spoil their fun, and if they would enjoy keeping an eye on the world, let them do it. They appeared to be a pretty decent pair of kids. "You almost flew off with them, Old Top," he remarked, giving the horse an affectionate pat, "and only yesterday you bared your teeth and scared the wits, what little he has, out of that Canuck. You _are_ a discriminating old cuss." He leaped into the saddle, but he waited to make a note of the meeting of the boys and their account of themselves. "Even at that they may be stringing me," he remarked a bit uneasily as he glanced toward the fast disappearing speck in the sky, but he dismissed the thought immediately for he felt confident the step-brothers were entirely trustworthy. In the meantime Her Highness climbed in swift spirals for three thousand feet, then Bob leveled her off, set his course and started toward North Hero, which is one of many delightful bits of land in Lake Champlain. Presently the boys could see a tiny shack with the British Flag floating on one side, the Stars and Stripes on the other. "They look like good pals," Jim said into the speaking tube, and Bob glanced over the side. "Great pair," he responded. "Not like the border at Texas." He took a good look at the huge lake that stretched out restlessly between New York State and Vermont. "We could use that down our way." "Let's send some of it to Dad. Remember how long it is?" "One hundred and twenty-eight miles." "Bigger than the two ranches together." They flew on until they were flying over the water, and Jim took the glasses to get a better view of the historic lake. He picked out Rouse's Point, then on to the picturesque sections of land whose rocky coasts had defied the pounding waves. There was Isle La Motte, with it's farms at one end and long wooded stretch at the other where the Fenton's kept their turkeys. Beyond, united by a long bridge was North Hero Island, cut up into small homesteads. There were acres of uncultivated land which was now blue and yellow with flowers, groves of cedar, elm and ash, to say nothing of delicate green spots that the boys knew were gardens or meadows. Further on was Grand Isle, also connected by a bridge, but they were not going that far. "Let's hop down on the turkey end of La Motte," Jim suggested, and Bob nodded. He shut the engine off, let Her Highness glide, and circled for a landing place. "Get on the water." Young Caldwell kicked forward a lever which shifted landing wheels to water floats, selected a smooth cove, and in a moment they lighted, splashed and stopped. "Hey you, get the heck out of here. Get out!" The voice came from back of a fallen tree, and in a moment a huge man whose face was ugly with anger, walked along the dead bole and shook his fist at them. "Get out. You ain't no business around here." "We just dropped in to have a look at the turkeys," Bob told him. "We're--" But Jim stepped on his foot. "What's the matter?" He broke in quickly. "We're not going to hurt anything. We've never seen a turkey farm and we heard that you have a fine one here." "You're right you're not going to hurt anything, and you're not going to see this turkey farm. Hear! Now, get out! You're on private property and I'll have the law on you! Don't you see them signs, 'No Trespassing', right there!" He pointed to a large sign hung between two trees and it plainly warned off inquisitive, or interested spectators. "Go on, now, get out." Bob glanced questioningly at his step-brother. He had started to tell the caretaker who they were, feeling sure that the information would naturally assure them a very different reception, but for some reason or other, the older boy wanted to withhold the fact. Just then the man broke off a dry branch, raised it over his head, and prepared to throw it. "Move out of his range," Jim said tensely. "He might land that in our propeller or tail." Bob sent Her Highness scurrying over the water and the stick fell harmlessly behind the plane. "The ornery old cuss," Bob growled at the indignity. He whirled the plane about, held her nose low, and set the propeller racing. Instantly it kicked up a spray of water that shot out on all sides, and before the man could move, he was drenched to the skin. "Confound your hides," he bellowed, but Her Highness was circling away, then she lifted, climbed swiftly and started homeward. Bob taxied her low across the two miles of water, and brought her down close to the boat pier, where she "rode at anchor." "Boys, dinner's ready." Mrs. Fenton, a typical, tall, slender Vermont woman, came out onto the back veranda of the old house. "So are we," Bob shouted. The plane made secure, they raced around the curve, across the wide, sloping lawn, up the high stairs, and into the living-room. "There's basins outside to wash up," Mrs. Fenton told them, and soon they were splashing the cold water over their faces, and lathering their hands with the cake of home-made soap. "Well, you lads get a good look at Vermont?" Mr. Fenton joined them at his own basin. He too was tall and slender, with kindly grey eyes, and a broad smile. Although they had never seen him before until their arrival twenty-four hours earlier, they both liked him enormously. "Corking. She's some state, Uncle Norman!" Bob answered from behind the roller towel. "She's got a lot of her under water," Jim added. "Expect you'd like some of that in Texas." "Surely could use it. Cracky, some of those hot spots would seep it up like a sponge." "We could spare a good deal of it," Mr. Fenton told them. "Especially when it's high." "Does it get much higher than it is now?" Jim asked. "It has swelled up fifteen feet more, then it does some flooding, but that doesn't happen often, not so far north, but we get plenty. Well, come on in. Hope you didn't leave your appetites in the sky." "We did not." "I will take the milk now, sir." The boys turned quickly at the voice, which was deep and musical, and saw a tall, powerfully built man, whose skin and eyes were dark. He wore the usual overalls, a tan shirt open at the throat, and carried himself more like a person of importance than a working man or a farmer. "All right, Corso. Here it is waiting for you." Mr. Fenton handed down a covered pail. "I thank you, sir," Corso replied with dignity. "Your nephew is doing an interesting job on that mud hole. The boy is a good worker." "He is learning. We thank you." The man accepted the pail of milk and walked away swiftly. The boys noted that he was amazingly light on his feet for a man of his size. "Is he a Vermonter, Uncle Norman?" Bob asked as they made they way to the dining room where the table would have groaned if it had not been accustomed to such a bounteous load. "No, he isn't. I really don't know where he comes from, Bob, and my guess is Spain, although I'm probably miles off on that. He and his young nephew, a boy about thirteen, or perhaps a little older, rented a shack a mile or so up the shore; they paid several months in advance. Seem to spend their time walking, or on the lake, and I believe I'm about the only person, on North Hero Island Corso talks with, and he doesn't say very much to me. I've seen the boy, of course, but I don't know if he can speak English or not, I've never heard him." "He's a nice looking boy," Mrs. Fenton put in. "Ever since they came your aunt has longed to get her motherly hands on him," Mr. Fenton laughed. "He needs a woman to look after him, see that he gets proper food and plenty of it. He's as thin as a stick, and I know he was sick this spring. I did make Corso take some puddings and jellies to him," she announced. "They sound like an interesting pair," Jim remarked. "Well, they are, but they mind their own business, and we Vermonters mind ours. How about it, light meat or dark, Jim?" "Dark, please." "What is the boy doing with the mud hole?" Bob wanted to know, for a mud hole didn't sound very promising. "I don't know what it will be like when he gets finished but I'm keen to see. It's a strip about two and a half acres wide, and five long, that has always been a dead loss for cultivation. It comes between my alfalfa meadow and the garden; dips down low and toward the middle is quite a hole. The place catches all the rain and hangs on to it all through the hottest months. I had an expert here to drain it several years ago, he sunk some pipes, and although he did get the water off, more came back inside of a few weeks, and it was full after the first rain storm. The land is very fertile, and if I could use it, I would raise bumper crops." "Shame you can't." "Yes, it is. Corso came to me early this spring, some weeks ago, and asked if I would rent it to him, and permit him to dig and do anything he wanted to with it. He assured me he would do it no harm, nor the surrounding patches. I told him it wasn't good for anything, but he seemed to want it, so I let him have it. He and the boy spend a great deal of time there, and they have hauled a lot of rocks from the shore. You probably noticed the edge of the lake, except around the cliffs, is all small flat stones, not very brittle, but not so soft as soap-stone." "Sure, we were looking at them last night. Some have pink and white streaks, like marble, and are pretty. I'd like to send a box to Mom for the garden walks. She'd be pleased to pieces to have them." "They have taken several loads of them and some very large stones. After dinner you might walk over and see what you make out of the work so far. I can't make head or tail of it. A few days ago they planted corn, right in the mud, and in each hole they put a minnow they scooped out of the lake." "Why put fish in, do they expect to raise sardines?" Jim laughed. "Can't say," Mr. Fenton answered. "It's some heathen notion I know." Mrs. Fenton announced positively. "Are you getting enough to eat, Bob?" II THE THREE MYSTERIES "I say, Uncle Norman, you surely have a crab of a man to look after your turkeys," Bob remarked when the noonday meal was nearly finished, and the boy suddenly recalled their very unwelcome reception on Isle La Motte. "A crab?" "I'll tell the herd he is the prize long horn for meanness," Jim added emphatically. "My goodness, boys, what on earth did he do?" Mrs. Fenton asked soberly, as if she could hardly believe her ears. "He wouldn't let us near the place," Bob explained, then went on with an account of their effort to see the turkey farm. "Hezzy's all right, boys. You didn't tell him who you were." "No, we didn't, but great snakes, about everybody on the three islands seemed to know we were coming. Didn't seem reasonable that this fellow did not have an idea who we were," Jim declared. "Of course, airplane visitors are not common and the news of your arriving from Texas did spread, but it's possible Hezzy didn't hear of it," Mrs. Fenton told them. "You see, boys, he's been having quite a peck of trouble. Last year they hatched a big flock of birds, but before they were half grown, a lot of them were stolen. We know they didn't die--only a few of them--and there is no way for them to have wandered off. Their wings are clipped as soon as they are big enough to get any height, and turkeys do not fly very high or far, anyway. Some one, or some band of thieves must have made away with them. Hezzy is hired to raise them, I haven't time to and look after the farm, and he takes real pride in having a big flock. Some of the young ones have disappeared already and I expect he's keeping a mighty close watch to save as many as he can. They bring a good price and last year was the first season we didn't realize a profit on them." "Any idea where they go?" "No, we haven't, but it must be outsiders. Probably some tourists discovered the old farm tucked away there in the woods, and let it be known, or came back themselves. We have three watchmen, and now one of them sits up all night, but it hasn't done much good," Mr. Fenton answered. "Sure Hezzy isn't putting his own brand on them?" Jim suggested. "My goodness sakes alive, child, don't say anything like that. I wouldn't have anyone hear you for the world," Aunt Belle said anxiously. "Hezzy is too honest for his own good, really. He wouldn't take a bent pin that didn't belong to him. I've known him since I was a boy. He's a fine poultry man and absolutely reliable. Keeps his records as accurate as can be. There isn't a cent's worth he doesn't give a detailed account of every week," Mr. Fenton supplemented. "I didn't mean to cast reflections on his honesty, but he was such a bear, it just occurred to me he might be feathering his own nest with your turkeys," Jim said. "Oh, dear me, don't say it again. Why, I should be so distressed to have it get out--" "We won't breath it, Aunt Belle," Bob promised. "I'll take you over sometime and you can see the place. I ordered a pair of good watchdogs to help guard it. They should be here in a day or so," Mr. Fenton said, then added. "Well, if you want to go out and inspect what's being done on the mud hole, come along." "Perhaps they could eat another piece of pie, Norman." "No, we couldn't, not a sliver," Bob insisted. "Much to our regret," Jim grinned. "Very well," Aunt Belle agreed. The two boys followed Mr. Fenton out of the front door, down the flower lined path under a grove of huge maples, across the road onto the farm proper, past the barns, around the vegetable garden and then he stopped and made a gesture. "Here it is." They saw the land, much as he had described it, the alfalfa meadow rising gently on the further side, and between them was a long pond of still water which was very dirty. "Some hole," Jim nodded. They walked on, picking their way until they saw a boy at work, and they stood quietly watching him. He did not realize they were there and went on with his task quite as if he was alone on the island. "What the heck is he doing?" Bob whispered. The boy had some odd sort of implement, the handles of which he grasped in both hands, stood it upright, then jumped, his feet landing in the middle; driving the queer tool deep into the ground. Then he stepped off, bent the handles as far as they would go, and raised the earth. "I think it is some sort of shovel, or plow," Mr. Fenton told them, "but I never saw anything like it. Listen and you'll hear him sing, it's a kind of a chant." The step-brothers listened and in a moment they could hear, but the words and melody were unfamiliar. As the youngster straightened up, they could see that he was lithe, his skin was dark like his uncle's, and his heavy hair, which was quite long for a boy's, waved in the breeze. "Gosh, he looks a little like an Indian, a good one," Jim remarked. "Will he mind if we go closer?" "No, but I wouldn't pay too much attention to him," Mr. Fenton advised. "I'll go about my job and you amuse yourselves." He left them, and the boys proceeded to where the young farmer, or whatever he was, was engaged. They marveled at the speed with which he turned over the earth and before they were very close they saw that he was making some kind of trench. At the nearest end the work seemed to be finished, and then they could tell that he was making a terrace along the edge of the alfalfa plot. About half way down he had taken some very large rocks, fitted them with great nicety, filled in the crevices with smaller stones, filled in the space toward the hill with earth, and above the dark soil poked two rows of tiny green shoots of young corn. "Gosh, he's planting as he gets the land ready. Great job, isn't it?" Bob whispered and his step-brother nodded. Presently they came up to the boy. When their shadows fell across his plow, he glanced up quickly and sprang back. They grinned cheerfully to let him know they were friendly, and Jim pointed to the new terrace. "Fine," he declared. The boy smiled, his eyes lost some of the terror which had leaped into them, and his body relaxed. He eyed them for a moment, then motioning with one hand, he led them back to the other side where he showed them a narrow trench. With one scoop of his shovel he removed the earth that still held the water as a dam, and it started to tumble through and race off toward the road, where it would be carried away into the lake. For several minutes they watched, and then they glanced at the useless bog. "Cracky," Bob shouted with admiration. "Some irrigator. Look, it's draining off." Sure enough, the long strip was getting dry around the edges, and promised to be emptied inside of an hour. "If it stays dry, Uncle Norman will be tickled pink. Say, Jim, what do you suppose he is?" "Search me," Jim responded. "Seems as if I've got a kind of hazy idea of reading something about some old race or other using plows like that," Bob remarked. "Me too. Maybe it was the Egyptians." "Maybe, but holy hoofs, what's this kid doing it for?" "As I said before, my esteemed step-brother, you are at liberty to search me thoroughly, but if you find anything, you have to let me in on it," Jim laughed. The boy watched them a few minutes longer, then picking up his tool, he hurried back to his work. "You know, Jim, we thought this neck of the woods was going to be dull as ditch-water, but I've got a hunch that if we stick around we may be able to crowd some real excitement into our visit. I'm dying to know who this kid is and where he came from, mystery number one; I'd like to do some flying about Isle La Motte and perhaps we can see something that will solve mystery number two--what's happening to Uncle Norman's turkeys--" "I'd like to do some observing and see if we can't get a line on that gang that is giving friend Bradshaw such deep furrows between his handsome eyes," Jim laughed. "Me too, but gosh all hemlock, wouldn't Dad kid the life out of us if he knew we are out to help the little old world!" "Not only Dad, but the whole shooting match on the ranch. Tell you what, Aunt Belle and Uncle Fent said we could stay as long as we like, and they meant it, even if we are boys. Let's organize a secret--s-e-c-r-e-t--mind you, detecting bureau, or what ever it is, and stay until we solve the three mysteries!" Bob proposed. "I'm on. This end of the world doesn't look so bad to me. We'll let the folks know we're taking root for a while, the three of us, that includes Her Highness. We'll keep on the job until we win, or we have to admit we're licked." Bob held out his hand and the agreement was made, without further discussion. "We'll have to explain to Her Highness," the younger boy declared. "Sure thing. She'll be disappointed unless there's a lot of air work to it, and I have a hunch there will be." "Oh, boys--" "Yes Aunt Belle," Bob shouted. "Do you know where your uncle is working?" Mrs. Fenton called from the roadway. "There's a telephone message for him." "We'll find him for you," Jim promised. They hurried off in the direction Mr. Fenton had taken when he left them and soon the sound of a hammer ringing in the distance informed them they were on the right trail. A moment later they could see the man repairing a place in the rail fence that bounded the pasture. "Uncle Norman, you're wanted on the telephone," Bob roared. "All right, coming," the man waved, and dropping his work, came as fast as his long legs could carry him. "Guess you're party's holding the line," Jim volunteered. "They don't mind that around here," Mr. Fenton replied. He went ahead and the boys followed more leisurely. "This certainly is a good looking spot. No wonder the early pioneers settled in rock-bound Vermont, but, gosh, what a fight they had to put up to get a living out of those rocks," Bob remarked as his eyes roamed admiringly over the green hills, across the blue water, on to the distant mountains. "It isn't a rich state yet, but it has produced some fine men. Real rip-snorters, rearin' to go," Jim added. By that time they had reached the "hole" and could see the strange boy working industriously at his terrace. "You know, Bob, we want to be kind of careful because we don't want to do any butting-in on that kid. Maybe, far as he's concerned, we had better mind our own business." "Reckon you're right, but let's try to make friends with him," Bob suggested, and that was passed without a dissenting vote. "Oh boys." "Here," Bob shouted to his uncle. "How long would it take you to get me to Burlington?" the man asked as he came up to them. "Less than an hour," Bob answered. "Would it be too much trouble for you to take me?" "Not one bit," Jim assured him. "Ever been up in a plane, sir?" "No, I haven't," the man admitted. "Do you get dizzy easily, that is, does it make you sick to your stomach when you get on a high place and look over?" "Oh no. I never get dizzy." "That's all right then." "We can strap you in," Bob offered. "Will the plane carry three of us?" the man asked. "Sure. There's an emergency seat in the back, and she'll carry some freight besides," Jim explained. "Our dad didn't leave anything undone when he bought that plane, and besides, we helped in the selection. She'll do anything except herd sheep," Bob said proudly. "We have parachutes and everything. Maybe you'd like to try one of them out," Jim offered. "Not this time unless I have to," Mr. Fenton laughed. "A chap called me up on important business, and if I can get it attended to today, it will be a big help." "Well then, get a heavy coat on. We have an extra helmet--" "Shall I need rubbers?" "If you intend to come down with the parachute over the lake," Bob answered. "It's mighty nice of you--" "We'll get Her Highness in ship shape." "I'll be with you in five minutes," Mr. Fenton promised, and he was. He joined his young guests at the pier, Bob was already in the back, while Jim was fussing about the pilot's seat. Mr. Fenton was given the extra helmet and a pair of goggles, both of which he adjusted when he took his place after he had submitted to having the parachute and safety strap buckled properly. "All O.K.?" Jim shouted finally. Mrs. Fenton had come down to see her husband start on his first flight, and she watched a bit nervously. "I don't know about those contraptions, Norman," she said anxiously. "They're great inventions, Belle. When we get rich, we'll have one," he promised her. "I'd rather have a good horse and buggy," she retorted. "A horse is all right, Aunt Belle. He never loses an engine or gets his wings ripped off," Bob shouted, then added. "All set in the rumble seat, Jim!" "Right-you-are." Jim glanced at their passenger, assured himself that he was secure, then, opened her up, and they sped forward over the water, which was smooth as a sheet of glass. Mr. Fenton's lips moved, but whatever he said was lost in the roar of the motor. He grabbed the edge of the seat as Her Highness lifted her nose eagerly, and he hung on grimly as she spiraled in wide curves over the lake. At a thousand feet the young pilot leveled her off and they roared swiftly south toward the State's largest city. After about ten minutes, Mr. Fenton sat less rigidly. Jim picked up the speaking tube and handed the end to him, making motions how to use it. "How do you like flying, Uncle Norman?" Mr. Fenton nodded and smiled. He didn't feel quite equal to carrying on a conversation yet. Jim followed the lake, and as they were approaching their destination, he spoke again to his passenger. "If we land on the water will that be all right for you, can you get to your place easily?" "Yes, the office isn't far from the east shore." Mr. Fenton felt like an old timer now. He was thoroughly enjoying himself. "Ten minutes more," Jim told him, and he nodded. Presently the pilot shut off the engine, and the man looked startled at the sudden silence. He glanced at Jim, who grinned reassuringly as he kicked the rudder about and brought Her Highness into a long glide toward the spot he had selected for the landing. The plane touched the water lightly, sped along a few yards and stopped beside a long pier. "Are we here?" Mr. Fenton asked. "Yes sir. How do you like air traveling?" "It's wonderful, but I did almost get heart failure when the motor stopped," he admitted. "Begun to wish you had brought your rubbers?" "My rubbers and a boat." "Is this place near enough?" "Plenty." Jim helped him out of the straps, and by that time Bob stepped over the fuselage to give a hand. "Glad you didn't try to jump over, Uncle Norman. How are your air-legs, wobbly?" "A bit cramped." He stretched them both, found they would work, and in a moment he mounted the boat pier. "I don't expect to be more than half an hour." "We'll wait here," Jim promised. "Oh, look at the hydroplane," shouted a small boy on the shore. "They are calling Her Highness names," Bob scowled. "She's a hydroplane for the minute," Jim replied. "Let's taxi around the water." "It's getting kind of rough. Up at North Hero it was as smooth as a sheet," Bob answered. "Wish I knew more about water and its tricks." "I think we're going to have a blow," Jim speculated as Her Highness went rocking over the waves. "There are some black clouds over south and west and they sure do look as if they are in a hurry. We'll have them on our tail as we go back. Got plenty of gas? I read that in some places Lake Champlain is three hundred feet deep, and it's wet clear to the bottom," said Bob. "There's an extra tank besides what is in the bus. Guess I'll feed her up. Somehow, I think a nice Texas desert is pleasanter to land on than water." Jim busied himself with the task and Bob helped look things over. "Why don't you go back above the shore?" he suggested. "We have to land on the cove when we get home, so why switch gears. If there's time this evening, we might locate a place to land on the farm, but we'll have to ask your uncle about that or we'll be coming down on some field he's planted." "O.K. with me." "Whoooo boys," Mr. Fenton shouted from the pier where he was standing with a group of men and an army of small boys who had come to see the take off. "An audience. Do your prettiest, Your Highness," Bob urged the plane as his step-brother brought it around in fancy style. "It isn't every farmer who has a couple of pilots to bring him to town in a private plane, free of charge," one of the men joked. "Certainly looks like the farmers are getting some relief," another added. "They are going up in the air about it." "It's time we did something," Mr. Fenton responded. "Shall I get in now, Jim?" "Sure." Bob gave him a hand, the straps were re-adjusted, and the younger boy crawled back to his seat, attached his own parachute, and was finally ready. By that time the shore was lined with spectators. "All ready. Contact," Caldwell shouted. Jim opened the throttle, and they were off in a jiffy. They could see the people waving and cheering as they came about a few feet above the lake. Then Her Highness zoomed, high and handsome and the town was left behind. Because of the rising wind the return trip was not so smooth. They ran into bumps and pockets, and the force of the approaching storm drove hard behind them, pushing them forward swiftly. Jim zoomed to ten thousand feet in an effort to get above the troubled air, but even at that altitude there was no improvement. Occasionally he took a second to glance at his passenger, but Mr. Fenton was facing it bravely, although his eyes showed that he was a bit anxious. The young pilot took the speaking tube, signaled to the boy in the back, and almost instantly there was a red flash on the dial board, which meant Bob was paying attention. "Better put your cover over, old man." "Got her up," came the answer. "I'm snug as a bug in a rug. Want to know the readings back here?" "Yes." Bob read them off while Jim compared them with the records on his own control board, and when it was finished, he called. "All correct." "You covered up?" Bob demanded. "Going to fix it now. So long. Meet you on the ice." "You needn't. I'm not a skate," came the chuckling response. Then Jim drew the storm cover over the cock-pit, switched on extra lights, and the plane raced forward, guided entirely by compass, and the sensitive instruments which kept him fully informed as to how high they were and how fast they were going. The coming of the storm suddenly hit them with a bang and the young fellow fought with the controls to keep Her Highness balanced. Glancing through the tiny window he was startled to see that it was pitch dark, and he had to look at his watch to be sure that night was still several hours away. "Some storm," he remarked to Mr. Fenton, who answered courageously. "Lake Champlain is noted for them. They are pretty tempestuous at times and this looks like a rip-snorter." III THUNDERING WATERS As the sturdy little plane tore along through the thick blackness a deluge of water hit her suddenly with such force it might have been a cloud burst and she staggered under the fury of the impact. She wobbled, side-slipped, twisted and dipped with the strength of the storm beating her mercilessly every inch of the way, and the gale at her tail spun her forward like a leaf torn from a branch. Above the roar of the engine and the shriek of the wind through the wires, came the threatening boom of the Lake as its mighty waves smashed against the rock-bound shore. Tensely Jim sat, his eyes watching the dials in front of him, his hands and feet ready for instant action. It was a struggle to keep her righted and the boy zoomed her to fifteen thousand feet in an effort to get above the ceiling of the tempest. But he only climbed into greater trouble, and after a resounding crash of thunder, the sky was split in a thousand ways by flashes of forked lightning. Quickly he nosed her down, eyes on the directional compass, but keeping their course was out of the question. They were being blown miles out of the way and he hoped they would not go far enough east to land them somewhere in the mountains. He had not an instant to glance at his passenger, but once or twice his hand came in contact with Mr. Fenton, and the man was sitting braced for all he was worth. Another flash of lightning showed their faces, grim and white. The rain continued to pelt them, and finally Jim calculated that they had traveled in a northerly direction. Allowing for the wind that had driven them steadily, he turned Her Highness' nose about in an effort to reach their destination, and the frail little air-craft was almost rolled over. In Jim's mind was a vision of Champlain and he debated the advisability of shifting the landing gears from the floats to the wheels, but he decided to keep the former in place. He knew so little about the country, and where it was safe to land. In the blackness which enveloped them he could not hope to come down without a very serious smash-up. With Bob in the back and Mr. Fenton beside him, it was too great a risk to take. Then he saw the man pick up the speaking-tube, so he prepared to listen. "Anything I can do to help?" was the question. Jim shook his head. "We ought to be near your place but I don't know where to go down. Is the water very rough?" he asked. "Yes. The waves will be high and now they are driving from the southeast and will be hitting our side of the island. During a storm like this, boats have to be put under cover or they get beaten to splinters," Mr. Fenton answered. "Thanks," said Jim. The prospect wasn't any too cheerful. Although it was still raining, he shoved back the protecting cover and tried to peer through the darkness. He could hardly see his hand before his face, but he waited, until suddenly, an almost blinding flash of lightning revealed the world. Just ahead of them were farms and patches of thickly wooded sections. The boy saw small houses, their windows lighted as if it were late at night. Low growing things, vines and shrubs were bent to the ground. The trees bowed and groaned in the throes of the storm. Some of the branches, unable to withstand the strain, were being ripped off and hurled through space. Beneath the racing plane the black waters of Champlain were whipped into giant rollers, and along their edges white-caps foamed ghastly yellow in the weird light. It was all shut out in a fraction of a minute, and Jim zoomed higher to get out of harm's way. "We're about five miles north of our place," Mr. Fenton told him, and the young fellow grinned with relief. It was some comfort to know where they were. Grimly he fought to bring Her Highness to face the storm. Feeding the engine all she could carry he battled to get south, but it was a hard struggle, like shoving against an immovable, impenetrable wall. It seemed as if the plane barely moved forward, but her propeller screwed valiantly, and slowly they gained against the wind, but it drove them east. "Any rocks or islands near?" Jim asked. "Gull Rock, two miles directly east, and Fisher's Island. That's a couple of miles long. If you can head into the southern point of our cove, that is protected somewhat from this wind and the water will not be so bad," the man explained. "We'll try it. Do these storms last very long?" "One never can tell. Sometimes they come and go in less than an hour, and very often they last much longer." "Then there is no sense in trying to stay up until it beats itself out," Jim remarked. He couldn't say anything more. Another flash of light gave them a brief glimpse of the world but they seemed to be far over the water. Mr. Fenton leaned out to make observations, but was promptly forced back to his seat. "Wow," he whistled. "Better keep low," Jim advised. Then came a series of flashes, and Mr. Fenton managed to get their location straightened out. "We're still a mile north and about half way across the lake," he volunteered. "I see Fisher's Point, the north end." "Thanks." Jim brought the plane about hard, raced her across, then shut off the engine just as a flash revealed the cove at the south end. The boy could see branches being tossed on the waves and hoped hard that none of them would cripple Her Highness when she dropped down. Another prayer he sent up fervently was that the space was wide enough for them to stop short of the rocks. They hit the water, rocked forward and up and down choppily, then stopped, just as someone came racing along the shore waving a lantern. "Is that you, Norman?" It was Mrs. Fenton and she was so frightened that she could hardly speak. Her face showed white in the darkness and she gripped the light as if she would crush it. "We're all present and accounted for, Belle," her husband answered quickly as he hastened to get loose from the straps. "Hello everybody!" That was Bob who bobbed up in the back seat like a jack in the box. "So, this is London, and here _we_ are!" "Oh, I've been so terrified. I telephoned to Burlington when I saw the storm coming and they said that you had started. It--it's been just awful, awful." Mr. Fenton splashed through the water to reach her side. "We're a bit damp, Belle, but otherwise perfectly fine." "I knew you would all be killed--" she insisted. "But we aren't," he assured her again. "Need any assistance, boys?" "No. We can manage all right," Jim answered. The rain was coming down with less force and here and there through the darkness showed streaks of yellow light. The boys got Her Highness secured to the pier, and hurried to the house, where they found that Mrs. Fenton was getting out dry garments for them, and a cheery blaze crackled in the wide fireplace, while from the kitchen came the welcome fragrance of the evening meal. They grinned appreciatively at each other and climbed to their own room under the rafters where they changed their wet clothes. When they came down Mrs. Fenton was just putting out the lights because the darkness had lifted, as if by magic, and through the western windows they could see the glow of the evening sunshine. "Well, what do you know about that!" Bob exclaimed, hardly able to believe the evidence of his own eyes. "Have we been dreaming, or _did_ we come back from Burlington in the teeth of a rip-snorting gale?" Jim demanded. "It was no dream," Mrs. Fenton said fervently. "It was more like a nightmare. I was afraid to switch off the telephone because I expected every minute to get a call telling me that you had been wrecked on the Lake and were all drowned. And, I was afraid to leave the switch connected because I was sure the house would be struck by lightning. My, it wasn't a dream--not here anyway. Goodness, such a storm. I thought the house would be ripped from its foundations and come tumbling over my head. A tree was struck nearby for--oh, it did crash two different times--something awful. Land sakes alive, you boys must not go up again in such weather--goodness--" The good lady stopped for breath and to pour glasses of milk out of a huge pitcher, while her husband served the rest of the meal. Mr. Fenton did not seem to have suffered any from his experience, and both boys considered the whole affair a most worth-while adventure. "We've got some bus, Aunt Belle. Her Highness is the best in two countries. Have to say that because the shift landing gear was invented by an Englishman, but the rest is pure American," Bob smiled, then took such a long drink that when he looked up from his glass, there was a perfect white half-moon on his upper lip. "You better shave," Jim suggested. "Go on, shave yourself! How do you like air-traveling, Uncle Norman?" "I think it's perfectly marvelous. Had no idea, really, how wonderful it is. When especially I think that I never, in all my Life, went so far and back in so short a time. We always take a full day to make the trip to Burlington, and today we made it in an afternoon." "Were you frightened during the storm?" Jim asked. "Have to admit that I was quite a bit nervous but when I saw you so cool and managing so easily, and how the plane responded to every move you made with those controls, why, I just naturally couldn't go on being a coward. It does not seem to me that Bob is over-stating the facts when he says the little plane is the best in two countries. I should say that she is the best in the world to come through such a grilling." "Like to go up again?" "I should indeed. Just think how automobiles and other modern inventions have placed us far ahead of my father's time. He had to use horses and oxen, and my grandfather did all his traveling, that is, any distance, on the lake-steamers. Sometimes it took weeks, and a storm such as we had this afternoon would have driven the boat into the nearest harbor to wait for fair weather." "Gee," Bob said soberly. "How did those old boys ever get anywhere or have time to do anything?" "When I was a boy I saw some of their primitive methods, Bob, but they did manage to accomplish a great deal." "Some real nice day we'll give you a joy ride, Aunt Belle," Bob promised with a twinkle in his eyes. He fully expected that Mrs. Fenton would promptly decline such an invitation, but she looked at the men folk very thoughtfully, then a little pucker came between her eyes. "Land sakes alive, Bob, you'll probably have to tie me fast and sit on me to keep me from jumping over-board, but I guess if you all think it's so fine, I can live through it. After I have the--er--joyous--I mean joyride, I'll write and tell your mother about it. She said that you took her up several times and now she wants her husband to get a plane." "Right you are," Jim laughed heartily. "Mom's a good sport and so are you. We'll bind you hand and foot, and put weights on you, but I'll bet you will like it as much as Mom did." "No doubt I shall," and Mrs. Fenton didn't smile over the prospect. "Well, don't come down and ask me to buy you an air-plane, that is, unless the turkeys take a jump and we have a grand flock of them this fall, but it doesn't look now as if there is much chance," Mr. Fenton said. The last part of his statement was made soberly. "Wonder how the boy's draining plan is working after that rain," Jim remarked as he recalled the work of the strange boy on the bog. "When we finish supper, we'll go and have a look, but I expect the place is flooded way above the foot of the alfalfa bed," Mr. Fenton said. "Now, how do you expect to eat your meal if you talk so much? Norman, you are not paying a bit of attention to those boys' plates and they are both empty." "My plate may be empty, Aunt Belle, but my tummy is beginning to feel mighty content. I could purr," Bob told them. "Well don't. It isn't polite at the table. You may roll over on the floor and kick your feet up if you like," Jim suggested. "Don't you do anything of the kind," Aunt Belle said hastily. "The very idea. Is that what you do when you have a good meal at home?" "No, Mom wouldn't stand that," Bob answered. "We tried it once at school and it didn't go so well there either," Jim added gravely, and Mr. Fenton laughed heartily. "How many demerits did they give you?" he asked. "Ten apiece," Jim answered. "And we had to average ninety-five on four subjects to shake them off," Bob added. "It's a cruel world." "The world is a great little old place. It's only the people in it, I mean some of them, who make it unpleasant," Jim declared. "I can't eat another mouthful." "This is my last," Bob announced regretfully as he swallowed the bite of cherry pie. "That is, I mean the last for the time being." "All right, it's a good thing you added that because you are not at home now and you don't know where the pantry is located--" "Don't kid yourself. I ascertained the location yesterday afternoon, before I'd been here twenty minutes." "You would! Where was I?" "Luxuriating in Champlain. I watched your fair form in the red bathing suit while I ate gingerbread and milk--" "Humph, that's nothing, I had some when I came in--four pieces and two glasses--cream on top. Come along--that is--is there anything we can do to help you, sir?" "No, thank you, Jim. I have a couple of chore boys and if you helped they might think I do not want them any more. We want you to enjoy your stay in Vermont--" "Great guns, we are. It's a grand State even if we could put it into a comer of Texas," Bob replied sincerely. "You ought to like it, your mother was brought up here, but goodness sakes, she went off when she wasn't much more than a girl. She was married right here in the parlor. I can remember it just as if it was yesterday, then the pair of them drove away in the two seater with old shoes tied to the end. They did look handsome. Your pa was all spruced up--and the next year they were in Texas--" "You boys coming?" "Yes sir." As they went out onto the front piazza, the sun was setting and the sky was streaked with brilliant red and gold which shone magnificently through the trees. There was no doubting that the storm had been an actuality, for a deep stream was racing down the run-off toward the lake, and everywhere the place was strewn with leaves and branches that had been broken. The Rural Free Delivery Box was leaning wearily against a maple, as if the struggle to keep upright had been altogether too much. The three picked their way across the road with water dripping from trees and shrubs, and the ground soggy underfoot. They were soon past the garden, and at the further side they could see the foreign boy busy working, but this time his uncle was with him. "Whoo-oo," Bob called cheerfully. The boy straightened up and smiled, then he came toward them and they went to the ditch he had showed them earlier in the day. It was full to the top with water which was running off as hard as it could go, and in spite of the storm there was little more water on the bog than had been there at noon time. "Huh!" Mr. Fenton gave a little grunt of astonishment. "Looks as if it's working all right, doesn't it?" Jim remarked. "It certainly does. It'll be a great thing for me if he gets the place drained for that land is a piece of the best. Don't see how he's doing it. I had an expert engineer here to dry up that section and he couldn't accomplish a thing. Said the only way was to ditch it to the lake, then fill in the hole, use a lot of lime, like a concrete mixer and bring the hill forward. A mighty expensive job it would have been and then part of the land wouldn't be very good," Mr. Fenton explained. "Reckon this boy is some sort of wizard. He's bewitching it," Jim suggested. "Wish we knew something about him," Bob added. "Don't blame you for being interested, Bob, but we like to mind our own business around here. They seem to be honest and capable and don't interfere with what doesn't concern them--" "Oh, we're not going to make blooming pests of ourselves, but we thought it would be fun to get acquainted with him. Wish he could speak English," Jim explained. "I don't believe that he's spoken to anyone since they came. His uncle speaks fairly well. He seems upstanding. There isn't any harm in trying to make friends with the boy, but I wouldn't--" "Butt-in? We won't unless he's willing to have us. Know what he reminds me of, Bob?" "What?" "Some of those Indians, the chiefs, you know the fellows that are so straight, clear-eyed, and sort of fine. He seems like that, only maybe an even better sort. The Indians we see now aren't so much like that." "He is a little like that, but I don't believe he's an Indian. Maybe he's like they used to be a long time ago before the white men took all the pep out of them," Bob agreed. "I don't know any Indians, but I never heard that they were very hard workers, not farmers I mean. It would be queer for one to be interested in that sort of thing. They like hunting--" "Yes, that's right. Dad said a few of them made good cow punchers, but they never got much chance to show what they might do." Just then Corso came toward them. His face was grave but his eyes wore a pleased expression. "It is good?" he said as he motioned toward the receding water. "Very fine," Mr. Fenton answered heartily, then he added, "You must not let the boy work too hard. He does not look very strong. Why not have one of the men help him in what he is doing? I can get a chap who will do as he's directed, and this piece of work will be a great improvement to the property." Corso smiled. "That would be so excellent," he agreed. "All right. I'll have him here in the morning." "He can the English speak?" "Sure. You can talk to him, and I'll tell him I want him to follow any instructions you give him." Mr. Fenton was glad that Corso agreed to the plan for as the work promised to be a success he was anxious to get it finished as quickly as possible. "We better look after Her Highness before it gets too late," Jim proposed to his step-brother. "All right," Bob agreed, then turning to the boy, he grinned. "So long, Old Top!" The youngster frowned-- "Old Top," he repeated, "so long, Old Top." IV A MYSTERIOUS FIND The next morning broke clear and beautiful as only a late spring day can start. The step-brothers found Aunt Belle busy canning rhubarb, and she eyed the two dozen jars with keen satisfaction. "There, that's finished," she announced. "Did you do all that this morning?" Jim asked for the sun was hardly well out of the Lake and was sending a golden path dancing across the water. "Land o' Goodness, yes. Tomorrow I'm going to make some dandelion wine, and before sun-up is the best time of day to get work done, to my way of thinking," she replied as she bustled about getting the meal ready. "Then suppose we give you that joy-ride right after breakfast," Jim proposed, and he looked at her to see if she had changed her mind. "Land o' Goodness, you boys don't believe in giving a body a minute to worry over doing a thing like that. I don't know--" "There's no time like the present," Bob teased her, and she smiled. "I might's well get it over with and it will be a real experience. I can think of it all winter. All right." They both had a hunch that she was eager for the adventure, but she was mighty nervous about it, just the same. "It's kind of like going to have an operation or a tooth pulled," she told them and they laughed. "You won't feel that way about it when you come back." "Coming back will be a relief, like when the tooth or the appendix has been taken out. I suppose I'll be kind of shaky and queer, but the agony will be over. Now, you sit right down and help yourselves. Norman told me to be sure to wrap up warm." She hurried away and the boys grinned, then obeyed orders. By the time they had finished, Mrs. Fenton appeared, wrapped from head to foot almost like an Eskimo. Her lips were set grimly and her fists were clenched for the ordeal. "Now, don't you be afraid, Aunt Belle. It isn't any worse than sitting in a rocking chair, and it's much more exciting." "I expect you're right. It was exciting watching you drop out of the sky on a streak of lightning yesterday," she gave a nervous giggle. "We won't stay up very long, and if we see the tiniest cloud, we'll bring you right back," Jim promised. Fifteen minutes later they were ready for the start. Aunt Belle had been given advice and instructions, strapped fast and parachuted in case of an emergency, her head encased in one of her nephew's helmets and goggles adjusted so she could pull them down. The speaking tube and field glasses were close at hand. This trip Jim was in the back seat while his step-brother was beside the passenger. Not a word did the lady utter during the preliminaries, but when young Austin called that all was as it should be in the rear, she braced herself stiffly, her frightened eyes searching the velvety-blue heavens for a sign of a cloud which might possibly spell danger. "All set!" Bob shouted as he opened her for an easy take-off. Her Highness seemed to realize the importance of behaving like a member of the royal family and did her part like a charm. She skimmed over the lake, circled widely, nosed up speculatively, lifted slowly on a long gradual climb, the motion of which was truly as pleasant as being rocked comfortably in a grandmother's big chair. Up they went five hundred feet and by that time they were beyond the south end of Fisher's Island and sailing gaily toward the narrows below the Point. Bob leveled off, they soared ahead, came partly around and climbed again at easy stages until the altimeter registered twelve hundred feet. The boy was glad that his aunt had asked no questions about the control board. Her Highness roared across North Hero Island, turned south again toward Grand Isle, then curved to come back. By that time Mrs. Fenton was wearing a very surprised look, and a moment later, she gave a relieved sigh, relaxed, and even sat up a little. Her lips moved and the boy knew that she was saying: "My land o' goodness." "Look," he pointed ahead and she followed the direction with interest, and after five minutes more, she was gazing over the side with fine unconcern. Then Bob pressed the glasses upon her, and she raised them to her eyes, and smiled at the wonders she beheld. As Mrs. Fenton had never been "joy riding" before, the boys had agreed not to keep her up too long this first trip, so Bob brought Her Highness about, roared over the country his aunt knew; crossed the island above the bridge which connects North Hero with Isle La Motte, and curved over the latter stretch of land until they were sailing on a line with the turkey farm. Jim in the back seat had time for observation, so he took a good look at the place. He had no difficulty in making out the ancient homestead, the old house where he guessed that Hezzy Burley, the poultry man, lived with his helpers. Close by were a number of hatcheries, and further along high wire-covered pens where turkeys, young and old, strutted timidly. The boy didn't have time to get a bird's-eye view of the whole farm, but he did notice that it came down to the lake on one side, and stretched back over a belt of timber and beyond a hill which looked as if it might be a very delightful place to ramble, but no good for landing a plane. As he glanced with interest at the Fenton property, he thought he saw some men in a ravine and decided they were hikers, or merely out for a stroll. Then, suddenly it occurred to him that they had no business on the property and it might be a good idea to tell Mr. Fenton and have Hezzy keep on the lookout for them. The boy wondered if the watch dogs had arrived, but his mental query was answered immediately, for he saw two dogs racing down to the water, and both of them plunged in for a swim. They looked like a very capable pair and he hoped they would be able to save Bob's uncle from having to mark off another bad year in his turkey business. Her Highness was now soaring as gracefully as the white gulls they passed on the water, and Bob shut off the engine. The plane began a beautiful descent, and in a minute more she was floating toward the pier. "Well, how's the tooth, Aunt Belle?" Bob teased. "My land sakes alive, if it isn't the beatinest. There, I never slept a wink all night thinking about it, wishin' I'd been a better Christian in case I never got down to earth again, and all that worry--" "Was a dead loss," Jim laughed. "Yes it was," she admitted honestly. "It was just marvelous. Now, I've got to hurry. My fruit man comes through in a few minutes and I want some lemons. Tourists say this fruit wagon is kind of interesting and curious, maybe you boys would like to look at it," she invited. "It comes from Montreal, through the customs, and we can buy things cheaper than we can get them from our own stores. It seems queer, but it's so." They had unstrapped her and she smiled. "I'd like to see him. We have some queer covered wagons that are driven through Texas. How did you like the ride?" "A lot, and I'm ever so much obliged to you both. My land o'goodness--I mustn't forget to write to your mother and tell her I've been up with you. Her Highness is real pretty, isn't she!" "We think she is," Bob answered with pride. "You got a right to think that." Aunt Belle stood a moment to admire the plane, which did look particularly lovely as the sun shone on her broad wings, and the water beneath her, splashed gently about the floats. "She's a beauty." "I saw some men, hikers I guess, back of your turkey farm," Jim volunteered as they went toward the house. "There's a lot of people living at the north end of the Isle, and they are likely to go roaming all over the place. Sometimes the school teachers take nature classes to study the trees, and the Boy Scouts asked permission to camp there. Hezzy knows them all and he lets them go parts where they won't do any damage or scare the birds." "Probably it's all right then." Jim dismissed the idea that he might have spotted something important, and followed the others into the house. "I got some bananas, Mees Fenton." It was a soft pleasant voice that spoke, and the lips were parted in a wide smile. "Little Greaser?" Bob said in an undertone. "More likely little Canuck," Jim reminded him. "And he's not so little at that." The man was certainly picturesque in his baggy trousers, tied at the knees with pieces of new hemp, a red flannel shirt, and velvet jacket. He stood over six feet in his moccasins, which were of thick deer skin, and he might have been taller, but the weight of his hat must have kept him down. "I'll be right out, Pedro," Mrs. Fenton called and she hurried away to rid herself of the extra clothing she had donned for the air ride. The two boys strolled out on the veranda to wait for her, and they could see the huge covered truck standing under the shade of two of the maples that edged the winding main road. Being sure of a customer, Pedro proceeded to his wagon, opened the end doors, leaped lightly over the tail board, and disappeared. "Cracky, it doesn't look like any wagon I ever saw before," said Bob. "No." They studied it with interest. It was heavily built, evidently constructed for long hauls and to carry heavy loads. The "cover" was of wood and metal, and the whole thing was painted a brilliant red and deep blue. "Anyone would recognize that as far as he could see it," laughed Bob. "Oh, here you are." Mrs. Fenton came out with a basket on her arm and the three made their way to the caravan. "Do all these peddlers have wagons like that?" Jim wanted to know. "Good land, no, only Pedro. He had it made specially. Fills it up in Canada. He has to carry a great deal of truck to make it pay because some of the customs are high," she explained. "Does he pick up American goods to take back?" "Yes, and sometimes he does a little freighting when he can't buy our farm products." They had reached the end of the wagon, and the boys were amazed at its capacity. It seemed to hold a store full of goods. Besides the early vegetables, lemons, bananas, oranges, and pineapples, there were moccasins, Indian bows and arrows for youthful purchasers, bright blankets, and some skins hanging from the top. Mrs. Fenton looked over the wares, made her selection, and finally the transaction was completed. Pedro got a pail of water from the lake and gave his engine a drink, then climbed into the seat, waved cheerfully, and thundered colorfully off toward the next farm. In a minute he disappeared over the hill, but it took longer for the noise of his machine to diminish in the distance. "Golly, he could take half the State over the border in that bus," Bob declared, then added as he saw the foreign boy coming from the garden, "Here's our friend. Hello," he called. The boy stopped, eyed them keenly, then smiled and showed a set of teeth so perfect that any dentist would have given half his kingdom to use his picture in an advertisement. "Old Top, so long." "Guess that will hold you for a while," Jim roared. "You are dismissed, my brother, Old Top." "Aw I say, that's wrong. Hello!" "Aw," the boy repeated--"Aw, hello." "That's more like it." He pointed to his step-brother. "Jim." The boy looked at Jim, who flushed under the scrutiny. "Jim," Bob said again. "Jimmm?" "You got it. Jim." "Aw, Old Top; Jim, so long; hello." "Will you listen to the vocabulary. Ain't that marvelous!" "It ain't," Jim scowled, then he pointed to Bob. "Bob," he explained. The boy seemed to understand that it was some sort of introduction. "It ain't Bob?" "Yes it is," Bob insisted, pointing to himself. "Bob." "Bob? Jim?" "Great," they both nodded gleefully. "You're a regular chatterbox." The boy repeated the words he had learned and seemed to enjoy the sound of them. Then he stood a moment, straight as a young sapling, the expression on his face changed to a sober one, and into his deep, fine eyes, came a thoughtful look, which seemed to be habitual to them. As they met his gaze, any desire they might have had to have fun with him, disappeared, and the step-brothers felt a strong urge inside them to befriend this young foreigner. "Bet my share of Her Highness against a plugged dime that he'd make a great pal," Jim remarked. "I'm not taking you up. Let's see if we can't teach him more English. That won't be butting in," Bob proposed. "Maybe we can do a little," Jim agreed. But just then a soft whistle came from further up the road and the boy turned quickly, leaped over the low fence and started toward the sound. The boys watched him until a moment later he joined his Uncle, who had evidently called. They both hurried in the direction of the lake, and a few minutes later, the young Americans heard the dip of oars as a boat was shoved off onto the water. Aimlessly Jim and Bob followed more slowly until they were standing on the shore, and they could see the boat skimming swiftly north. "They parked it here. Guess they're going home to lunch, and it's easier than walking up the road," Jim suggested. He glanced at the marks on the rocks and sand where the boat had been left. Bob stared at the spot as if he expected to learn something of the two mysterious persons who had just left it. "Here's a can, or something." Bob stooped and picked up a small covered box. It was somewhat the shape of a tobacco box such as men carry in their pockets, and was no more than an inch thick. "That isn't tin. Maybe they dropped it," Jim said as he turned it over in his hand. "Say, know what that looks like?" "A box--" "Sure, but the metal looks like my silver watch did--you remember it got almost coal-black--sort of brownish." "So it does. Guess this is silver. We better keep it, and if it belongs to the kid, return it to him." "Sure. If it doesn't belong to him, Aunt Belle may know who owns it. Mom said that in a little place like this everybody knows all about what everybody else owns." Jim turned the thing over in his hand again, gave it a little shake, and as he did so, the cover sprang back, as if he had pressed a concealed spring. "Well, look here," he exclaimed. The two looked inside but all they could see was some bits of colored string. Carefully Jim took hold of one and gave a little pull. "You'd better not do that. The string may be around something real small and you'll lose it," Bob suggested, but before the words were out of his mouth, the entire contents was in Jim's hand. "What do you make of that?" "Maybe the kid has been trying to be a Boy Scout. It's nothing but colored strings full of knots, but it's a queer sort of string at that. I never saw anything like it--" "You'd better put it back," Bob urged. "It isn't any good, but if the kid was having fun with it, we don't want to be goops--" Both boys turned quickly as they heard the sound of oars being plied swiftly as if someone were rowing in a great hurry. "He's coming back." Hastily Jim stuffed the odd looking string back into its container and snapped the lid shut. "Wish I hadn't been such an inquisitive boob," he muttered. By that time the boy and his uncle had almost reached the spot, and both of them seemed to be anxious about something. "Did you drop a little box here?" Bob called as the boy leaned on the oars to let the boat come ashore. Corso's face lighted with relief, as if the thing they had lost were of great value. "Yes, sir," he answered. "Well, that's good. We just picked it up." Jim stepped hastily forward and restored the find to its owners, but to his surprise, they both leaped out. "Much sirs, we thank you." The man took Jim's hand, and to that pure young American's utter embarrassment, stooped and kissed it. Hastily he drew it back. "Aw, that's all right," he said in confusion. "Glad we saw it before the waves carried it off," Bob declared. He was congratulating himself that it was his step-brother who received the homage, but his delight was short-lived, for the boy took his hand and performed as did his uncle. "Much thanks, Bob--Jim," he said chokily. "Aw, it isn't anything to make a fuss over," Bob answered quickly, and his face flushed to the roots of his hair. In his heart he was glad that none of the cowpunchers from Cap Rock were there to witness such a display of gratitude. "Much thanks," the uncle said again, and the two backed away. "Don't mention it," Jim said hastily. "We have to go, or we'll be late for lunch. We would have given it to you this afternoon if you hadn't come for it." They both bowed low, then sprang into the boat and rowed off, but now their faces were wreathed in smiles and as the distance grew between them and the shore, they began a sort of chant which sounded like the wind sighing through the cedars. "Come along, let's get a move on. I don't want to be kissed any more. Gosh, they must be French," Bob exclaimed, and the two started to run as if the Old Harry were after them. When they came in sight of the house, they stopped. "I'm not going to tell anyone about that box." "Mum's the word. If we tell about finding it, we'll have to tell about giving it back. Perhaps it's some sort of heirloom, but it sure is a queer sort of thing to make such a fuss over." "I'll say, maybe now that we gave it back, Corso and the boy will be friendly and we can ask them where they came from--" "Maybe we can, but we're not going to be little interrogation points unless they give us the information without our asking for it. Dad says a gentleman recognizes another gentleman and they treat each other accordingly--" "Well, that's O. K. with me," Bob nodded. "But I thought we might get an answer to one of the mysteries." V A DISCOVERY "I have some errands at Isle La Motte station, boys, and I'm running up there in the car. If you'll condescend to ride in anything so slow and primitive, I'm driving down to the turkey farm and you can see what it looks like," Mr. Fenton invited that afternoon as the boys came up from a swim. "Well, of course, sir, we wouldn't be so impolite as to say that we scorn to use your only mode of conveyance," Jim grinned broadly. "But we'll accept with pleasure. I'm looking forward to meeting Hezzy and seeing his face when he learns we are members of the family," Bob added with relish. "How soon are you starting?" "As soon as you are ready," Mr. Fenton told them, so they raced into the house and made a wild scramble to get into their clothes. In record time they were out, their faces were flushed from the stampede and the cold dip. "You surely have a grand lake in your back yard. I never enjoyed a swim so much in my life," Jim volunteered as they climbed into the seat of the waiting car. "Suppose that you have water-holes in Texas and you boys fight over the swimming privileges just as the cattle men used to fight over keeping them for their stock," Mr. Fenton remarked. "We don't kill each other." "We're not so fond of a bath as all that, Uncle Norman. There are four creeks on the ranches, and one corner of Mom's takes in a slice of Pearl River." "In the spring we have it to burn. Sometimes it fills the gullies and part way up the canyons, but that's only in the Cap Rock section. Almost at the edge of the cliff the land stretches away for about three hundred miles and that's pretty dry. Some of the ranchers drove wells, but they had to do it a dozen times before they had any luck, and most of them are driven more than a hundred feet to reach water. They force it to the surface and make pools," Jim explained. "Is that for the cattle?" Mr. Fenton was greatly interested. "Yes, and to irrigate the grain." As he listened to the bits of description of the boys' home in Texas, Mr. Fenton was driving along the road which ran in a wavy line all the way around the Island and in ten minutes they came to the log bridge which led to Isle La Motte. Here and there they passed Vermonters who exchanged greetings with the farmer, and occasionally they passed touring cars. Some of them were carrying full loads, while others were less crowded. A good percentage were trying to take in all the beauty of the "Islands" they were crossing, but the rest looked bored and some of them read. The cars carried plates from almost every state in the Union and were everything from shiny and new, to rattly and very old. "Great snakes," Jim remarked. "Looks as if the world and his wife have taken to their automobiles." "Glad we have Her Highness. She can't be crowded off the road," Bob added and he glanced a bit disdainfully at the travelers. They drove across the bridge, hurried on north and at last came to the little depot, where Mr. Fenton took on a piece of freight, chattered a moment with the agent, then took his place again. "Now, you'll see the farm. The place is one that Mrs. Fenton inherited from an uncle of hers. That end of Isle La Motte used to be rather thickly settled for these parts, but the old people died off and the younger ones went to other places to make their homes. It's quite a farm, nearly three hundred acres, but most of it is timber land, and it's too far from the main road to cultivate. If we didn't have the other place, we should have moved over, but it seemed ideal for a poultry farm. Vermont turkeys bring a big price, so we started in a small way and soon it was quite a success. The last couple of years haven't been so good. The birds are not easy to raise, and we expect many of them to die and don't mind if a few are stolen, but wholesale loss--a couple of hundred went two nights before you boys arrived." "Cracky, that was a wollop," Bob whistled. "Have many raids like that?" asked Jim. It sounded like the losses on a big stock ranch. "There have been quite a few. Well, here we are." They drove up to the old house which had been built over a hundred years ago, but in spite of its great age, it was sturdy looking. Its architecture, doors, mullioned windows, and wide floorings in the "porch" would have gladdened the heart of a "Colonial" collector. The boys did not know this, of course, but they could appreciate that it was a great old place. Mr. Fenton honked, and in a moment the door was opened and Hezzy emerged. "How are you, Burley? Dropped around to show the nephews from Texas what a turkey farm looks like." Hezzy came down the steps and the boys eyed him gravely. "Want you to meet the boys. Jim Austin and Bob Caldwell. They are going to spend a part of the summer with us." "Pleased to--" Hezzy was beside the car now, his glasses resting low on his nose as he could look over them. "Reckon Mr. Burley has met us before," Bob grinned. "Oh yes, I forgot. They told me they landed with their plane on the cove and you drove them away. I explained the troubles you have been having." "They didn't one of them say they come from your place, just landed on the lake and said they wanted to see the farm. That was two days, or less, since we lost that big batch--I wasn't taking no chances," Hezzy said quickly. He wasn't a very prepossessing man to look at, but now he smiled at his employer and was most affable. "Sure, we understand," Bob assured him, but Jim said never a word. "Want to look around now?" Hezzy invited cordially. "We will. I haven't much time but they can get an idea and come back later if they want to see more," Mr. Fenton said as they climbed out of the car. "Oh, they can see it in a few minutes," Hezzy answered. "It's pretty much all alike." He led the way toward the shore, and presently the three were going through the houses, past the wired run-ways, and to the larger enclosure where the bigger birds were confined. "The thieves must have done some damage if they went over those wires," Jim remarked as he noted the fine mesh, and that smaller yards were enclosed like a box. "They got in through the houses," Hezzy answered promptly. "At night." "Got good locks?" Bob asked. "Best we can buy," his uncle replied. "Wish we could help you find the thieves," said Jim, "but we're kind of dubs. I lost my watch at school and tried detecting. Began to suspect the president, then I found it in my other suit pocket, so I swore off sleuthing." "You bet, it's a dangerous business, but I suppose you have someone on the job, Uncle Norman!" "Well, no, we haven't. We just try our best to catch them when they come for more, but we haven't been able to discover the thieves yet. I see that you have the watch dogs. Are they good?" "They seem to be fine dogs, but one of them is sick this morning. I gave him a physic. It's the only thing I know to do for him, but I guess he'll come around," Hezzy told them. "You'd better call up the veterinary. I paid a good price for those beasts and should not like to have to buy another pair," Mr. Fenton ordered. "I called up the vet. He told me what to give him," Hezzy answered. "Well, guess that's all you can do. Someone might try to poison them, so keep an eye on what they eat." "I'm not taking any chances," Hezzy said hastily. "Want to have a look at him?" "Not this afternoon, I want to get back. You boys seen enough to satisfy you for the time being?" "Sure," Jim answered. "There isn't much to see. Sometime when you are coming again, we'll tag along if you'll let us, sir." "Be glad to have you." "Sure, bring them along any time," Hezzy spoke up. "I'm sorry you didn't say you belonged to the Fentons when you were here yesterday, but I didn't know, and turkeys are the scariest birds that grow wings." "That's all right, but we thought you might have heard about the plane and recognize us from that," Jim told him. "Fent told me you were coming from Texas in an airplane, but when a man's worried he don't stop to think. Only thing came into my head was you were some marauders and my men were both away for an hour." "All right, come along." They made their way to the car and were soon on the way home. "It's a great place, Uncle Norman. Maybe when we're flying around we can locate something which will solve the mystery for you, but you'd better not say anything to anyone because it might put the thieves wise and they'd work another way." "Very well, I'll keep it under my hat, but don't either of you go taking any chances. I want to send you home with whole bones and not in sections. That would be a poor ending for your trip." "We'll be careful. We were over the island with Aunt Belle this morning and I noticed the other end hasn't much good landing space. Too many trees and shrubs, except one hill that's kind of bare, but it isn't very big and it looks steep," Bob explained. "Your aunt certainly did enjoy her ride," the man smiled. "Don't we know it! We knew she would, but she was scared blue when we started--said it was like going to have a tooth drawn." By that time they were at home and after supper they took a stroll along the rocky beach. "Got something on your mind besides your cap?" Bob asked his buddy. "Yes, hair." "The rest is vacant space--" Bob dodged a stone that his step-brother threw at him. "No it isn't, you nut. Keep away from those trees or a squirrel will mistake you for a part of his supper," Jim retorted. They walked on a way in silence, then they came to a huge boulder, where the older boy sat down. "I say, what are you thinking about? I never saw you still so long except when you're in Her Highness and her voice keeps you quiet." "How did you like Hezzy?" Jim asked. "Oh, he wasn't so bad when we were properly introduced. Guess if we had just lost two hundred turkeys we'd have been out with shot guns too. We'd have fired them first and sent apologies to the family afterwards. What do _you_ think of him?" "I don't know. It's giving me a brainstorm to find out. Can't blame a man for being on the war path under those conditions. He's probably the salt of the earth, as your aunt says, and honest as the day is long, but I can't get over the idea that if we met him on the range in Texas, we'd turn the bull loose on him," Jim laughed. "Maybe we would," Bob admitted, then he grinned, "but you don't want to forget that you thought the president had your watch." "Go on!" "What's eating you besides the man's looks and his reception of us the other day?" "Not much. It seemed to me that he wasn't overly anxious to have us come back--" "Why yes he was--said to come--" "Any time _with your uncle_. But when Mr. Fenton said we could come by ourselves and take a look, he said 'we could see it all in a few minutes.' Like as not, I'm barking up the wrong tree. Let's go up early in the morning and see what we can see around the border. I'd kind of like to talk with Bradshaw again. He was real decent and I'd like to know if he located any of that gang yet," Jim proposed. "Suits me right down to the ground." "We've been kind of grounded since we came. Suppose your aunt would mind letting us take a lunch to eat in the air, or some nice place we pick out?" "Of course she won't mind. What sort of crab do you think she is?" "No sort of crab, unless there is a very generous, likable variety, but we don't want to make extra trouble for her. Your mother said that the farm takes a lot of work and she has no end of things to do. Tomorrow she's going to can some more--" "And she'll be glad to have us out of the way for a while." Bob was quite positive, and although his aunt showed no desire to be rid of her two guests, she was perfectly willing to fix them up a picnic lunch and by the weight of the basket she handed her nephew the next morning, it promised to be a bountiful meal. "You boys be careful and if it gets stormy you'd better come right home. I'd be real worried--" "You must not do that. Didn't we slide down on the lightning the other day?" Bob demanded. "Yes, I know you did--" "And didn't you enjoy air traveling?" "Yes, yes indeed I did, I wrote to your mother last night--" "Then don't waste any good worries about us," Bob grinned. "We'll be fine and come home to roost, like chickens." "Hurry up, Her Highness is raring to go," Jim shouted. He was already in the cock-pit, and his pal raced to join him. "All O.K.?" "Sure Mike." Bob took his place beside his step-brother, adjusted himself, and in a minute Jim opened the throttle, the engine bellowed a challenge to the world, or a joyous roar that it was about to do something worth watching. Up they climbed a thousand feet, circled above North Hero, and as Bob glanced over the side, he caught glimpses of children and farmer folk staring at them. He waved gaily, then Her Highness leveled off and shot northwest. "Going to have a look about Isle La Motte?" Bob asked through the speaking tube. "No. If the thief is there I want him to think that we are not interested in looking for him," Jim answered, then added. "I'm more interested in seeing if we can find Bradshaw." "Any special reason?" "Not one." Jim answered emphatically. They sped toward the boundary and both boys were filled with delight at being in the air. Bob kept the glasses to his eyes and every once in a while would point out something attractive so his step-brother would miss none of the delights of the trip. Jim did not wish to go straight north, so he bore westward, following the American side of the border and after an hour, circled about and returned pretty much along the same course. Once they saw a passenger plane soaring majestically south, and then they spied the mail-pilot racing toward them, so they went to meet him. The young fellow in the cock-pit eyed them for a moment but when they grinned and waved, he waggled his wings as a return salute. He seemed such a jolly sort that Jim came about and taxied along beside him for a while, then with a farewell wave, he spiraled high and circled away, the U. S. plane thundering toward Montreal. "We ought to locate Bradshaw soon," Bob remarked as they were nearing the territory which their Mounty friend patrolled, and Jim nodded. The younger boy searched the rolling globe beneath them. Through the glasses he could see tiny homesteads, miles of unsettled stretches broken only by a rough road, and an occasional traveler scooting along in a car or seeming to crawl behind a team of horses. "The place we picked up Bradshaw is about a mile ahead," Jim remarked, and this time Bob nodded assent. He paid even greater attention to his observations, and once he picked up something that puzzled him. It was a wooded ravine, the sides of which rose steeply and were bristling with overhanging rock. The boy guessed that it was the bed of a stream, but the water had either dried up or been diverted through another outlet. He followed its winding course, and calculated that it must be several miles long and extended well across the borders into the two countries. Twice he thought he saw something moving about, then he looked more sharply for he thought it might be a bear. In a moment more he discovered that it was a man, two of them in fact and they were making their way warily as if anxious to escape detection. "Slow up a bit Buddy and zig-zag. I want to see this place." Jim nodded, reduced the speed, zoomed high and spiraled as if he were reaching for the ceiling, then dropped, and all the while Bob kept his eyes on that deep ravine. "Spot anything, Buddy?" "I don't know. You have a look, but be careful. Wouldn't that ravine down there be a corker place for bootleggers or smugglers to go sneaking from one side to the other? I see some men there now. What do you think?" Jim was already scrutinizing the place. "Yes it would, but it's too big for the patrol men to have overlooked," Jim answered. "That old road runs pretty close to it. Law-breakers would keep out of a place like that." "They might not just because it looks so inviting. They might figure they could get away with it because it's so easy, and they'd have it fixed up. See those fellows?" Jim nodded, and by that time he was keenly interested. He not only saw the two men, but further along he picked up two more who seemed to be hiding in the underbrush, and not far away he espied a two-wheel cart, which was painted green. "Great guns, we've got to find Bradshaw and tell him. He may give us the ha-ha, but just the same, that's no ordinary bunch down there, and the men are not even smoking cigarettes. Here." He handed the glasses back to the younger boy. "Be careful no one notices that you are watching them," he warned tensely. He kicked the rudder, shot Her Highness' nose into the air, zoomed higher, and five minutes later, Bob caught his arm and nodded toward the land. "Bradshaw is down there on the road! He's about five miles, I guess, from where I first saw that ravine, and it ends just a little way below him. Two fellows crawled up after he had passed, got on horses and separated, and Jim, they are following the Mounty, one on each side, as if they are watching him. They are just jogging along as if they are on old plugs, and Jim--there, oh gosh, there are two more coming out a mile ahead on the road." Bob was so excited that he could hardly speak steadily. "Are they laying for him?" Jim asked tensely. "I think they are. Come on, do something, and do it quick, for they are all trotting in close. I think he hears the ones behind, because he's turning around--Jim--" Jim looked over the side, and just ahead he could see the drama being enacted two-thousand feet beneath him. "Hang on to your teeth," he roared. With a swift flop he turned Her Highness' nose toward the earth, and with the engine bellowing he came tearing out of the sky. After the first second he shut off the motor, made it cough and sputter, and the plane began to spin and twist, tail first, then nose first. Both boys tried to watch what was taking place beneath them, and Jim's heart almost stopped beating as he saw that the Mounty was concentrating his whole attention on them. Even Pat had his eyes upward at the startling spectacle of a gyrating airplane that promised to be kindling wood in a few seconds. On they raced, and as they came, Austin saw that two of the outlaws were galloping swiftly, rifles on their arms, toward their prey. They seemed to have thrown caution to the winds and were taking advantage of the commotion above them to complete their wicked crime. Bob clutched his step-brother's arm as he too took in the scene, but Jim was not unmindful of their own danger and one eye was on the altitude meter. At five hundred feet he took the controls, started the engine and lifted Her Highness' nose, then went on into a glide that brought them, a moment later, to a scant two feet of the snorting Patrick and the indignant Mounty. But before the man could utter a protest, Jim bellowed defiantly. "Aw yes, suppose you think you own the air, and you're going to give us a blowing up. Well, come on and do it." "I surely will," Bradshaw responded. He was surprised at the whole performance, leaped from his horse, and strode close to them. "Well, go on and search me if you want to, you half-baked nut--" "I say, how do you get that way?" Jim was out of the cock-pit, his arms raised above his head as if he were being held up. "Go on and search," he shouted. "I'm not afraid of the whole Canadian army," then he added in a lower tone. "Search me and make out you're mad as blazes. Rip us both up loud and handsome. We saw some guys out to do you, and they are not far away. Savvy?" "Yes, I'll search you, you rough necks." Swiftly his hands went over the boy from head to foot, while Jim alternated between bitter abuse, punctuated with bits of their story told in a lower tone. In the middle of the performance, Bob hopped out beside his step-brother. "What do you think you're doing?" he yelled, and added, "Get out your gun, they're just back in some brush." The business-like automatic was instantly in Bradshaw's hand and he whirled on Caldwell. "You quit shooting off your mouth," he ordered in fine style. "How did you chaps discover this bunch?" in a lower tone of voice. He began the search of Caldwell, and as the three stood they could see on all sides of them in case the outlaws decided to take a hand. "We were looking for you," Bob answered while the man went through his breast pockets. "Saw a ravine back there with a lot of men in it. Looked queer so we came to give you the message, then as soon as we spotted you, we saw the bunch, four of them, closing in, so we did our little stuff with Her Highness. Now don't go taking anything that doesn't belong to you," he ended with a savage roar as Bradshaw drew a notebook out of his pocket. VI A CAPTURE They stood in rather close formation, Bob and the Mounty facing each other, Jim so that he could observe anything approaching by either of two other points of the compass, and Bradshaw scowling fiercely and thumbing young Caldwell's book. "You've got to explain this," he thundered. "It's nothing but school reports, tests and names of classmates. You needn't go cribbing it," Bob growled angrily. "What you American kids doing here anyway? Got a permit a fly into Canada?" Bradshaw demanded, but his eyes were narrowed as he focused them on the surrounding brush, his gun in hand. Suddenly he whipped it up almost to Bob's ear, and snapped: "Come out of that you fellow." Then followed a snarling curse, a smashing through underbrush, and the sharp crack of the automatic. Like a panther Bradshaw leaped forward and in an instant he dragged forth one of the pair who had come to head him off, but galloping hoofs and wild oaths proclaimed the departure of the other three. A moment later there wasn't a sound of them. The Mounty snapped handcuffs on his captive, trussed his feet, and shoved him along out of earshot. "Pat," he called and the big horse trotted to his side. "Don't let him move." Pat promptly stepped over the man, who howled in terror, and lightly planted one hoof on his coat, pinning him securely. "Some horse," Bob whispered with admiration. "Now, you fellows give an account of yourselves. How did you happen to come down right here just as those lads were getting funny?" He spoke so sharply that the younger boy was sure the man believed they were a party to the hold-up, but Jim merely scowled back. "Aw you ground hog. Our motor stalled up there and I couldn't get it going until we almost smashed. Can you understand that?" "It's clear enough. What are you smuggling in that car?" He gave a little nod and strode with a determined tread to Her Highness. "Not a blamed thing that doesn't belong to us," Jim shouted as he followed close. "No?" Bradshaw leaned over as if to make a thorough inspection. "What's in the basket. A book of bed-time stories?" "Grub," Jim answered sharply, then added. "And some apples for Pat." "Thanks," the Mounty grinned. "Now, tell me, is that ravine the one that comes along like a letter S, deep and steep on both sides almost all the way. It ends in a rock cliff about a half mile below here?" "That's it," Bob whispered and he sighed with relief as he realized that the officer had been playing the game. "Great guns, we've had that under inspection, but we'll take another look into it. Do you know that out-post right on the line?" "Sure. Has the two flags." "That's it. My head chief is there now. I wish you'd fly over it and drop him a message--" "We can give it to him," Jim offered. "Don't want you to come down. We've been bluffing that I don't know you and it may help. Anyway it won't get you into trouble if any of the gang should see you again. I'll have to get this fellow locked up and make a report. I'm no end obliged to you. If you hadn't been on the look-out I might have had a nasty fight all by my lonesome. Wish you'd get away as soon as you can and drop this to my chief. You did me a mighty good turn and the department will appreciate your further service. Weight it down with these rocks, if you haven't anything better. I picked them up when I was cuffing our friend over there." "Glad to. We'll keep a look-out from the air and you watch us. If we see any more surprise parties coming your way, we'll do a tail spin," Jim said softly. "Thanks, but I fancy those fellows are willing to call it a day. Don't know why I've been picked out to bump off, but they may be planning to pull something in my territory during this beat. I'll be moving." He raised his voice and handed the note to Jim, then began in a louder tone. "Sure, I suppose your father is the President of the United States, but you beat it back over your own line and if you don't you'll wish he had the power of triplets." "Aw," growled Jim. "Smoke bomb," Bob added with relish as the throttle was opened and Her Highness got under way. Further pleasantries were cut off by the thundering of the motors but the younger boy leaned over ostensibly to make faces at the officer, while his eyes searched the vicinity. He saw Pat still penning the captive to the earth, but not a glimpse did he get of another human being in the neighborhood. The plane zoomed a thousand feet, leveled off and headed for the Post the boys had seen a few days before. Jim had the stones, which he wrapped with the paper in his handkerchief, and then he knotted the note inside. "All quiet on the front?" he asked his step-brother. "As a mid-summer night's dream," Bob replied, then added. "I see the post, Buddy." Jim nodded for he too had picked it out and already Her Highness was gliding to a lower level. Down she rode swiftly, until she was only five hundred feet in the air, then they noticed the man-on-post come out, and level his glasses upon them. Jim raised his arm, and at the right moment he dropped the message over the side, and brought the plane about in a half circle, while they both watched the thing, the corners of the handkerchief standing out like a pair of rabbit's ears as it tumbled to the earth. "He's got it," Bob shouted gleefully. A second man had come out of the hut and the boys saw them inspecting the present they had received so unexpectedly. The first man waved his hand and ducked into the house, and the boys, quite satisfied with the morning's work, grinned at each other. "I'm empty, Buddy," Jim announced as they sailed off. The boys took a route almost straight west, and in half an hour they were above a rugged region which the map informed them was in the State of New York. They selected a plateau with little timber and some kind of stream. They glided to the landing place, and presently Her Highness was standing like a great wild bird, poised on the hill. The boys hopped out of the cockpit, looked about to make sure that there were no warnings posted to keep off the premises, then out came the basket. "Want to build a fire and toast some of these marshmallows?" Bob proposed as he glanced at the food. "Sure thing," Jim agreed readily. He got busy and cleared a rock while Bob gathered some bits of wood. In a few minutes they had the blaze crackling cheerily, and then they prepared to enjoy themselves thoroughly. Mrs. Fenton had put in almost a loaf of home made bread and butter sandwiches, a glass of plum jelly, six deviled eggs, slices of roast ham, olives, pickles, ginger cookies, milk, chocolate cake and candy. "If we eat all this Her Highness will never be able to take us up," Bob grinned broadly as the things were set forth on the huge napkin. "Intend to eat sparingly?" Jim inquired. "Not so that you could notice it," Bob assured him. "When I come to think of it, I don't know where you're going to get any. I am hollow in both legs." "I know what I'm going to do," Jim retorted promptly. "Pitch right in and if you get more than a toe full, you'll be lucky." With that threat, they fell to and ate with keen appetites, and when Bob finally stretched himself out on the rock with a huge sigh of contentment, the food was almost all gone. "Gosh, I feel great." "I'm right with you, Buddy," Jim answered. He lay on his tummy and for a few minutes they watched the tiny coil of smoke that rose in a wavering line from the fire, which was burning low. Austin did manage to throw on a few more sticks, that caught quickly, and crackled at a lively rate. "Wonder what Bradshaw and his gang have been doing while we tanked up," Bob remarked. "Wish we could have been in on the scrap." "Wish we could, but we might have been in the way. If we had hung around that ravine waiting for the fireworks, the chaps who were parked there might have been warned and that would have spoiled the show," Jim replied. "Oh sure. By the noise they made, those chaps getting away may not have heard our little play. Reckon, they beat it to their headquarters to tell the other fellows. Seeing us again would have queered the party for the Mounties," Bob agreed. "Yes, a plane is sort of conspicuous. Bet that message told the Chief, whoever he is, to surround the ravine and get the outlaws while the getting promised to be good." "I saw one of those fellows pull out his gun. Gosh, they would have got Bradshaw if he had come riding right into their arms." "It would have been some scrap, you bet. Bradshaw's no slouch." "Not a bit. Wish he could come and see us at Cap Rock. Say, with Pat to help him, he's better off than if he were twins, or two policemen," Bob laughed as he thought of the efficient pony. "Some horse. Glad he's got a good master." "You bet." They rested comfortably, and at last Jim broke the silence again. "Gosh, Buddy, remember that story of the brothers who watched the smoke go up the chimney?" "Surely. I was just thinking about them. The Montgolfier boys. They were watching the fire and the smoke go up the chimney, and that set their brains to working and they wondered why the smoke went up. Queer isn't it when you think that a little thing like that happening around one hundred and thirty years ago, should develop into air travel!" Bob glanced toward Her Highness affectionately. "She doesn't look much like the paper bags they made their first experiments with, does she?" "I'll say she doesn't, nor the balloons that came a few years later. Gosh, I'm glad we don't live at a time when people were so ignorant that they thought everything new was a devil of some kind," Bob replied. "We'd be in a nice fix if we got shot at or stabbed with pitch forks every time we came down. But, even at that, Jim, there are places in the world where the people are mighty savage. Dad says in some of the South American provinces they've never been able to conquer all the tribes, or civilize them. They are almost the same as they were when Columbus landed, and will fill a chauffeur full of poison arrows if they see a car driving through their land." "Great horns. I'd like to go sailing over some of those places some time. Lindbergh must have seen some mighty interesting places when he went cutting air-paths over Mexico." "He sure did. And isn't he the grand lad for keeping his eyes open and his wits about him?" Keen admiration for the Lone Eagle silenced them for a while, then Bob reached out and took a triangle of chocolate cake. "I'll divvy up." "You needn't." Jim made himself another sandwich. "Don't know where my lunch is disappearing, but I find I have a little vacant space which needs fueling." At that they both sat up, made a second attack on the food, but finally were compelled to stop. "We may as well be soaring along," Jim proposed. "Let's go over Canada and see if we can see any of the smoke from the ravine," Bob suggested eagerly. "All right. You want to drive?" "You bet, and you watch for the scrap." They packed the remains of the food in the basket, stored it into the cock-pit, poured water over the embers of their fire and cleaned the spot with a piece of dry pine brush, then gave Her Highness an inspection. "Great old bird," Bob chuckled when they were sure that all was well. "She did a good job this morning." He took his place and Jim occupied the passenger seat prepared to be the observer. A moment later Her Highness ran along the plateau, lifted her nose into the air, then climbed for all she was worth while Jim examined the earth beneath them. There wasn't a cloud in the sky, and the roar of the engine was a startling contrast to the calm forest they had just left. Caldwell watched his controls as they raced at three thousand foot height. Jim thoroughly enjoyed the inspection and occasionally made a note of something especially interesting, and often called his buddy's attention to the rolling globe. In less than an hour they were over the post where they had dropped the message, but if anyone was inside the shack, they did not come out to examine them. Then Bob turned sharply north, and soon they were about ten miles beyond the edge of the ravine and the place where they had stopped the Mounty. "Slack up a bit and go south," Jim suggested through the speaking tube. "All right," Bob agreed. He kicked the rudder, Her Highness circled, proceeded at a slower speed, and presently the spot in which they were so keenly interested, jumped into the lenses. At first glance it was as deserted as before, then Jim saw a coil of smoke rolling up into the wind. Concentrating with all his attention, he saw that some sort of shack was on fire, and just below the burning building, was a blackened spot that had been swept bare by the blaze. A couple of puffs snapped out from down the ravine, and a volley of answering shots spat viciously from the other end. "The fight's still on, Buddy," Jim bellowed, and Bob looked over the side. They were getting close enough now so that they could see the battle fairly clearly, and they watched with tense interest. At one end they made out the Canadian policemen closing in on the desperadoes, who seemed to be sliding back behind a screen of brush they had dug up, and just a few feet from them the wall of the ravine rose sharply cutting off their escape. "They'll have them in a minute," Bob exclaimed excitedly. "Suppose they can climb up that wall?" "It looks pretty jagged to me, like tiers of boulders, but, zowee--if they do get up, there's a line of blue-coats waiting for them," Jim announced, and he would have danced up and down with joy, if he hadn't been strapped securely to the seat. Bob paid strict attention to his business, then, as the attack was started, he decided it would be no harm to circle about and see the finish of the fight. He knew that his brother would be in accord with the plan, so he proceeded to carry it out. He zoomed higher, kicked the rudder, raced the engine and was soon pounding at three thousand feet, where he leveled off for the ring, and started to fly so they had a grand view of the drama below. Jim kept his glasses fixed on the gully, and as the position of Her Highness was changed, he had a superior view of both sides of the maneuvers. Suddenly the wall that cut off the criminals was directly in front of his gaze and he began to wonder about it. It seemed strange that men who were probably accustomed to protecting themselves and taking every precaution, should select a place where they could be so easily trapped. "The Mounties must have given them a special surprise," he remarked to himself, but just the same, that did not seem entirely possible. It seemed to the boy that there must be a gang who used the ravine as a hangout, a means of slipping into the United States or Canada whenever they wanted to, and they would need quite a force of men in order to keep themselves well posted on the habits of the men who patrolled the location. Then it occurred to Jim that the outlaws might not have used the place long and had not had time to prepare hasty exits. But that idea as it flashed through his brain did not seem at all plausible. The boy remembered that Bradshaw had said the "gang" had been particularly successful in putting over every one of their schemes. That meant they were taking no chances, and surely they would none of them let themselves be backed against a high cliff where they were sure to be picked off with the rifles of the Mounties if they tried to scale it, and run into the arms of other officers if they did manage to reach the top. He studied the group of men firing furiously from behind the brush pile and rocks, then he wondered why the men on top did not fire down at them. That was soon answered, for he saw that the edge was steep and soft, and even as he watched, he saw a man slip. His companion grabbed him by the arm and saved him from going over into the ravine. The slip dislodged a quantity of gravel and brush which slid down behind the desperadoes. Two of them instantly whirled about ready to fire in case they were attacked from the rear. There still remained a few rods to be traversed before they would reach the cliff, and another man glanced up at the plane and shook his fist. "Shouldn't like to kill any of them, but I wish we had a few tear bombs, or some little thing like that to put them out of business," Jim lamented. He couldn't help feeling that although it looked as if the officers would soon get their men, they must have some cards still up their sleeves. "Say, Buddy," Bob bellowed, "There comes Pedro's covered wagon." He pointed, and although Jim could not catch the words, he followed the direction and had no difficulty in picking out the highly colored truck which was moving forward slowly along a road that looked as if it was used very little. It was about a mile from the ravine in an especially isolated section and Jim's eyes swept the vicinity as he thought that the huckster must be nearing his own home, but there wasn't a house for miles, and as near as the boy could make out, the road meandered along and finally slowed down near a dilapidated old rail fence which might mark an ancient boundary, or surround a pasture. Rocks and brush were piled above it, and as the boy looked, he saw that the truck stopped. "Perhaps the old guy has heard the shooting," he thought, but if Pedro did, he gave no sign of either assisting or investigating. Instead he dismounted with agility, with some sort of huge bundle in his arms, and in a moment he was standing on the rim of the wagon bed. It took but a moment for Jim to realize that the man was throwing a canvas of dark green material over the brilliant truck. "Bob, look," he bellowed. His step-brother, who had been giving his attention to the plane, glanced over and ahead, and his lips pursed up in a long drawn out whistle. By this time, which was really only a few minutes, Her Highness had passed over the end of the ravine, so Bob zoomed again, banked, and came about. He didn't propose to miss anything. In that brief interval, the red and blue truck had been turned into a green one so like the forest surrounding it that it could hardly be picked out. Jim saw Pedro take his seat again, then move forward a way until he reached a wide spot where he turned around. "That old boy isn't all he pretends to be," the boy muttered. He would have liked to watch the "old boy" but he wanted to know what was going on in the ravine. He saw that the bandits were stretched in rows, only two men in the one nearest the blazing shack, while the Mounties were making their way forward cautiously. As Jim watched, he saw the rear row of outlaws slide swiftly back, then one of them disappeared under a rock. Another followed quickly, while the men in front continued to fire rapidly, as if to cover the fact that there were fewer men at the guns. "Great Caesar's ghost. They've got an outlet there and are going to get away under the ground," Jim shouted, but he couldn't make Bob hear and he didn't want to take his eyes off the event even for an instant. Quickly he swept the country-side for a cave entrance, and then, in a moment, he picked it up. A man emerged stealthily, raced through the woods, and came out close to Pedro and his camouflaged truck. "By gum and thunder," Jim exploded. VII A TAIL SPIN "Buddy," Jim screamed as he clutched Bob by the collar. "They're going to get away." Bob looked over the side to see what it was all about, and in a moment he gave a grunt. "Huh!" Caldwell took in the scene, then for a second he stared at his step-brother, mechanically bringing Her Highness around in a half circle. Then Jim had an idea. He pulled his note book from his pocket, fished out a pencil, and began to scribble hastily. When he had finished, Bob read the message. 'They are crawling away under the hill and there's a truck, Pedro's, but it's got a green cover, and is on an old road to the west, picking them up. The Flying Buddies.' Caldwell grinned at the signature, and he was already guiding the plane toward the Mounties, who were still peppering the cliff with their rifles. A few of them on both sides were edging up through the brush, but they were not firing, and the boys guessed that they expected to close in on the bandits, feeling sure the men could not escape. Jim glanced about for a weight, but the only thing was the lunch basket, so he caught it up, saw that the cover was secure, then tied the note on the handle with his handkerchief so that it could be easily seen. "Shoot," Bob shouted when he was just enough below the Canadians to allow the thing to fall close by them and not force a man to expose himself to the guns at the further end. The basket went over swiftly, spun around, tipped and tossed, and they saw it land. A man secured it without difficulty and waved an acknowledgment, while two others read the message. The boys couldn't see what action they took, nor did they hear the shrill blast of a whistle signaling to men stationed above the ravine. Bob brought Her Highness about, and sent her over so they could get a good look at the scene in the woods. While they watched, two men slipped across the road and jumped into the back of the huge fruit truck, which was moving slowly. Caldwell clenched his fists as he realized that the fellows would surely slip through the officers' fingers and he looked at Jim, hoping that his step-brother would have another idea, but Austin shrugged his shoulders. With anxious eyes Bob scanned the road. He noticed that the truck was nearing a point which was high and narrow. On either side rain and winter storms had dug deep gullies, leaving barely room for one vehicle of any kind to traverse it in safety. Glancing at the altimeter, Bob read that the plane was less than a thousand feet up, so he banked, tipped Her Highness' nose, and zoomed in a swift, steep climb. The needle pointed to twelve hundred, fifteen, eighteen, but Caldwell held her throttle wide open, going full blast and climbing at top speed. The wind shrieked through the wires and threatened to rip the wings from the fuselage, but the pilot did not stop until he was thirty-five hundred feet and some distance behind the truck. Then he leveled off and the drama beneath them looked as if it were being performed by moving dots and dashes. The plane was brought about with a protesting howl, as Caldwell looked at the globe with its tiny specks, the narrow, treacherous road and wee puffs of smoke. He made a swift calculation, came to a decision, and shut off the motor. The sudden silence was punctuated by faint booms of the guns cracking far below, and Jim looked inquiringly at his step-brother, who was sitting calmly, but flushed as Her Highness' tail dropped; nose tipped foremost, then began to spin slowly, held up by the force of the wind from underneath, carried forward like a leaf caught in the breeze, and irresistibly drawn down by the laws of gravitation. Jim hadn't the faintest idea what his step-brother hoped to gain by the reckless maneuver, but he saw that Bob had some sort of plan, and that every fibre of his tense young body was on the alert, hands and mind ready to carry out his scheme. Once they struck an air-pocket that bounced Her Highness in a most undignified manner, rolling her over on her back as if she were a kitten, but she finally tumbled out of it, and spun on and on. Once the brother's eyes met and they grinned at each other reassuringly. "Don't know what you're up to, Buddy, but I'm right with you," said Jim. "Thanks. You might get your parachute in case I make a fluke. It's more likely to be that, than it is to do any good," answered Bob, for they could speak to each other quite easily now. "How about your own umbrella?" Jim demanded. "It's O. K.," answered Bob, then added, "See that road?" "I can't help see it." "Think there is room--I mean think it's wide enough so we can get into it without smashing the wings?" "Ask me another. It's pretty narrow." Jim studied the situation. "That truck is wide and there's quite a space on each side, but it will take some fancy landing to get the wheels on the road and miss those trees at the side. They grow like a wall, and as they are coming up to meet us, they look like the bottom of a nice torture chamber bristling with sharpened spikes." "Nothing wrong with the picture. Keep your eyes on that truck of Pedro's. I'm going to try to drop in front of it. They can't get by, or turn back, and all I hope to do is delay them, but that may help, if I do it. Keep a sharp lookout and tell me if I'm going too far either side. I don't want to get far ahead of them, not more than a few feet," Bob explained. "Bully idea, old man. If we smash up, I'll meet you at the gate. If you need any help, I'll tell St. Peter you're a good kid and to let you in," Jim promised gravely. "Go on. _I'll_ have to do some tall lying to get him even to look at you," Bob retorted. "Here goes." He started to manipulate the controls, slowly bringing Her Highness as he wanted her, and Jim scanned the scene ahead. He could see movement in the brush, men crawling or running on hands and knees, but not a uniform was in sight. He noted one thing in particular for which he was thankful. No one seemed to have noticed the falling plane, and that might be in their favor. Also, he thought ruefully, it might not. If the Mounties heard them dropping out of the sky, it would direct them more quickly to the road, but he thought of those men, armed to the teeth, desperate to get away, and he didn't try to imagine what they would do to the plane and the boys who threatened to frustrate their plans. Austin had read of terrific battles with rum-runners who fought to the last ditch for their lives and stopped at nothing, and now he knew that if Her Highness was not hung in those spear-like pines, or wrecked on the treacherous road, the men behind them would instantly open fire and riddle them with bullets before they could move in the cock-pit. He glanced about for a sign of the Canadian officers, but not one did he see, and by now they were so close to the ground that his range of vision was very limited. Then Bob brought Her Highness out of the spin, glided forward, her float ends scraping the edge of the truck as it slipped over, then, in another breathless second they were over the road, the wheels touched the ground, raced forward a few rods, slowed down, and at last came to a dead stop. "Hey, what the blazes do you think you're doing?" It was the belligerent voice of the driver and did not sound at all like the musical tones of Pedro. Jim looked back while Bob loosened the safety strap, but did not get out of it. "Hop over and tinker about," Bob directed, and Jim obeyed. "You get out of the way," bellowed Pedro. "Oh, hello, Old Man," Jim called good naturedly. "Our engine stalled. Guess we got something in it. Maybe you can give me a hand." "I got no time. Get out of the way, fast. I'm in a hurry." "Sorry, we won't be a minute." Bob was also struggling in the cock-pit as if something was out of order, and after a minute, during which Pedro made the air blue with curses, he got back in his seat. "Guess we got it," he shouted. "Beastly sorry to keep you." Bob tried out the motor. It thundered smooth as silk, the plane moved a few inches, coughed apologetically, then stopped. "Come on, now, old girl," Bob coaxed, and again he set the motor humming, but the propeller hung idle. Caldwell did not dare to move forward until he was ready to fly, for there wasn't a foot to spare on the road ahead, which curved sharply. Frantically the step-brothers tried out this and that, including the compass, but it didn't seem to help them a bit, and they were afraid to look over their shoulders at the fuming truck-man. "What's the matter with her?" Pedro hadn't been able to sit still a moment longer, so he climbed from his seat and strode along the gully to the cock-pit. "Hanged if I know. She never acted this way before," Jim answered innocently, and the man scowled savagely. "What you doing here anyway?" Pedro persisted. "Great guns," Bob looked up into the man's face. "Didn't you see us stall up there, and come down tail spinning! You are darned lucky we didn't smash up in front of you, that would have been something to cuss about. It takes hours to clear up a busted plane and she digs a hole in the ground ten feet deep. That would have held you up good and proper. Now, get back to your bus, we'll fix this thing as fast as we can and be out of your way." "You kids look here." Pedro shook his fist in Bob's face. "You be out of here by the time I get my engine started, or I send you both to hell, fast, more fast than your plane," he promised. "Thanks a lot, Old Timer. Every little favor is greatly appreciated," Bob answered, and he scowled quite as fiercely as the Canuck. "And if you send us to hell this afternoon, maybe we won't be lonesome," Jim added. "Can you run a plane?" "No," Pedro snapped savagely. "Well, we can, but not if we're ghosts. Put that in your peace pipe and get on your own wave length. You don't own this end of Canada. What are you doing here? If you can answer that, I've got another to ask you and it's right on the tip of my tongue--" "Stick your tongue out at him," Bob suggested. "I'd rather punch his jaw, I don't like his face. Give me that wrench and I'll tap him for sap, he's full of it. Run along, old boy--don't you know your onions, or haven't you got any this load?" Jim demanded. "You get out of the way." "You go back to your bus, you make us nervous so we can't tell whether the tail ensemble is in front or back--" "You get out--" Pedro insisted, and then as the boys merely stared at him, he started toward the truck, and through a slit in the big car, Jim caught a glimpse of a man's face, and heard a soft signaling whistle as some one called the driver to his seat. Quickly the big fellow climbed up, and Jim, realizing that trouble was close by, buckled his safety strap, while Bob too made ready for a quick get-away. "If I keep the engine going, it will locate us for those Mounties, but they're afoot, or horseback, and can't come so fast," Bob whispered. "Start the noise and I'll watch behind. If I give you a kick in the ribs, lift us up," Jim replied under his breath. In a moment more the engine was racing again, then it really did stop, but this time it was by accident and looked as if it was too surprised to go, for at that instant, Bob caught sight of uniforms, and a sharp command was issued. "Climb down out of that, Pedro." The boys looked back and saw the truck-driver's face turn green with terror. "Lively now, no funny business." Pedro literally tumbled to the ground, his legs shaking as if he had the ague, and his teeth chattering. "I--I wasn't touching 'em," he stammered. "Sure, I know you didn't, but you were impolite to American citizens and you ought to know better. Stand on your feet." Then the boys saw more than a dozen silent figures surrounding the truck. "I didn't lay a hand on 'em," Pedro declared. "It's well for you that you didn't send them to hell as you promised. What are you doing here and what have you got a green cover on your bus for? You went down the line this morning and you aren't reported back yet. Come, explain yourself." The man was on horseback and evidently the chief of the outfit. Jim guessed that he was playing for a few minutes to give his men time to close in, then he snapped again, "Cuff him. You boys let fly." Immediately the truck wagon was literally alive with men swarming over it. The doors at both ends were jerked open, and in another second, crouching outlaws were being tumbled over each other. Some of them opened fire, but their guns were knocked out of their hands, and in less time than it takes to tell about it, the fight was over. Fifteen prisoners were lined up on the road, while the officer looked at them calmly. "Put them back in and take them along." The crowd was bundled back, this time each was securely handcuffed, then a familiar voice called from the woods. "We got the last of them out of the hole, Chief. What shall we do with them?" "Pile them in here," the Chief answered, then, as the group came stumbling forward, the man went on, but his voice was stern, "These your Texas friends, Bradshaw?" "Yes sir," Bradshaw replied quickly. "You'd better bring them to headquarters for obstructing traffic." "All right, sir," Bradshaw agreed. "What'll we do with Her Highness? Put her under arrest?" "Who is Her Highness?" "The bus. I was introduced a few days ago." "Thought United States didn't like nobility." There was a tiny smile on the chief's lips and a twinkle in his eyes. "How do you explain the title, Bradshaw?" "I don't know, sir, unless they are of Irish descent--" "We are not," Jim declared positively. "You've done devilment enough today to be pure-bloods," Bradshaw informed them. The chief dismounted and came close to the fuselage and held out his hand. "I want to thank you for your devilment, boys," he smiled and they both thought he was a grand looking man, the sort one reads about. "We didn't do much of anything," Jim stammered. "We like Canada," Bob added for he was less fussed and shook the officer's hand vigorously. "If we've helped, we're mighty glad," Jim drawled, then went on, "But we'd have been wash-outs if it hadn't been for Her Highness. I think being among nobility made her do her job extra well." "No doubt. Is she all right, or has something gone wrong with her?" "Her Highness is fine as silk," Bob declared emphatically. "Nothing is the matter with her, Sir." "Glad to hear it. Now, can you get her out of this trap?" "Surely. It'll be a close shave, but she'll do it." "All right. Wish you would and let the truck by. And, next time you are in Canada, look me up, there's something important I want to show you," the chief told them. "We'll be mighty glad to see you--" "But we're not coming if it's one of those parties with all the world looking on," Jim added quickly. The chief laughed. "We'll spare your feelings, but if you'll come, we'd be glad to have you dine with us some evening, only just our own crowd--all these fellows you know, and the cook." "That'll be fun," Jim agreed. "We'll let you know some night when we're not having corned-beef and cabbage. So long." "So long." Bob opened her up, the engine thundered, the propeller whirled madly. Her Highness slid forward, lifted, cleared the curve gracefully, zoomed and climbed. Both boys waved at the men, and a moment later Jim saw the truck load of outlaws being driven to some unknown point. That is, the point was not known to the boys, but they knew it was a good strong jail. "It's been quite a day. Anything left in that basket?" Jim asked through the tube. "Left in the basket! Well, if there is the squirrels are eating it back there in that ravine. You nut, you threw it overboard with your note," Bob answered. "Great guns, so I did, and it's your Aunt's basket. Say, hop down in some town and let's buy another for her," Jim urged. "Oh she won't mind, there's no hurry. We can get her one when we drive to North Hero," Bob objected. "I know she won't mind, but just the same, let's get another to take back with us, and something because we lost the napkins and dishes," Jim insisted. "Say, what's your rush?" Bob demanded impatiently. "We want a basket again, don't we? Don't we want to go up tomorrow? Well, we can't lose all your aunt's baskets and expect her to pack grub stakes for us, can we?" Jim answered. "That's so. We better get her a couple," Bob agreed quickly. He consulted the map. "St. John's is the nearest," he announced, so gravely he turned Her Highness' nose in the direction of the town, because, when the matter was put to him that way, he could see the need of keeping Mrs. Fenton supplied with baskets. VIII ABLAZE For the next three days after the boys' exploit in Canada, it rained. Not gentle showers, but a good stiff down-pour that drenched the land, swelled the Lake, and ruined young crops. Her Highness was kept in the carriage shed under the tool house, because besides raining as if it were never going to stop, there was thunder and lightning, and hours of pitch blackness. Both Jim and Bob would have liked nothing better than to go soaring up and battle with the elements but they knew that such an adventure would cause Mrs. Fenton terrific worry every moment they were out of her sight, so they contented themselves with the radio, phonograph, some jolly old books they found in the attic, and swims between storms. Several times they caught glimpses of the strange boy as he went splashing by to and from the garden, and they watched his run-off with considerable interest. "If he keeps the water down on that hole land it will save the alfalfa meadow," Mr. Fenton remarked thoughtfully. "Does he seem to be doing it, Uncle Norman?" "So far the water isn't any higher." "Jinks, that's great," Jim exclaimed with enthusiasm. He rather envied Corso's young nephew who disregarded weather and waded barefoot along the road, his overalls rolled above his knees, and not even a splattering automobile racing past him, sending sheets of water from all four wheels, seemed to disturb him. The morning of the fourth day broke clear and fine, the sky velvet blue, and not a cloud in sight. The step-brothers came down stairs with joyous whoops, and young Caldwell danced his aunt about the kitchen. "Well, my land, if you want me to dance with you Bob, you will have to make it a reel or a jig--" "Let it be a jig," Bob answered promptly and taking her hand he began the clattery dance while Jim played an accompaniment on the mouth organ. But in a few minutes Mrs. Fenton had to stop for breath. "Where did you learn to do that?" she demanded. "I never supposed that any young one could do it these days." "In school," Bob answered. "You ought to see Jim Highland Fling." "What's all the shouting about?" Mr. Fenton asked. He had just come in with the brimming milk pails. "Look at the weather," Jim laughed. "It's enough to make an airplane do a tail spin," Bob added. "No doubt, but I hope Her Highness doesn't do any more--" "More?" The boys chorused. "Canadian chap telephoned me yesterday to inquire if you live here, and he said that you two had made the country safe for the Mounted Police--" "Aw, go on," Bob exclaimed in disgust. "What did they do that for?" demanded Jim. "In the course of his duty," Mr. Fenton smiled. "We'll be very much obliged if you will give us the details of the war while we breakfast. We want to know all about it. It isn't every day that exciting things happen around us and we feel that we have been slighted--" "That's all right, Mr. Fenton. Bob did most of it. I'll tell you the whole story--" "I did not do most of it," Bob denied emphatically. "If you leave out anything you did, I'll tell them." "Fair enough," Mr. Fenton laughed. "Now sit down, satisfy the first pangs of hunger, then begin," he ordered, and the boys took their places. Between the two of them, the Fentons were able to get a fairly interesting account of what happened, and when the story was finished, Mrs. Fenton looked at them soberly. "My, my, you might both have been killed. That was why you got me those new baskets. I thought there was something queer about your losing it," Mrs. Fenton exclaimed. "If you had lost it, or forgotten it, I should not have minded one bit; but if you had told me how you happened to throw it overboard, I should have been glad." "We wanted to be sure that we had a basket for next time," Bob grinned cheerfully. "We expect there will be other next times." "My land of goodness, there's the mail man. He looks like a drowned rat. Come right in, Harvey." The R.F.D. man wore boots that came to his thigh, and even at that he was splashed with mud. "Got a registered letter, and another one that looks important, so I didn't put them in the box," the man explained. "Some rain we've had. Did you know, Fenton, that the Carrying Point is covered? The water is going over it like a mill race, and I had all I could do to keep the wheels under me. Loaded the car up with rocks or I'd have been swimming around after the letters." "My land sakes alive, is it as bad as that! Here Jim, this letter seems to be for you." Mrs. Fenton gave Austin a long envelope, which he accepted with surprise. In the corner was a Canadian stamp. "Looks like it's from your friends across the border," Mr. Fenton said. Jim opened it promptly, and scanned the contents, then he smiled with relief that it wasn't more formidable. The salutation was as he had signed the note he dropped to the Mounties in the Ravine. 'Flying Buddies. Gentlemen: It would give us great pleasure if you will join us in an informal dinner tomorrow evening at seven P.M. In going over the off duty hours, we find that most of the men who participated in the affair at the ravine can be present. You have our solemn word that the dinner is merely a friendly one, and you will not be embarrassed by speeches. As a matter of fact you may be aroused to the fighting point by the uncomplimentary remarks of your hosts. Telephone me if the time is not convenient to you, and believe me, Very sincerely yours, Allen Ruhel.' "Great guns and little fish-hooks, that will be fun," Bob shouted. "It means tonight," Jim reminded his step-brother. "It says tomorrow." "But it's dated yesterday." "That's so. We'll get Her Highness diked out, and be ready. Suppose we better wear real clothes under our flying suits--" "Dinner coats," Jim agreed. "If it's informal we don't have to do more than that--" "Brush our teeth," Bob suggested. They showed the letter to the Fentons and the man looked grave. "I hope they are careful what they say," he remarked seriously. "What do you mean?" Bob demanded. "These international affairs are ticklish things. If you get riled and throw a soup plate, or some little thing like that, it might bring on a war. It doesn't take much to bring on a war--" "There isn't a soup plate handy, Uncle Norman, but I know where Aunt Belle keeps her potato masher. You want to be very careful that you do not start any internal wars; they are the worst sort." "Guess I better get outside if that's the case," he chuckled, and went for his own high boots. "Let's have a look at the world," Jim proposed, then added, "Old Champlain looks kind of high to me. Is it usually so?" "Suppose it would be after so much rain," Bob put in. "No it isn't," Mrs. Fenton answered, and she looked very serious. "It's higher now than it's been in years, and with the rain stopped, it will fill more. There are so many streams, some big ones, that empty into it all around." She went with the boys to the back veranda and glanced across anxiously. "I can't see Gull Rock at all, and Fisher's Island looks as if half of it is under water." "If it comes flooding too high, we'll take you and Uncle Norman up in Her Highness out of danger," Bob promised. "We can get in the boats if necessary, Bob, and we've got a lot of high land for the stock, so that will be all right, but there are many of the people here who have small farms. My land sakes alive, I expect that some of them are in a bad way right this minute. I'll go telephone." She hurried into the house, and in a moment the boys heard her talking with some neighbors. "Let's have a walk around," Bob suggested. "We won't need to wheel Her Highness out. Look at the carriage shed," Jim exclaimed as he happened to glance in that direction and saw the water lapping up under the wide doors. "Cracky. Let's see if she's all right." "We'll have to take our shoes off--or get boots." "I'll see if Aunt Belle has any extra pairs around." He went inside, while Jim surveyed the turbulent waters which had risen several feet and were thrashing up to the edge of Mrs. Fenton's flower garden, and was more than half way across the lawn when the two boys first saw it. "Come on," Bob called, and Jim went inside to the shed. "Here are some boots. Aunt Belle says they are water-proof, but not very handsome. They have been patched." "They will be just the thing." Presently the pair had their feet in boots several sizes too large for them, but they grinned, and went down into the yard. Their first care was Her Highness. The water had run up a little way under her, but she hadn't suffered any damage. Jim got into the cock-pit and shifted the wheels to the floats, and that done the boys continued the tour of inspection. "If it rains any more, by George, there will be the deuce to pay." They went to the edge of the Lake, but could not follow its rim because the inundations were deep and many of them ended in treacherous swampy stretches. Where the cedar-rimmed cliff came close to the lake's edge, the water pounded high above all previous marks, and some of the lower ones were being undermined by the strength of the waves. "Looks like a regular ocean," Jim remarked thoughtfully as they stood on a promontory which jutted out in defiance of Old Champlain's fury. "Say, where's that Carrying Point?" "Further down. About half way to the village. Remember the day we were coming up and you noticed a neck of land, lake on both sides, that connected the two larger sections of North Hero?" "Oh sure. Little stretch with a beach and roadway." "That's it. Mom told me it got its name from Revolutionary days. Pirates and smugglers coming down from Canada with loads of goods in small boats, carried their boats across this piece and would get away from the officers, or whoever happened to be chasing them. It's quite historic. A bigger craft coming along would have to go all the way around and by that time the smugglers could lose them plenty. They'd hide among some of the lower islands, or even go on straight." "Great old place. Obliging of Champlain to arrange itself so conveniently. Smashing guns, look at that water. It's hammering in all directions. Too bad if it spoils crops, but it sure looks as if it is going to. Did you hear your Aunt say whether the turkeys are dying off because of the dampness?" "Hezzy reported a hundred have turned up their toes." "Rotten. Why don't they have a good warm place to keep them when the weather is had?" Jim exclaimed wrathfully. "That's the funny part of it, Buddy, they have got a real up-to-the-minute house, brooders and everything," Bob replied soberly, then added, "Gosh, I do wish we could do something about it." "Well, we can't keep them from dying off, that's a cinch," Jim answered. "Let's take Her Highness and have a look over the place." "Right-O, old man." They turned about away from the destructive waters and hurried as fast as the clumsy boots would permit, to the carriage house, where they floated the plane out, closed the door after them, and piled into the cock-pit. "Got enough gas?" "Plenty." Presently Her Highness was thundering above the lake and after a few circles over the land, which gave the boys an idea of the havoc being wrought among the islands, Jim headed her toward the end of Isle La Motte and in a few minutes they were cruising at low speed above the turkey farm. It too had suffered from the rain, but its buildings were located on high ground which was well drained so that even now it was drying rapidly. The boys could see the turkeys in the run-ways and they knew that until the vicinity was no longer drenched, the delicate birds could not be allowed to roam in the larger pens. As there seemed to be nothing special they could learn, they proceeded to fly across the property, and soon they were above the section where they had seen the men hiking the first day they had attempted to visit Hezzy. Just beyond the strip of forest, which was quite dense, they saw a long, comparatively bare slope toward the opposite side of the Isle and they easily discerned several men moving about as if they were working. "There's more turkeys," Jim remarked through the tube and Bob nodded that he could see them. "Probably they are fixing a place on this side because it's more sheltered," the younger boy suggested. "I see Hezzy down there." Sure enough the farm's foreman was striding along the edge of the meadow. He paused suddenly, glanced up at them, then disappeared quickly among the trees. "I suspect that he doesn't like us," Jim grinned, and Bob laughed heartily. "Sometime we'll come over and tell him we want to help catch the thieves," the younger boy suggested. "Let's hop down now. We can land on that field." "We'd better not. We might land on some small birds," Bob replied, and Jim agreed that probably it would be safer to wait and have their talk with Hezzy at the house. As there didn't seem to be much more to see the boys rode on, across to the New York side of Champlain, and before they decided to return they were overtaken by the mail plane. Bob, who was at the controls, waggled his wings, and instantly the other pilot responded. He grinned as he flew by, and they waved as if he were an old friend. "It's the guy we saw the other day," Jim declared, and Bob nodded. The mail plane went racing north, and the boys started for home. It felt good being in the air again, but they were going to the dinner and they wanted to give Her Highness her weekly inspection, besides replenish the gas supply. That evening, with their best suits under flying togs, they hopped off again, this time making straight north toward the border. They soared grandly beneath a brilliant dome of colors reflected by the setting sun, roared above Canada, and in half an hour came down on the flying field where they found Allen Ruhel and Sergeant Bradshaw, their uniforms swank, and their faces wearing wide grins of welcome. "Glad you could come," Ruhel greeted them. "We surely owe you a swell spread--" Bradshaw began, but the chief interrupted him. "Perhaps we do, but they are not going to get much more than the usual mess. I had to promise that or they would not have come." "How's Pat?" Bob inquired as they were led toward the long mess hall. "He's so set up over my promotion there's no doing anything with him," Bradshaw answered soberly. "I may have to trade him off for a yellow cat." "Any time you want to trade him, let us know," Jim put in quickly. "I know you boys. You'd spoil him more than I have." They were ushered into a barracks-like building and were soon in the mess hall where already two dozen of Canada's finest men were waiting. The boys recognized a few of their faces, though not many, but introductions were gotten over with little ceremony, and the dinner started. Because of the young American guests of honor there was no wine served, but that did not detract from anyone's good humor, and the party was an enormous success. Bradshaw told the boys that the outlaw gang they had been trying to capture for such a long time, were at last almost all rounded up. "Thanks to your good help," he added. "Jinks, wish we could have been down in the battle," Bob lamented. "I say, didn't you have enough of it?" the chief laughed. "It seems to me you were rather in the thick of things, you know. I expected any moment the blighters would turn their guns on your wings. They would have made their get-away if you had not let us know about the hole they were crawling through. Did Bradshaw tell you that it was fitted up like a war-time trench, with living quarters, periscopes and what-not?" "Great guns--oh, what happened to Pedro?" "He's a perfectly good Canuck gone wrong. He'll pay for his sins with the rest. A couple of them got away, and a few of the ones we caught are Americans." "Do you have to send them back?" Jim asked. He rather felt the fellows should take their punishment with their gang. "Neither your government nor their families have shown any disposition to intervene in their behalf," the chief smiled, then went on, "As a matter of fact, from their records in the States, I think your Department of Justice is likely to send us a vote of thanks for apprehending them." "I hope they do," Jim responded. After that the courses went on merrily. There were jokes, jolly stories, no end of kidding back and forth, and finally the dessert was served. A few minutes later the chief rose. "I promised our American friends that there would be no speeches tonight, so I've kept my word, but some of the boys will have a presentation. Stand up, you men of Texas, and take your medicine." The boys obeyed, and flushed crimson around their collars as the chief made his way to their places. He opened a small box which seemed to have some ribbons on the royal purple velvet surface. The man held them up and solemnly pinned one to each boy's coat. Each medal was of two ribbons, the American flag and the British, arranged on a bar side by side, and suspended from them was the Mounty Insignia in the middle, a pair of wings, and from the wings hung a tiny basket. "To the Flying Buddies" was engraved on the back. "You can thank your lucky stars that this isn't the French section of Canada and you don't have to be kissed," Bradshaw informed them. "We're grateful for that," Jim laughed in confusion. "This has been a swell party, but what we did, if it was any good, was as much for our own country as for yours, but let me tell you this, if we ever catch you in Texas, we'll get back at you--we'll pin horse-shoes on every one of you," Bob declared. "Is that a threat or a promise?" "Both," Bob laughed. "My Dad has a sizy sort of ranch. It will hold the whole bunch, so if any of you come to our state we'll be mortally offended if you don't show up at our house," Jim supplemented. He was recovering his poise, and then the Mounties cheered them until the rafters rang. An hour later they were allowed to depart, and every man promised to call for the horseshoe. "That was a dandy party," Jim chuckled later as they circled above the field again. "They are a grand bunch," Bob declared enthusiastically. He leveled off Her Highness, and started in a southerly course that would take them down over New York state a way, but the wind was from the west and would drive them toward their own goal. The night was starless, although there seemed to be few clouds, and the air was heavy with moisture as if it would be raining before morning. The step-brothers did no more talking. They were both busy with their own thoughts. Their minds were occupied with the evening's fun, but in a few minutes Bob began to think of his aunt and uncle and wished very hard that he could do something to help them. The rain had ruined a large part of the crops, and although there was time to plant other things, the year promised to be another bad one for the Fentons. The boy resolved to write and tell his mother. Mom somehow always had a suggestion that was worth while. If we could only find out what happens to the turkeys, he sighed and he resolved to pay Hezzy a visit the next day if possible. Suddenly, in the distance they caught a glimpse of a flash of light across the sky. It disappeared almost at once, then they picked it up again. "Bet it's the mail plane," Jim shouted. "Guess it is," Bob agreed. He watched the plane getting closer, and presently there was no mistaking the huge machine that came droning toward them. Their altitude was five thousand feet, and the other pilot would pass almost over them. It was mighty chummy to meet a pal of the air, so Bob zoomed up, and soon Her Highness was racing beside the bigger machine. The pilots waved greetings, waggled their wings, then, as the boys had to turn eastward, they waved a good-night, turned abruptly and shot across the other's course. The man in the cock-pit nodded, and in a minute they were a mile apart, but Jim was watching the diminishing lights with interest. Suddenly he caught his brother's arm and twisted him around. "Something's gone wrong," he bellowed; He didn't need to, for Bob could see. At that moment there was a blaze, a leaping tongue of flame and the plane started to totter crazily toward the ground. "Thundering Mars--he's on fire!" IX THE MAIL MUST GO THROUGH "Bellowing Bulls," Bob yelled at the top of his lungs as he realized that something catastrophic was taking place in the air and that the good-natured young pilot was in danger of his life. "Blistering blazes," Jim exclaimed. Neither boy could hear the other's ejaculation, but they were tense and rigid as they sat for a paralyzed instant staring through the darkness toward that flaming plane which was beginning to drop like some kind of lost star out of the blackness of the sky. Mechanically young Caldwell kicked the rudder, his fingers adjusted the controls, and Her Highness came around with a screech of the wind through the struts and a shrill whine of the wires. He opened her up wide, zoomed, then leveling off, raced toward that flaming, careening plane. With lightning rapidity the boy calculated to a nicety the speed of the doomed mail-plane, and into both their brains flashed the ghastly question as to the sort of spot on to which she was making her plunge. Was it smooth open country, or was it thick forests where the fire would spread and become a violent furnace before it could be subdued, or was it into some little sleeping village, whose residents would be seriously jeopardized? As she made her way downward the plane cast a bright glow about herself, like a funeral bier, but the light only accentuated the night beyond the rim. At racing speed Her Highness cut through the heavens like a thin streak of brightness, and in a minute she was above her falling fellow. The altimeter read three thousand feet, so Bob climbed higher, circled when he was sure he would have the grade he wanted, then, tipping the nose almost vertical, he raced downward, the engine roaring. It was breath-taking, but both boys were keenly alert. In a moment they were beside the burning plane and following it, at a safe distance, toward the ground. They could see the mail pilot struggling with the controls, then he noticed them, grinned, and with a wave of his hand, he stopped the battle, loosened his safety strap, and stepped over the rim of the cock-pit. He seemed as cool as if he were doing a stunt at a fair-ground. A moment later he waved again, then jumped into space, making as wide a leap as possible. The two machines plunged on and the man's body seemed to roll, then drop swiftly, then the parachute blossomed out wide and white as it spread open to save him. "Whew," Bob whistled softly. He could not watch the escaping pilot a moment longer, but he switched on all the light he had in an effort to pick out a landing place. One thing they were positive of, they were not over a village, for there wasn't even a fueling signal visible. On they went, and at last Jim caught his step-brother's shoulder. "Woods," he said, making his lips form the word so the boy would get it, and Bob nodded that he understood. By this time they were so close to the ground that the descending furnace cast a brighter glow, and they could see the tree tops standing out like sentinels. At five hundred feet Bob pulled Her Highness out of the mad drop, leveled off and circled in swift short turns. He maintained the height, and the two looked over the side. Presently they saw the pilot dropping toward them for his speed had been checked by the parachute. At the same instant there was a dull thud and the mail plane smashed into the ground. The flames leaped furiously, and while they ate hungrily at their prey, they lighted the vicinity brilliantly. "Over there," Jim pointed, and Bob looked. He saw a clear place, and shutting off the motor, glided to a landing. Before Her Highness came to a full stop, Jim was out of the cock-pit. He glanced anxiously at the work of destruction, then looked up to the pilot, but he gasped with dismay as he discovered that the fellow was over trees and seemed unable to spill enough air to guide himself out of their reach. In a second a huge branch caught the silk and held it firmly, while the man dangled like a pendulum thirty feet above the hard ground. A fall would mean broken bones. As the step-brothers were Texans first and foremost, ranchers' sons, they never went anywhere without a rope. In fact they would have felt as if they were not fully dressed, so now long lariats were coiled under their seats. It took only a second to secure them, then the two raced toward the tree. "Hey you lads, get the mail out of the plane," the pilot shouted when he saw them approaching. "You go back and do that while I get him down," Jim said quickly to his brother. "The three of us can probably save it all." "Take my rope." Bob handed it over, then started to save the mail or as much of it as he could, while Austin ran on to the tree. "Be careful. I'm trying to figure out a way to get onto the branch, but if I swing. I'll come down," the pilot called. "I'll look out. Hold yourself steady." Jim had the rope in his hands, but a flying suit is a cumbersome garment and hampering. He stood away on a slight knoll, gave the lariat a few expert turns, then sent it forth. It shot under the pilot's feet, opened wide, rose quickly and was jerked securely. "Good work, Buddy," the pilot called. "Fix it so it won't cut you and I'll get in that nearest tree," Jim answered. He was already beside the tree, and looping the end of the rope about his wrist as he started to climb. It was no easy task to prevent the lariat from tangling with the branches, but luckily the tree was a yellow pine, and one side of its trunk had only a few short stubs. The boy went like a monkey and was soon a few feet higher than the pilot. He fastened the end of the rope to a stout branch, took an instant to decide what his next move would be, then he made up his mind, and began to crawl out closer to the man he was trying to save. "Careful that doesn't smash," the chap warned. "All right. Get loose from your parachute. I'll make a hitch here, so you'll come just under me--" "Sure that will hold us both?" "It's a good green branch." "You make your hitch, then get back to the trunk," the pilot proposed. "It will be safer." Jim obeyed. Hanging on with one hand, he leaned forward to watch. The pilot released himself from the straps, then eased himself by hanging on with one hand. Finally he let go, and swung beneath by the lariat. Vigorously he sent his body forward, grasped the branch, hauled himself upright, then made his way to his rescuer. "All O. K." "I'll tell the world. Come along and we'll help the kid." Scrambling to the ground was much simpler than making the ascent, and presently they joined young Bob, who was courageously hauling out bags of mail. "Gosh," he whistled. "Here, take hold." The pilot directed the work and in a few minutes the mail bags were all out of the compartment, and none too soon, for the flames had gained great headway, and were swiftly devouring the plane. They dragged the bags to a safe distance. "I say, we have some Pyrene," Bob announced; "I was a boob not to think of it before." He ran for the tank, they helped him with the tiny hose, and in a few minutes the blaze was extinguished. The darkness seemed to settle about them more thickly than ever, but the light from Her Highness showed clearly so they could see their way to the plane. Quickly the mail pilot glanced over it and he smiled with admiration. "Some grand little bus," he told them. "You bet. Where can we take you?" "To Albany. We got to get the mail there too," the pilot informed them and the brothers glanced at each other. Her Highness would certainly carry the three of them and some freight, but whether she was capable of such a load was another matter. "The mail must get through," the pilot repeated. "We'll try it," Jim responded. "One of you fellows might stay here," the pilot suggested. "That won't be necessary," Jim said quickly. Taking the mail to Albany would be a task, but coming back to find the one left behind would be an all night's job. Anyway, Her Highness had never been pressed into service for such an emergency and he was determined to leave nothing behind if that could be avoided. The mail man was already dragging bags from the pile. Luckily none of them were very bulky and the three set to work to fit them into the freight compartment. That full, what was left was stored in the extra passenger seat. "I'll sit back there," Bob offered. "I'm smallest." "All right," Jim agreed. He was rather glad the younger boy had made the suggestion. Caldwell had piloted Her Highness through her latest hazard and must be fagged. "Pile in." He took a moment to inspect the strip he would follow in the take-off, then leaped to his own seat. The third air-man was beside him. "I'm much obliged to you lads for what you did for me tonight," he said. "You don't know what a relief it was to see you tearing to help me. Had an idea that your backs were turned in my direction and didn't hope that you had seen me." "I was watching you as we went along. We were about a mile over, so of course we came back," Jim replied casually. "Glad we were able to get to you in time." Further conversation was impossible, for the boy opened the throttle and Her Highness roared. The engine ran smoothly, the machine started, but it seemed to Jim as if she would never lift. He could see the pines leaping toward them, then up went her nose and she was off the ground, soared laboriously and dangerously close to the trees, then began to climb. That part accomplished, Austin was relieved, and he concentrated on the long grill ahead of him. He wished that he had discussed the course with this man who must know every inch of air along his route, but the whole affair had taken but a short time. The excitement had driven a great many things from his mind, so now he began to calculate his course, tracing it on the map. In coming up from Texas the boys had stopped off to see the capital city and its twin across the river. He could depend upon the pilot to direct him to the proper field, so coming down would be all right. The unaccustomed load made Her Highness' management quite different from ordinary occasions when she had carried only an extra passenger, but the mail had to go through, regardless of men and machines, and the youthful part-owner of the plane was proud of her performance now, but he hoped hard that they would meet nothing on the way which would add to their difficulties. He thought of the Fentons. They were early birds and probably in bed long ago, but Bob's aunt was a nervous woman and she might not sleep soundly because of their absence. They could let her know from Albany what was delaying them, but that might only add to her anxiety. Well, they had to make the best of it and it was rather an honor to be entrusted with U. S. mail. He tried to imagine what the bags contained. Probably a great many of the letters were highly important. People would not be sending their communications by the swiftest way if the matters were not urgent. On, on, and on they soared through the night. The clock on the dial said twelve thirty. It seemed much longer than that since they had left their jolly hosts in Canada. Once the mail pilot touched his arm, then raising his hand as if he were an orchestra leader, he motioned to go higher, Jim nodded that he understood, so began to climb. They were fifteen thousand feet when he got the signal to level off. Then he pointed to the speaking tube, and the pilot nodded that he would use it if he had anything to say. One o'clock came, and one-thirty. They had been going over an hour. Probably the mail was late, for Jim was sure the regular plane was a fast bus. Her Highness could do high speed too, but not with such a load. It was nearly two o'clock when the pilot picked up the tube and gave directions. Later he pointed. "There's the field." It was brilliantly lighted and the boy could see figures moving about the drome. As he glided down he noticed men looking at him curiously. He decided that they expected the mail plane and were surprised at his arrival. When he came to a stop a chap ran to the fuselage. "Seen anything of Mason--the--" "Right here, Old Timer," Mason said quickly. "Thank the Lord. We got word that a blazing plane was sighted, and we've been on pins and needles ever since. A couple of Canadians are out trying to locate you." "I'm O. K., and so is the mail, thanks to these youngsters." Mason prepared to hop out, and he turned to Jim. "You didn't tell me your name. I'm Phil Mason." "Mine's Jim Austin, and my step-brother is Bob Caldwell. We've been visiting relatives in Vermont," Jim explained. By that time Bob was out of his seat and a couple of men were removing the bags. "Glad to know you lads. You want to bunk here the rest of the night--" "Thanks, no, but I should appreciate a supply of gas. I'm not sure I have enough to make the trip back," Jim answered. "Gas, of course, you can have all you want. Here you--" He shouted directions, and a mechanic came on the run. The task of re-fueling was accomplished with efficiency, but the boys had to shake hands with a lot of relieved pilots who were grateful that one of their number was not lying wrecked and helpless miles away. Finally they permitted the buddies to go, and this time Bob was beside his brother. "Want me to pilot, old man?" he offered. "Did you get any sleep back there?" Jim demanded. "No, I watched the duplicate controls. Thought you might need help." "Then you sit beside me and take a nap now. If I get so my eyes won't stay open. I'll wake you up and let you do the work," Jim promised. "So long, Buddies," Mason shouted, just as the throttle was opened. Bob waved his hand, and Jim nodded. Taking off on the drome was simple, and in a moment Her Highness, no longer loaded to the hilt, leaped into the air. "Great old girl," Jim exclaimed proudly, and the plane responded eagerly. The course was set, and while they went, roaring back toward the northern part of Vermont, Bob's head nodded and finally dropped forward as sleep overtook him. Jim grinned affectionately at the young fellow and made up his mind that he wouldn't disturb that rest if he could possibly help it. The trip home was uneventful but Jim did have to blink hard several times to keep his eyes open. However, he managed it, but the first streaks of dawn were softening the sky before the Fenton Cove met his tired vision. With a whistle of relief that at last it was over, he glided down toward the carriage house, and as the plane shot forward, he heard the house door open quickly. "Is that you, boys?" Mrs. Fenton's tone was distressed. Then Bob woke up, blinked, and stared. "Thunder and Mars, why didn't you let me do part of it?" he demanded. "We're all right," Jim shouted to Aunt Belle, and added to his step-brother, "I'll let you have the honor of putting her ladyship up if you like." "You'd better," Bob growled. "Next time I won't go to sleep. You go in and hop to bed. I'll explain to Aunt Belle." That arrangement was entirely satisfactory to Jim, and in five minutes he was in their room, in ten minutes he was stretched out in his pajamas and sound asleep. It was noon when he opened his eyes. Bob was on the second cot and was just turning over. "Hello, Old Timer." "Hello yourself. What day is it?" "Same one. Say, Jim did you notice the lake when we got home?" "Didn't notice a blooming thing. Is the house afloat?" "Not yet. It rained some more. Woke me up about nine o'clock. I'd thought of going over today and have a talk with Hezzy, but I changed my mind," Bob announced. "Wise lad." "You never did cotton up to Hezzy did you?" "Not so you could notice it." "Well, I've been doing some thinking. Seems kind of queer to me that he should have sneaked under those trees yesterday when we were going over. I've been wondering what he was doing on that side of the property. If it was all right, what the heck did he dodge us for?" "Ask me another," Jim yawned. "Did your Aunt think we had flown to the bottom of the lake?" "She sure did, but luckily she didn't miss us until she got up. Our door was open and she saw the beds--then she got scared for fair and came flying down stairs. About that time we came rolling in. I am glad she didn't have any more time to fret." "Same here." Just then they heard Mrs. Fenton come tip-toeing up the stairs and they both closed their eyes tight, then began to snore melodiously. Anyone could tell that it was a pretense. "I was just coming to see if you boys aren't ready to have something to eat. You must be starved," she exclaimed. "We are," they wailed. "Well, dinner's all ready. You get into your bath-robes and come right down. No one will mind and I guess you deserve some privileges. Someone called up this morning to know if you got home all right, and I guess you did more than Bob told me." She looked reproachfully at her nephew and shook her finger. "Now, hustle up--I've got huckleberry pie--" They were out of bed before the words were fairly uttered, so she hurried back to her duties and the two boys were close at her heels, donning bath robes as they came. They did take time to have a good cold splash, and glance at the lake, which had risen two feet higher. Mr. and Mrs. Fenton tried to look cheerful and to joke during the meal, but it was not a success, for the menacing water creeping steadily toward them had already seeped into the cellar, and on the road in front of the house the boys could see automobiles, trucks, hay wagons, and even a team of oxen hitched to a great cart, plugging slowly forward. The vehicles were every one of them piled high with household effects and the people of the island whose homes were already below the danger line, were looking for a safe place to settle until Champlain should recede within bounds. The meal over, the two boys went to the veranda at the back. There was something terrible about the whole situation, and they wondered dully what could be done about it. Just waiting was nerve racking. For a minute they watched the water, which was muddy as it thrashed in the rising wind, and beyond the cove they could see branches, whole trees, rails of fences, boxes, and all sorts of wreckage tossed on the waves. "Let's get out of sight of it," Bob proposed, so they went to the front of the house, but the view there was no less depressing. An old man trudged through the water driving his cow, and right behind him, seated on a queer old carriage was his wife driving a horse that lifted his hoofs wearily and wheezed with every step. At that moment an automobile drove to the door, and a huge man, with a booming voice, stuck his head out of the window. "Can I get something to eat here?" "Come right in," Mrs. Fenton answered. The man climbed out clumsily, and right behind him came a smaller man who had been completely concealed by his companion. "This is a blasted neck of the woods," the big fellow bellowed. "Let's sit over here," Bob suggested. He didn't think the newcomer added anything attractive to the prevailing discomfort. The fellow talked and cussed the weather, but the small man didn't utter a word. It wasn't until they were eating that he ventured to speak. "I told you, Burnam, this was a fool's errand," he declared. The big man brought his fist down on the table so hard that the china jumped. "Don't I know you did. Well, I'm telling you that they are hiding somewhere around here, understand, and I'm going to find them. You can get on the train and go to blazes if you like, see!" The words and the tone made the boys jump, then Jim gripped Bob's arm. "Shhhhsss." He pointed to the end of the veranda. Bob looked and was surprised to see Corso standing like a statue close to the step. He looked as if something had struck him paralyzed, but he recovered himself in a second, leaped nimbly to the veranda, stepped with amazing swiftness to the window and cautiously peeped in. It was just one brief glance he got of the room and the tourists, but it seemed to be enough. He jumped lightly as a cat to the ground, crouched, then disappeared around the corner of the house. "What do you know about that," Bob exclaimed, then added quickly, "Don't tell me to ask you another. Let's go up and get our clothes on." X DANGER!! "I say, Jim, that was a queer thing for Corso to do!" The two were putting the finishing touches on their toilet. From the dining room came the voice of the man called Burnam, who seemed to do considerable talking while he ate, but if his companion spoke again, his words were inaudible. "Yes. Listen, Buddy, I think Corso knows that lad down there." "Maybe he does," Bob agreed, but that hadn't occurred to him. "Maybe we can help those two. Come on down, and if the bounders show a disposition to pump us, let's give them an earful." "Great guns, we don't want to tell him they are here--" "Of course not, you nut. We'll see what they lead up to. You follow my lead. Come along." They raced down stairs quietly and into the dining room. Mrs. Fenton had finished serving the travelers and had gone to the cellar where she was rescuing preserves. "Good car you have," Jim remarked, and Burnam glanced at him. "Pretty good," he admitted. "Know anything about cars?" "Enough to run a flivver," Jim answered modestly. Burnam sized them up as a pair of country hicks and smiled broadly. "Interesting neighborhood around here," he ventured. "Oh, fair," Jim drawled. "Not many strangers," Burnam went on. "A sprinklin', but nobody wants them," Jim volunteered. "Exclusive community. What do you do with strangers?" "Leave 'em alone. There's a colony further up. Summer people, most from cities, come every year." "Same ones all the time?" "Sure. Fellow who owns the land won't let 'em bring outsiders," the boy explained taking a chair. "Enjoy your dinner?" "Fine. Ever have any southern people--" "Few," Jim admitted. "Chap I know and his nephew came around here for the fishing. He liked the place. Perhaps you know him." "How long has he been coming?" Jim asked. "I understand last fall was the first time, come to think of it." "Nobody was here last fall," Jim declared positively. "What sort of chap is he, about your size?" "No, very slender fellow, dark skin and eyes, rather good looking." Jim looked at Bob. "Maybe it's those ginks," he said scornfully. "Sounds like them," Bob admitted. "Where they stopping?" Burnam asked, eagerly. "They ain't," Jim grinned, then added, "They tried this neighborhood for a week, then went on into Canada. The station agent said their luggage was shipped to Toronto." "You don't say." The big man seemed disappointed and the little one smiled behind his napkin. "Chap like that wouldn't stay in so small a place," he remarked. "No, I suppose not. Well, can I pay you--" "Pay my brother," Jim answered, and strolled out of the house. In the soft earth he had no difficulty in trailing Corso's foot prints and a few minutes later saw the man and the boy crouched in the garden where they were completely hidden from the road. "Hello," he said softly. "I told those fellows that you two went to Toronto. Know where that is?" "I do," Corso answered. "I let them ask me questions, then told them you stayed here a week. They are so disgusted with the place I don't think they'll hang around, but you better keep out of sight. I'm going to escort them off the island, but they don't know that." "Much in your debt we are, Sir," Corso said quietly. "We shall not forget, Sir." His eyes turned toward the road. "Bad men, Sir. Very, very bad men." "They don't look any too good," Jim admitted. "You stay here until one of us comes and tells you they are gone." Jim strode quickly back toward the house and as he crossed the road he saw Burnam getting into the limousine. "Get a move on, Dyke," he growled, and the smaller chap hastily took his place. Motioning to his step-brother to keep quiet, Jim stepped behind the huge maple, and when the car hacked into the road, he hopped onto the spare tires, caught the strap and threw his legs over, ducking his head so that if the men should either of them glance through the window, he would not be seem. The car raced off carrying the stow-a-way. "I told you those lads were in this part of the country," Burnam said shrilly when they had gone some distance from Stumble Inn. "I know just how to handle natives, and I got exactly the information we want." "Yes, but how the blazes do you expect to pick up the trail in Canada?" Dyke demanded in a lower tone. "It'll be easier than in the United States," the big fellow replied, and after that he seemed to concentrate his whole attention on driving, for the road was rough from the rains and the boy in the back was soon splashed thickly with mud. Presently they came to the bridge which connected North Hero with Isle La Motte. Jim could see that the water had risen until it was splashing through the planking, and dozens of men were working hard to keep it from being washed away. They were bringing the biggest rocks they could haul and were distributing them in piles from one end to the other. Young Austin hoped anxiously that none of the workmen would call Burnam's attention to the extra passenger he was carrying, but they passed over quickly, and if anyone noticed the boy, nothing was done about it. They probably thought him a hiker tired of walking and unable to get a lift on his way. The car sped on to the station, but it was deserted, and Jim was mighty thankful that no agent was there to answer inquiries regarding the travelers who were supposed to have gone on to Toronto. Half a mile ahead the machine had to slow up for a sharp curve, so feeling confident that the pair were really headed for Canada, the boy dropped off and started to trudge home. A good-natured farmer gave him a lift, and at last he saw Bob anxiously scanning the road. "Gosh all hemlock, I was going into the air to look for you. Say, come on, quick." He led the way to the water's edge, and far across the thrashing lake Jim saw a tiny boat, with an outboard motor on the stern, chugging valiantly against the waves and making for Fisher's Island. "Who is it?" Jim demanded. "Corso and the boy. I saw them a few minutes after they left the shore. They have a load of stuff aboard as if they intend to hide over there," Bob explained. "Gee, I wonder if it's safe!" Jim said anxiously. "I asked Uncle Norman and he said the greater part of the land is under water now, but there are high spots that may serve them. Let's keep an eye on the place, Jim. I think that pair is all right, and gosh, I'd hate like fury to have them carried away in this. Just look at it." Jim didn't need to look any more than he had for as far as he could see, the wreckage, large and small, was being tossed and dashed to splinters. "So should I. We'll keep watch, then if it looks bad we'll go after them in Her Highness. I say, did you happen to notice the number of that limousine? I, like a dub, forgot to look at it." "I wrote it down," Bob answered proudly, and he produced the figures. "Good work. I'm going to call up Ruhel and tell him to be on the look-out for that pair. They're no good and the Mounties will keep them under observation." He hurried into the house, called long distance, and in five minutes was telling the story to the chief, who listened with interest. "Thanks no end, Old Man. I take it you'd like us to let them roam around here for a while and give your friends a chance." "That's the idea." "We'll keep them hunting. It will do them good. Oh, by the way, I say, what time did you lads breeze in to your house this morning--" "Don't ask personal questions," Jim retorted. "I don't have to, I know. Mason came in this afternoon and told the story. You knights had some night. I hope they pin something on you--" "Probably they will. We ought to have a lemon. Well, thanks for listening." "Same to you." The connection was cut off, and Jim joined his step-brother on the veranda. "Listen, Buddy, that watch dog Uncle Norman bought, died this morning, and now the other one is sick. What do you know about that?" "Rotten. Wonder if there was anything the matter with them when they arrived, or if some one over there didn't want watch dogs?" "Hezzy?" "That's the lad I'm going to keep an eye on. Gosh." He jumped to his feet and started to walk toward the garden. "For a quiet little place, we surely have found no end of excitement since we landed." "It hasn't been exactly dull," Bob admitted. They went on in silence and at last they reached the edge of the alfalfa meadow. The stones the strange boy had been working with a few days before were neatly arranged in a low wall, and the land above was terraced as if by someone skilled in the art. The whole section which the Fenton's had called the bog had been plowed, smoothed on a slight incline toward the lake, which left the garden side lower than that land, and this also was built up with a cleverly set curb of stones. There were three small outlets which acted as drains, and in spite of the heavy rains the land was comparatively dry. "Well, anyway, your uncle has got this work to be thankful for. It sure looks like a grand piece of land. Perhaps he can plant it with something that he can harvest this season. Must be odd to be in a place where the summers are as short as they are here. I'd like to see it in the fall. It must be quite a sight." "I'd like to see it in the winter. Mom says the lake freezes over, and the people who live near cut ice, and they can cross to New York, or any place they want to go. They drive, have races and skate," Bob volunteered. "We can't stay to see all that," Jim said regretfully. "The parents wouldn't stand for it." "No, I know it." "Supper," Mr. Fenton called, and the boys made their way back to the house. They were very thoughtful as they took their places, and the food was eaten in silence. "Any more turkey's stolen, Uncle Norman?" "Some were taken last night," the man answered. Just then the telephone rang and Aunt Belle answered. "The Norman's are going to stay here all night," she said quietly. "Their house is flooded above the kitchen." That evening Stumble Inn was filled to the brim with neighbors. Belated supper was served to refugees who straggled in, and the two boys turned to and helped. They carried down cots, made beds, washed dishes, turned horses into the pasture, and drove cattle into the meadow. It was late at night when they were repairing a place in the fence to be sure that the nervous stock did not break through and get away. When the job was finished, they made their way back to the house, and all along the road they could see tents pitched, or families gathered about their cars or wagons prepared to sleep out of doors. The protection they had was frail and if another storm should come up suddenly half their worldly goods would be swept into Champlain. In spite of their dilemma the Vermonters were facing their troubles quietly and without a whimper. Although there were as many as fifty people within earshot, hardly a sound could be heard. Then a child, whose sleeping quarters was under the big maple, cried in fright. The mother tried to hush it, but the little fellow's terror did not diminish. Without an instant's hesitation, Bob leaned over the wagon. "Don't be afraid, little fellow. You come on in and sleep--" "There isn't any room in your aunt's house, Bob," the woman answered. "She would have taken us if she could." "Come along anyway," Bob insisted. He picked the boy up in his arms, while Jim offered to help the woman. "I'll be all right here," she answered, "if you can find a place for the children." A little girl raised her head. "Come on, Old Man," Bob urged. The boy came to him willingly, and the girl reached her arms out to Jim. Together the two went to the house. The living-room door was wide open, and there were beds spread out on the chairs as well as the floor. "I put some more beds in your room, boys," Aunt Belle said softly. "Anyone in our cots?" Bob asked. "No," she answered. "We'll put the babies on them, Aunt Belle. You don't mind, do you?" "Of course not, Bob, but where will you sleep?" "Oh, in one of the hammocks--" "You can't, my dear, they are all full." "We'll find a place. Aunt Belle, maybe you'd better come along. We don't know much about little fellows." They started to climb the stairs and his aunt followed. It did not take long for the little codgers to be tucked in comfortably, and in a moment they were both asleep. It seemed to the boys as if the very air was charged with impending danger as they went down stairs again. Some of the Vermont men and women were sitting around on newspapers on the lawn. They spoke softly, partly because of their friends trying to rest, and partly because they were making a brave effort to face the disaster courageously. "Heard that no more trains can get through," one man remarked. "Ed Allen's prize sheep ran into the lake and were carried away," said another. "Something frightened them." "The lower end of Canada is in a bad way. The border men asked for all the milk they could get, even if it's sour." "Expect we better do some sort of organizing and see what we have," another proposed. "Let's talk it over with Fenton." The boys moved on and sat down against the shed. "Say Jim, know what this makes me think of, these people I mean?" "Makes me think of so much, I'm getting brain-storm," Jim answered, but his tone was sober. "The history we read--these Vermonters. Those Allen boys. Did you know the two towns, North Hero and South Hero are given those names because of the brothers, and a lot of their original tract of land is still in the families' possession?" "I heard your mother say so. They were a great gang." "Sure were. Well, I was thinking how these people, some of them members of those old families, still stand shoulder to shoulder. Of course most folks are pretty decent when neighbors are in trouble, but here they are also quiet and sure of each other. No wonder they are considered a fine lot. A couple of hundred years ago just a handful of them bucked against the hardships and won out. Now, Uncle Norman and Aunt Belle are facing ruin maybe, but they are right with their neighbors, ready to share everything they have as long as they have it--you see what I mean--it's a great spirit, I think." "So do I. I say, let's see if we can find a couple of blankets and sleep out here," Jim proposed. "Suits me," Bob agreed. They had no trouble finding bedding and soon they were ready to turn in. Before they did, they stood staring off across the black water of Lake Champlain. "I say, isn't that a light over there on Fisher's?" "Was just watching it. Perhaps it's Corso's fire. Gosh, that means they're all right and I'm glad of that." They watched the tiny streak of red that burned cheerily in the darkness, but finally they stretched out and were soon asleep. XI THE CRY FOR HELP Neither of the boys slept soundly that night. Their dreams were troubled by a conglomeration of their experiences since their arrival at North Hero, the weird boom of the waves as Champlain rose steadily, and a confusion of people going by in search of places of safety. Several times men stopped to inquire for lodgings or routes, and it seemed as if a dozen dogs howled gloomily. But above it all, toward morning, there was one sound that came to their subconscious minds and they stirred fitfully as if trying to shake off a nightmare. Then suddenly they awoke and sat up. It was still dark, that pitch darkness that is so thick just before the first streaks of dawn brush the sky. "I say, Buddy, did you hear anyone call?" Jim whispered. "I was just going to ask you the same question," Bob answered. "I thought I heard a cry for help." They sat listening tensely, straining their ears to distinguish the call that had broken into their sleep, but could make out nothing more than the sighing of the wind through the bowing trees and the noises they had been hearing before. Jim started to slip into his shoes and Bob followed his example. "Let's get some clothes on, I can't sleep any more, can you?" "No. Gosh, Jim, this is spooky." They slipped their trousers and sweaters on over their pajamas, without stopping to don shirts. In two minutes they were dressed and made their way carefully to the rim of the water. "We'd better have a flashlight or we'll be stepping into it." "I've got the little one in my pocket." Jim took it out and pressed the button. Its faint tray cast a round glow, not very bright, but sufficient to show them where to step. Austin led the way while Bob followed close at his heels and finally they stopped on the edge of a cliff and stood listening tensely. For what seemed like an hour, although it was less than a minute, the world was oddly hushed, as if it too were listening, then, clear and unmistakable from north of them, somewhere on the lake, came a terrified cry and a shout for help. "Let's get Her Highness. Somebody's out there," Bob whispered, and as fast as they could they ran to the carriage shed, where the plane was bumping the top of her wings on the high roof of the ceiling. In order to get inside the boys climbed through the window on the opposite end, and even then had to wade ankle deep in water. They lost no time in getting ready, just enough to be sure that all was well and there was plenty of gas in the tanks. "All O. K.," Jim announced taking the pilot's seat. "Right with you. I say, Old Man, we never can hear anything with the engine going, and we can't see much through this pitch." "I know it, and we don't dare stay on the water or we are likely to get a tree in the works, but we've got to take a chance. That voice sounded as if it's a little north, didn't you think so?" "Yes, and sort of far away--muffled." They floated out into the cove, all lights on, and Jim gasped as he saw that the wind had changed during the night and the water on that side was dangerously full of wreckage. He set his lips grimly, opened the throttle, raced out over great rollers that teetered them even more than the day they returned from Burlington in the storm. Her Highness lost no time in lifting herself above the danger and soared up two hundred feet as her nose was brought about and her course was set north by north west. Anxiously Bob leaned over as far as his safety-strap would permit and scanned the blackness beneath them hoping to catch sight of something which would account for what they were seeking. Jim sent the plane in wide circles in order to give Bob a chance to see as far as possible, and although their lights helped some, they seemed to make the rest of the night even darker. For ten minutes they rode in a fruitless search, each time coming around a little further north. "Jim, things I can make out are being carried fast toward the south. Perhaps we're too far up," Bob said through the tube, and Jim nodded. He changed the procedure, while the younger boy watched. Five minutes more they circled, then Jim decided to climb. He tipped Her Highness' nose at a sharp angle and zoomed two thousand feet just as fast as she could scramble through the air, then he shut off the motor and let her glide. The lake beneath them seemed a regular bedlam of sound, and as they drifted forward at as gradual a descent as possible, they finally picked up a frantic call. "It's over there," Jim exclaimed and his buddy agreed. The plane was so low now that they dared glide no longer, so Jim set the engine going full blast as they made for the place. "There's a light." Bob clutched his arm and pointed. Whoever had cried out evidently had some dry matches or a cigarette lighter and was trying to help them locate him. In a moment they were riding in close circles, and then they made out what looked like the roof of a portable summer house. They couldn't tell what was on top of it, but by that time the morning light began to break slowly. "What the heck can we do?" "Tie the lariats together," Jim directed. That was but the work of a moment, then Bob put a weight on one end of it and threw it over. "If he can grab it, we can give him a tow." Jim nodded, so Bob leaned over again. "Come a little lower." Her Highness obeyed, and with the help of the speaking tube, they at last managed to get the plane in proper position, and almost instantly there was a tug as the rope was caught. It was evident that since they had come to him the stranded man had been using his head, for he managed to keep from being dragged off the roof, and even made the end of the lariat fast to a rod that stuck out near the metal chimney. "She's coming," Bob shouted--"Go easy or she'll be banged to bits." Sturdily Her Highness taxied forward just as low as she could. Bob kept his eyes on the house they were towing, and several times he caught his breath sharply as a particularly heavy plank, a broken tree, or a drowned animal came thumping into it. As it got lighter, the boy was amazed to see that the roof held more than just the man, who had flung himself on his face, his body sprawled out flat as he kept a woman and a tiny baby from being jarred off. "Oh, great guns," Bob whistled. "Throw off the line," Jim directed. They were in the cove now, and already Mr. Fenton and several men were on the shore, while two strong young fellows were in the row boats, prepared to shove out and help. The waves battered them all angrily, but Her Highness had to soar up out of the way, and after a few minutes in the air where she waggled her wings gaily over her victory, she was brought down again, and the Flying Buddies hurried to learn about the man and his family. "Are they all right, Aunt Belle?" Bob called as they went into the kitchen. "Yes. Here, you hold the little fellow a minute, while I stir this." She promptly dumped the baby into her nephew's arms, and Jim grinned at his brother's discomfort. "Will it break, Mrs. Fenton?" "Break--" She looked at Bob and laughed, "No, certainly not, if it can come alive through such a night. They were driven to the roof hours ago because the floors of those cottages are fastened to the ground and can't get away--" "I don't know how I can ever thank you fellows--" said the rescued man as he came into the kitchen. "Aw, please don't try. We thought we heard you call, so we went to see what it was all about," Jim said quickly, but he had to take the hand that was extended to him. "If I had been alone I wouldn't have howled, but with my wife and baby I had to do anything I could. We were asleep, and it seemed as if an earth-quake gave us a broadside and we were full of water. We just managed to get some blankets to keep the baby warm, and climb through the window. We were on the veranda roof first, but that wasn't very secure, so we got on the main part. It was good we moved, for the other sections were battered off--" "My land sakes alive--how awful. Here now, you take this in to your wife and tell her to drink every bit of it like a good girl, and just as soon as I get some more dry things on the baby, she can have him back. He is a cunning little fellow--" Bob was no end relieved that his services as a nurse were no longer required. "Buster," he chuckled as he handed the baby to his aunt. "My land sakes alive. How did you boys happen to get that man and his folks? I never saw the like--never. I thought you were asleep by the barn, and then, all of a sudden, some one said you were out down the lake and you were coming in slow like. Fent got the glasses and saw those folks--my land sakes alive, I never saw the like of it. How did you happen to be out there?" "We couldn't sleep, and we thought we heard someone call, so we went out. Reckon we better get dressed, we haven't got much on," he added, because several people were trooping into the kitchen and he didn't want to be the center of an admiration meeting. "Come down as soon as you're ready and have breakfast. You must be most starved both of you." There is nothing like an early morning rescue party to sharpen the appetite, so the boys did not take long to get ready. Jim went down first and just as he came into the living room, the telephone, which was a party line, gave a long persistent ring. "That's forever ringing," Mrs. Fenton called to him. "Will you answer it? I can't put down the baby for a minute." "Glad to." Jim took down the receiver and heard the operator. "Please do not try to use your telephone until further notice, unless the call is _very_ important. The lines are congested. The Selectmen have given orders that no one is to try to cross the bridges--either at the north or south end of North Hero Island. Please tell people on the road they cannot go any further." The girl repeated the same thing three times to be sure that everybody got it, then there came a click as she closed the connection. Austin gave the message to Mrs. Fenton, who sighed heavily. "My land sakes alive--there, there, you are almost ready, little fellow. This is a nice baby! Now you can go to your mother." She hustled the infant to his parents and then hustled back to serve her hungry household. During the meal two serious-faced men came to the house. "We heard that your nephews dragged in a family that might have been drowned, Fent," one of them started. "Yes they did," Mr. Fenton admitted and introduced the boys to the men, who shook hands gravely. "I've heard that there are some families stranded on the islands, and it may be that some of the summer colonies have suffered just as that family you brought in. We were wondering if you will help us get any others, if there are any. We have several good strong power boats, but we would waste a great deal of time trying to locate people and might not find them all." "If you will fly around and watch for signal fires or flags, then we could send the boats directly and take them off," the other added. "Of course we'll be mighty glad to help," Bob declared promptly. "Thank you. Another thing, there may be some who haven't had much to eat for a couple of days, not being able to use their boats. Could you drop food to them?" "Sure thing," Jim replied. "We'll take some weights along because we don't usually carry anything like that. We just happened to have one this morning or we might not have been able to give that fellow a tow." "Thank you. We'll arrange to have boats and rafts at four points of the island. If you find anyone, give the word to the nearest party. I'll show you about where they are." He took a map from his pocket and pointed to four places that would be used for stations. "You can come down on the water to speak to the men we'll have there?" "Yes, we'll manage." "That will be good. We appreciate your help." Then he turned to Mrs. Fenton. "My wife and some of the neighbors in the village are packing boxes of food, sandwiches, coffee and milk. We'll send a truck--it ought to be here in a quarter of an hour--and the boys can take it with them and use their own judgment about dropping it." "I can fix them some--" "Judging by the number of people you have taken in I think that you are doing your share, Mrs. Fenton. We won't ask you to do any more," the man replied. "Now, I'll telephone to the boatmen--" "They just told us not to use the phone," Jim explained. "They will give me a connection," the man smiled. In a minute he was giving information, directions and instructions, and finally the rescue work was well organized. By the time the boys were ready to take off, the truck appeared with boxes of food, and the chauffeur helped them store it in the plane. "We're lucky to have you fellows here," the man said, when finally the task was accomplished. "We're in luck to be here," Bob grinned. "My mother always said that I'd like this place, and I do." "Come along." Jim waved to the men, opened the throttle and Her Highness tore across the cove, rose and started on her errand of mercy. She seemed to appreciate the importance of the work before her, and never did an airplane behave more beautifully. They went circling north on the lake and were about to turn when Bob shouted through the tube. "There's a raft load, look at it!" Jim glanced in the direction his step-brother pointed and saw the crude raft being whirled like a top and it was a marvel that the thing held together. The boys saw two boys, young fellows, some household effects, and a little girl. Austin glanced at the map, picked out the nearest station, and they raced to it, coming down where the water happened to be fairly smooth. "There's a raft out there," Bob shouted. Instantly the engine of the power boat gave a bellow almost as furious as the plane's, and off the party scooted, cutting through the waves and sending a rolling sheet of foam on either side of them. Her Highness raced back to be sure the rescuers did not miss their goal, and in a few minutes the first job was being done well. "Not a bad stunt," Bob grinned and then the Flying Buddies started to work again. They discovered families huddled on tiny bits of land that had been cut off by the water, others on great rocks and a number on floating buildings that threatened to fall to pieces any minute. Each time they led the way for the power-boats and had the satisfaction of knowing that all were saved. About noon the four power-boats were out, besides several smaller motor-boats and the boys spied two more families stranded helplessly, so they decided to drop food. "I'll tell them the men will come for them," Bob announced. He proceeded to write the message in the box and dropped it over. In that particular group they counted ten people, so they dropped more boxes. Then on they circled. The men of the party waved their thanks and an hour later, Her Highness returned, escorting the boats. The work went on for hours until finally one of the men at a station shouted, "Mrs. Fenton says that you fellows must come and eat." "We'll stay a while longer--" "No, you mustn't. You show us this bunch, then go home and tank up. It's the Selectmen's orders and you have to obey." "All right," Jim agreed, then he looked at the dial. It was half past one and he could hardly believe his eyes. So the orders were obeyed, and Her Highness too had to be tanked up for her gas supply was dangerously low. In the afternoon the boys went up again, and although they circled miles they discovered only two more people who needed rescuing, then Bob, who was piloting, had an idea. "I say, Buddy, I'm going to hop down on Fisher's Island and find Corso." "We saw them earlier and they were all right," answered Jim. "I know, but they might not be by morning. Let's just make sure." "Suits me," Jim acquiesced. Her Highness was brought about and was soon circling over Fisher's Island, which was more than half submerged, but it did not look as if anyone on it would be in any immediate danger. Soon Bob picked out a landing spot on an open space where the ground was high and fairly smooth. Presently the plane was on the ground, and the boys began to look about. It did not take them long to locate the foreign man, who came to meet them. "Burnam left?" he questioned anxiously. "He surely did. Went on to Canada, and he can't get back because both bridges are closed until the flood goes down," Jim explained. "It is good that he is gone, but we cannot get away," Corso said, and he scowled thoughtfully. "It may not be many days before he discovers that you tricked him, then he will come back. He is very determined." "I guess it must be pretty bad with you if you feel that way," Bob put in quickly. He couldn't help wondering why the man was afraid. "It is much bad, Sirs." "Tell you what, we'll take you across to New York. Will that help?" Jim offered cordially. "It would be much help. Come." He led the way through a strip of woods and around a boulder, where the man stopped, gave a low whistle, waited for a response, then they went on and in a minute they came to a well sheltered spot where the trees grew high and thick and the cliff formed a semi-circle protection with an overhanging top. "Whew," whistled Bob in astonishment. Back from the opening stood the mysterious boy, straight as a die, but instead of overalls and brown shirt, he wore a long white garment of some very fine material, and over that was a richly embroidered coat, brilliant with peacock-feather trimming. On his head was a deep fringe arrangement and at his feet a strong box. The lid was open and its contents made the brothers think of some Arabian Night treasure. "You signaled, my uncle!" He spoke in perfect English, and the man answered, briefly in their own tongue, whatever that was. "It is well," the boy nodded. Then he turned toward Jim and about his lips was a faint smile. "It was considered best that I do not permit it to be known that I understand your language." "Holy Hoofs, and we were being little helpfuls trying to teach you," Jim exploded. "You have been most generous to us, also the Fentons." "Well, we're glad to have been," Bob replied a bit weakly. "My uncle knows men and I too recognize those who are trustworthy, even though I am only twelve years old--" "Only twelve. Why, you are as tall as I am." "Today I am twelve. Because of your great kindness I shall impart to you a little about the reason I am here, if you are interested--" "I say, we've been busting to know ever since we first saw you, but you needn't tell us a thing unless you want to," Jim assured him. "You need bust no longer." Across the boy's face a smile flashed. "Let us be seated. We shall be free from interruption." He spoke as if he were some great personage giving an audience, but there was something about his whole bearing that made the step-brothers have perfect faith in him. They seated themselves on the ground close to him, while his uncle stood on guard. "Maybe you better close this," Bob suggested. "We didn't see anyone else on the island, but you never can tell. Is that what Burnam's after?" "Burnam is after much more than this," replied the boy, and he dropped the lid, shutting the contents from sight. "I was born in a far land. Its name I shall keep. Five hundred years ago my people were great rulers of a happy nation. It was ruthlessly invaded, conquered, and great works wantonly destroyed. A few of my fathers escaped destruction, they tried to get back their land but their efforts were fruitless. Later, they united secretly and hid their vast treasure which the conqueror could never find. They kept together generation after generation, although few outsiders are aware that any of the pure blood are alive." The boy paused, but his audience made no comment. "In my conquered land there is a beautiful statue to one of my blood who fought successfully and helped free the nation from the devastator's yoke." A gleam of pride shone in the boy's eyes. "Did they get it back?" Bob whispered. "No, but they got rid of the--the yoke. In the generations the number of men of my race has grown. It is now like a vast army, secretly governed by wise men. Many are scattered in different countries, learning the best of the white men's way of living, keeping the best of their own knowledge of life. There are still parts of my country that are unsettled, and one day we shall unite there. We shall be versed in the greatest sciences, and never again can we be conquered or put to rout by ignorance or brute force--we shall be the conquerors, and we shall rid ourselves of the waste races as your uncle rids the garden of rank worthless weeds that would choke and smother the good about them." There was no malice in the boy's tone, no bravado in his manner, he spoke impersonally and without bitterness. His eyes shone with a fine intelligence, he made his statements quietly, and once his eyes wandered to the horizon as if they beheld that future. "Accurate records are being kept by every generation and brought together. I have been taught the ancient arts of my fathers, I have worked with the soil as my fathers did, and now that I am twelve years old, I am ready to study the sciences, the languages, higher mathematics--the classics." He broke off a moment, then went on. "I may not live to see the establishment of my race, it may not come for hundreds of years, but it will come when we are fully prepared to take the reins and hold them firmly." His eyes rested first on Bob, then Jim. "Whether it is years hence, or centuries, because of what you have done for one of our princes, the men of your tribe, James Austin, and of yours, Bob Caldwell, will be spared, even though they be inferior, they will be given a chance. I have spoken, and my uncle has written it into the records." "Gosh," Bob gasped. "If they aren't any good, don't bother with them." His face flushed suddenly, he didn't know why, but he felt that weeds of all kinds should be destroyed. "Now, before you take us to New York, I will give you each a token. Give it to your son, and your son's son, and on, for one day it will find its way back to my land." He opened the box, drew out two large green stones. They were oblong in shape, some marks had been worked into them, and into a groove in one side was a tiny many-colored tube of exquisite enameling. The boy pressed an invisible spring and the tube opened revealing a slip of parchment covered closely with fine writing. "I say--" Jim started to protest, but the boy paid no attention to him. "Keep these always, they are fine emeralds. Here are smaller pieces." He picked up two rings. "Wear these and wherever you are seen by any of my people you will be helped and protected." He handed the jewels to his amazed companions, then went on, "Mr. Fenton has been losing his turkeys. Watch the man who is taking care of them, watch him closely." "Thundering rattlers, is he the thief?" "He is a naturally dishonest man. Watch him closely and you will learn what happened to the turkeys." "Thanks a lot, old man--gee, Uncle Norman will be no end obliged to you, and gosh, he is already, for that bog you drained is still dry--" "It will remain dry--" the boy assured him. "Maybe we'd better be starting," Jim suggested, "that is, if you are in a hurry to get to New York." "We shall be glad to hurry." "I say," Jim put in, "You know, maybe I'm a nut, but if you people, I mean you and your uncle, would kind of act like ordinary people, not wear anything that looks a bit different, or act as if you are trying to keep out of sight, you wouldn't attract attention--nobody would pay any attention to you at all, except maybe in a little place like North Hero, where everybody knows everybody else," he finished hurriedly. The boy sat thoughtfully for a moment, then he smiled and held out his hand. "Thank you, it is excellent advice." "When you are by yourselves you can act naturally, I mean as you do anyway, but you look as if you are different, you seem to know more--" "Thank you, we will do that, and I hope we meet again, Jim Austin and Bob Caldwell." "If you come to Texas, look us up. This is where we live." He gave the boy a card, with the address scrawled on the back. "We will get ready," Corso interrupted. "Well, I say, where does this Burnam come in?" Jim asked. "He was employed to do some task for one of our people and he suspected that somewhere great wealth must be stored. He saw me once in my father's house. When his work was done, he was paid and dismissed, and taken away, so that he could not find the place again, but he came upon my uncle and myself on your western coast. He believes that I know the secret and tried twice to kidnap me, but he has failed each time, and he will fail again, for it is written in the forecasts that I shall live to a great age and that my enemies shall perish. One day you found a box, it held knotted strings. Long before writing, or signs, tribes made their records by that method, I know the language of the knots in the colored strings." "Why, I've read of that, learned it in school, old language," Bob exclaimed with enthusiasm. XII DETECTIVES "I say, what a pair of nuts we are. We don't know that boy's name." Jim, who was in the passenger seat beside his step-brother, made the announcement with disgust. Bob made a grimace. "We do take first prize. Do you think that pair are batty?" "Not as batty as some of the rest of us," Jim declared emphatically. "That's what I think. I say, let's not do any talking about them. You know, sometimes a little thing starts things and evidently this Burnam bird isn't letting any grass grow under his feet." "That's a first-rate idea." They had just left Corso and his nephew in one of the small towns in the northern part of New York state, and the couple had taken a train south. Now the boys were about ready to return to North Hero. "I'm telling the cock-eyed world that we are landing on the turkey farm and somebody's going to talk turkey. It won't be us," Bob declared. "Atta boy. You know, Buddy, we agreed with what that boy said just because we've been suspicious of Hezzy all along, but we couldn't convince your uncle nor any of the Selectmen on anything as thin as that. We've got to get something on the fellow; something no one will be able to think isn't real proof." "That's right," Bob acknowledged. "It's getting kind of late. Suppose we drop down there. If Hezzy's around we can get the lay of things, and maybe find evidence enough so Uncle Norman can act on it. We'll have to be mighty careful, or Burley will be suspicious." "We might say we need a little gas, that our tanks are empty," Jim suggested. "And ask about the dog, if he's getting over that sickness." "Yes, that's the idea. I've been wondering--if Hezzy is getting away with the turkeys, he wouldn't want a good watch dog around. I've got a kind of hunch we'd better be ready to act with a snap." "Suits me. Let her go." Bob opened the throttle and presently they were in the air, each thinking soberly of what might be before them. As Jim recalled the weird experiences of the afternoon and the interview with the foreign boy, it all seemed mighty unreal, but he had to admit that the emerald ring on his middle finger was not a dream, and the jewel in his shirt pocket pressed against his chest was substantial enough. The air was heavy with clouds that hung low, and the boy knew that another storm was brewing. He hoped it wouldn't be a bad one, for the Vermonters had already suffered terrific loss because of the late rains and the flooding lake which was sweeping everything before it. Looking down he could see the thrashing waves, and the whimsical idea came to him that the lake was determined to go somewhere. "A river has more fun," he grinned to himself. Bob's mind was fully occupied with his job of piloting, but it did not take long to cross Champlain. It was dark enough now so that homes were being lighted up. The bright window squares began to look like jewels suspended on a rapidly darkening background. In a little while night would be upon them. As they approached Isle La Motte they were riding five thousand feet up, and suddenly Jim noticed two other planes flash through the clouds from the north. He wondered if it was their friend the mail pilot, but the hour was not right, and besides there would not be two. He touched Bob on the arm, and pointed. "There's a couple of planes." Bob picked them out a moment later, then both boys sat tense and astonished as they noticed that the flying machines were circling above the eastern side of the turkey farm. Through breaks in the mist the boys saw that the machines were both large ones, big enough to carry considerable freight or several passengers. Why they should be maneuvering through the clouds above Isle La Motte was puzzling, so Bob, as he watched them, guided Her Highness in a wide circle a thousand feet higher. He was confident their presence would not be observed or heard as long as the other engines were racing. Keeping the planes within their range of vision was difficult, and several times they lost sight of them, but succeeded in picking them up again. Jim had his eyes fast to the glasses, and suddenly he made out a man standing upright on one of the wings. A second man jumped out of the cock-pit and joined the first, then a third and a fourth got on to the other side of the fuselage. It took an instant for the boy to guess what they were going to do, then he shouted. "They are going to jump!" "Over the lake." "The farm. I'm going after them." As soon as the words were out of his mouth he was busy with the safety straps, and as he unbuckled himself he noticed their lariats coiled about the hooks. Instinctively, but with no idea for what he might use them, the young ranch boy reached for the long plaited leather ropes. It was natural to have them in his hands, and he hopped out of the cock-pit. "I'll land over there and join you as fast as I can," Bob bellowed, and although Jim could understand only one or two of the words, he guessed the rest and nodded. He glanced down again and by that time counted five figures dropping through the clouds, but instead of white silk parachutes blossoming out above them, the huge umbrellas were some dark color which was soon lost in the haze. Without waiting any longer, Jim hopped over, while Bob maneuvered to keep out of his way, then the pilot turned about and started for the nearest shore of the lake. While dropping through the air toward the Fenton turkey farm, Jim's brain was working like a trip hammer. His parachute was white and therefore conspicuous. He did not want to land before the other jumpers nor did he want to be too near them. As soon as he was clear of Her Highness, he pulled the cord, and calling to his mind a detailed picture of the property, he guided himself far enough to the north so that he would be over the forest. He hoped that the others would be too occupied in their own arrival to do much looking around. The parachute floated him gently, and by spilling air carefully, he managed to keep from, being carried from the course he wanted to follow. Sometimes the mist was so thick that he couldn't see a thing in any direction, and then he would be drifting through breaks light enough so that he could keep his bearings. His drop was a thousand feet more than the men he was interested in, and each one of them, he noticed, let himself go more than half of the distance before pulling the cords which opened the "chutes." "Wow, there are more," the boy exclaimed and he counted ten tumblers. "What in heck are they up to?" He couldn't answer the question and he didn't try, but concentrated all his attention in observing as much as possible. The first man landed on the smooth space which was familiar to Jim, and he saw someone coming to meet the new arrival. The chap looked amazingly like Hezzy, and the boy whistled. He saw the fellow free himself from his trappings, then the pair scooted out of sight. By the time Jim was nearly ready to land, he had seen the ten drop out of the fog, and each one scooted away as quickly as possible. The boy glanced beneath and saw he was coming to what looked like a grove of young maples or willows, and he smiled with satisfaction. They were not very tall and promised him a safe landing. In a moment more it was made, then he too ducked out of the straps as fast as his fingers could unbuckle them. Expertly he folded the "umbrella" and hung it where he could find it again, then made his way stealthily toward the clearing. The fog was rolling from the east but did not seem inclined to settle, and that helped him a lot. At the edge of the woods, his lariat in hand, he stood trying to pick out the spot on which the men had landed. At last he discovered it, and he made another discovery. Just a few feet below where he was standing was the edge of a long, narrow fine-wire enclosed pen, such as were made for young turkeys on the other side of the farm. "The mystery begins to clear," he muttered softly. Stepping carefully so he would start not the slightest commotion he made the way toward the pen, and then he saw there was a shelter over a large section. The place was built of old boards and seemed to have been made to appear as inconspicuous as possible. Listening tensely, Jim was sure that he could hear the queer noise young turkeys make, but he didn't dare to scrutinize more closely. He was determined to find where Hezzy and the ten men were located. It occurred to him that they might be already making their way to the old farm house, which was certainly big enough to accommodate them all without crowding, but at the same time he had a hunch that an investigation of his immediate surroundings would be more to the point for the present. Before going any further Jim listened for the planes, but not an engine roared in the skies. He thought that the two had proceeded away from the place as soon as their passengers discharged themselves and the boy wondered if these men landing on Isle La Motte had anything to do with the gang which Allen Ruhel and Bradshaw had raided. The officers had said that a few got away, but of course they could not know how many. These might be left-overs who had been compelled to keep in hiding until they arranged for a safe get-away from Canada. The more he thought, the more suppositions flashed through his brain. Suddenly he heard a muffled step, as if made by a man walking cautiously in rubber boots and the boy dodged quickly behind the biggest tree, then dropped to his stomach and made a tiny opening in the underbrush so he could look through. For a breathless minute he waited, then into his range of vision came two men, one wearing an all-over aviation suit. "One of the ten," Jim grinned to himself, "and friend Hezzy." They were coming toward the pen, and the poultry man's face was black with scowls. "I got them here all right," he muttered, "But how can I get them away? Where in blazes is Pedro?" "Now, keep your shirt on, can't you? You've got the birds, nobody knows a thing about them, and we'll get them away as fast as we can. I don't know where Pedro is, I told you, but I think he's in the States here somewhere. One of the boys discovered that the Mounties, blast them, are hanging around the ravine. We can't go in it, but we do know that some of the gang went off with the Canuck. He's probably helping to keep them under cover. You look after your end here--" "Well, I've been looking after my end, but blast it all, how can I keep the gang--ten new ones, under cover? The islands are half of them under water. Know what that means?" "Sure, they won't be bothering you," the air-man answered promptly. "That's where you ain't got a grain of sense. There's probably a hundred people got their homes washed from under them. Everybody will be making room for them--and there isn't a house in Isle La Motte will take care of so many. The Fenton's will offer it--if they haven't already fixed to fill it up," Hezzy growled furiously. "Whew, that's so, but they ain't likely to bring 'em across tonight, that's sure. They can't use the bridges even to walk on, and no North Hero man will bring a boat across until the lake isn't so rough, that's a cinch. You sit tight and keep a watch so you can slip 'em out if anyone shows up. This'll be a grand place to stay tonight, and in the morning some of the planes will be back, then we can make a get-away, part of us, before daylight. What do you want to do over here?" "See that the water pans are filled," Hezzy replied sullenly. "All right, go to it, I'll cross to the house and catch up with the other fellows. Don't hang around too long--" "I gotta see they're all right for the night or they'll be dying on me," Hezzy insisted. The pair separated, and Jim watched the strange man strike off through the dusk, while the poultry man made his way further along the turkey pen. "Now," whispered Jim. He jumped to his feet as nimbly and quietly as a cat, and tip-toed after the air-man. Half a dozen plans bobbed into the boy's mind, but none seemed feasible. If he could only capture the pair while they were separated he might accomplish something, but how, was the question. He hesitated a moment as he thought of going back and fastening Hezzy in the temporary turkey house, but that didn't seem good because he was sure the man could break his way out. By that time the stranger was almost across the clearing, and then the boy made a decision. Swiftly he ran, being careful to make no noise, and as he drew closer the lariats in his hand were being looped into shape. It was only the work of a moment to coil one, then taking a quick jump forward, the boy cast the loop. It swished low along the ground straight to its goal, rose over the fellow's foot as he made a step, then jumping behind a small tree, the boy jerked it taut and the chap went down on his face with a hard thump. "Hope he landed on a rock," Jim muttered as he hauled it expertly. It was evident that the fellow had knocked the wind out of himself in his fall, for he did not struggle, and in a second Jim was standing over him, trussing him tightly like a chicken. "He--grr--" Austin's handkerchief was stuffed into his mouth just in time to prevent further explosives. "Grr, yourself," Jim grinned pleasantly. At last assured that the fellow was helpless, the boy rolled him to a tree, and fastened him to that so he could not get away. "Now, ta-ta," he said softly, and taking a last glance at the knots, he hurried back toward the pen where he hoped to capture the unsuspecting Hezzy. He wished he had another rope, but he hadn't, so he picked up a good stout stick and a couple of rocks. Thus armed, he ran at top speed, then he stopped suddenly and gasped. He saw Hezzy was not alone. There was another chap with him, and the other chap was putting up a rattling good fight, although Burley was bound to be the victor. Down the pair went and Jim recognized that pair of arms and legs. It was Bob. In a moment he would be out. "Howling pole cats," Jim yelled. Hezzy glanced over his shoulder toward the new attacker, but the stick came down on his head with a sickening thud and he stretched out beside his would be victim. "Little Jimmy, my brother. Let me kiss you--" "I'll knock your block off. How did you happen to get into the scrap?" "Was coming valiantly to save you from destruction when I stumbled on this pen." The boy got to his feet, then sat down on his enemy. "Started to do a bit of rubbering when our esteemed friend arrived. He was very rude, in fact be promised to send me to hell, I believe he called the place." "Thoughtful of him. Well, I've got the big boss, I think, tied up back there with our ropes. Better let me have your belt so we can arrange Hezzy as safely." Belts and neckties were used to secure the man's hands and feet, and into his mouth was stuffed a gag to keep him from getting boisterous, then the step-brothers took a minute to discuss the situation. "Tell you what," Jim proposed finally. "You go back for Her Highness, and land her down here. I'll strike a match so that you can drop close, then we'll give these boys a ride to North Hero. The Selectmen can lodge them in jail away from all danger, and somebody else can come later and collect the gang in the house." "Guess that's the brightest plan, Buddy," Bob agreed, and he set off to get the plane. Half an hour later they dropped down in the cove, and as one of the Selectmen was at the Fenton's, he heard the charge, and arrested the pair without further ceremony. "My land sakes alive, Bob, why, it just don't seem possible Hezzy--" "Well, we have the goods on him, Aunt Belle, and let me tell you something. There are hundreds of turkeys in that pen over there, guess your loss won't be so bad after all. Gosh, I'm glad--" "Well--er--gosh, Bob, I am too--now then, there goes the telephone. You answer it, I'm so excited I can't talk straight." Bob went, and after listening a moment he repeated. "Yes, now, is this right? You have a telegram from Texas, that five thousand dollars has been deposited in the Burlington bank for Mrs. Fenton because my mother, that is, Mrs. Austin, read of the flood and thought her sister could use it. Right?" A pause, "Thanks!" The boys hung up and turned to his aunt who was leaning helplessly against the door frame. "Get that, Aunt Belle!" She gave a little choking sob, and big tears ran down her cheeks. "Yes, Bob--I did--that's just like your mother--she wouldn't even take the--time to find out if we needed it--b-but just sent it so we could have it--" "Of course," Jim laughed. "That's just like her, I know. She's bully." "My land--why my land, you haven't had a bite of supper, you must be starved." Then she flew about to get it ready and Bob turned on the radio. "Weather report. Fair and warm, tonight and tomorrow," he announced. "Good news," Mr. Fenton remarked as he came into the room. "We've got so much good news," his wife beamed. But before the boys got a chance to eat the meal, the Selectmen came, three of them, and asked to be taken across to Isle La Motte. They wanted to round up the men in the old house before they could get away, so Jim took them over. There wasn't even a fight, and it didn't take the officers long to learn that the ten were men who had come across the border without authority, and they were hand-cuffed, placed under guard, and held for deportation. "We're much obliged, young man," one of the Selectmen smiled at the boy and held out his hand. "You've done a lot for all of us and we hope that you will stay with us as long as you can." "Oh, thank you. If you don't need me any more, I'll fly back or Bob won't leave me a smell of supper." "Fly away. I think by morning the bridges will be safe so we can use them, but if they are not, and you'll pay us a visit here, I'll be further in your debt--yours and the plane's." It didn't take long for Jim to get home, and he found that there was still plenty to eat. When he had "tanked up" comfortably, he glanced at the green emerald ring on his finger, then at his brother. "Say, Buddy, suppose we'll ever be lucky enough to meet that kid again?" "I have a big hunch we will," Bob declared with satisfaction. 
29407	----	[Frontispiece: From the girl's revolver leaped forth a sudden spurt of smoke and flame.] THE VALLEY OF SILENT MEN A STORY OF THE THREE RIVER COUNTRY BY JAMES OLIVER CURWOOD AUTHOR OF "THE RIVER'S END," ETC. THE VALLEY OF SILENT MEN Before the railroad's thin lines of steel bit their way up through the wilderness, Athabasca Landing was the picturesque threshold over which one must step who would enter into the mystery and adventure of the great white North. It is still _Iskwatam_--the "door" which opens to the lower reaches of the Athabasca, the Slave, and the Mackenzie. It is somewhat difficult to find on the map, yet it is there, because its history is written in more than a hundred and forty years of romance and tragedy and adventure in the lives of men, and is not easily forgotten. Over the old trail it was about a hundred and fifty miles north of Edmonton. The railroad has brought it nearer to that base of civilization, but beyond it the wilderness still howls as it has howled for a thousand years, and the waters of a continent flow north and into the Arctic Ocean. It is possible that the beautiful dream of the real-estate dealers may come true, for the most avid of all the sportsmen of the earth, the money-hunters, have come up on the bumpy railroad that sometimes lights its sleeping cars with lanterns, and with them have come typewriters, and stenographers, and the art of printing advertisements, and the Golden Rule of those who sell handfuls of earth to hopeful purchasers thousands of miles away--"Do others as they would do you." And with it, too, has come the legitimate business of barter and trade, with eyes on all that treasure of the North which lies between the Grand Rapids of the Athabasca and the edge of the polar sea. But still more beautiful than the dream of fortunes quickly made is the deep-forest superstition that the spirits of the wilderness dead move onward as steam and steel advance, and if this is so, the ghosts of a thousand Pierres and Jacquelines have risen uneasily from their graves at Athabasca Landing, hunting a new quiet farther north. For it was Pierre and Jacqueline, Henri and Marie, Jacques and his Jeanne, whose brown hands for a hundred and forty years opened and closed this door. And those hands still master a savage world for two thousand miles north of that threshold of Athabasca Landing. South of it a wheezy engine drags up the freight that came not so many months ago by boat. It is over this threshold that the dark eyes of Pierre and Jacqueline, Henri and Marie, Jacques and his Jeanne, look into the blue and the gray and the sometimes watery ones of a destroying civilization. And there it is that the shriek of a mad locomotive mingles with their age-old river chants; the smut of coal drifts over their forests; the phonograph screeches its reply to _le violon_; and Pierre and Henri and Jacques no longer find themselves the kings of the earth when they come in from far countries with their precious cargoes of furs. And they no longer swagger and tell loud-voiced adventure, or sing their wild river songs in the same old abandon, for there are streets at Athabasca Landing now, and hotels, and schools, and rules and regulations of a kind new and terrifying to the bold of the old _voyageurs_. It seems only yesterday that the railroad was not there, and a great world of wilderness lay between the Landing and the upper rim of civilization. And when word first came that a steam thing was eating its way up foot by foot through forest and swamp and impassable muskeg, that word passed up and down the water-ways for two thousand miles, a colossal joke, a stupendous bit of drollery, the funniest thing that Pierre and Henri and Jacques had heard in all their lives. And when Jacques wanted to impress upon Pierre his utter disbelief of a thing, he would say: "It will happen, m'sieu, when the steam thing comes to the Landing, when cow-beasts eat with the moose, and when our bread is found for us in yonder swamps!" And the steam thing came, and cows grazed where moose had fed, and bread WAS gathered close to the edge of the great swamps. Thus did civilization break into Athabasca Landing. Northward from the Landing, for two thousand miles, reached the domain of the rivermen. And the Landing, with its two hundred and twenty-seven souls before the railroad came, was the wilderness clearing-house which sat at the beginning of things. To it came from the south all the freight which must go into the north; on its flat river front were built the great scows which carried this freight to the end of the earth. It was from the Landing that the greatest of all river brigades set forth upon their long adventures, and it was back to the Landing, perhaps a year or more later, that still smaller scows and huge canoes brought as the price of exchange their cargoes of furs. Thus for nearly a century and a half the larger craft, with their great sweeps and their wild-throated crews, had gone _down_ the river toward the Arctic Ocean, and the smaller craft, with their still wilder crews, had come _up_ the river toward civilization. The River, as the Landing speaks of it, is the Athabasca, with its headwaters away off in the British Columbian mountains, where Baptiste and McLeod, explorers of old, gave up their lives to find where the cradle of it lay. And it sweeps past the Landing, a slow and mighty giant, unswervingly on its way to the northern sea. With it the river brigades set forth. For Pierre and Henri and Jacques it is going from one end to the other of the earth. The Athabasca ends and is replaced by the Slave, and the Slave empties into Great Slave Lake, and from the narrow tip of that Lake the Mackenzie carries on for more than a thousand miles to the sea. In this distance of the long water trail one sees and hears many things. It is life. It is adventure. It is mystery and romance and hazard. Its tales are so many that books could not hold them. In the faces of men and women they are written. They lie buried in graves so old that the forest trees grow over them. Epics of tragedy, of love, of the fight to live! And as one goes farther north, and still farther, just so do the stories of things that have happened change. For the world is changing, the sun is changing, and the breeds of men are changing. At the Landing in July there are seventeen hours of sunlight; at Fort Chippewyan there are eighteen; at Fort Resolution, Fort Simpson, and Fort Providence there are nineteen; at the Great Bear twenty-one, and at Fort McPherson, close to the polar sea, from twenty-two to twenty-three. And in December there are also these hours of darkness. With light and darkness men change, women change, and life changes. And Pierre and Henri and Jacques meet them all, but always THEY are the same, chanting the old songs, enshrining the old loves, dreaming the same dreams, and worshiping always the same gods. They meet a thousand perils with eyes that glisten with the love of adventure. The thunder of rapids and the howlings of storm do not frighten them. Death has no fear for them. They grapple with it, wrestle joyously with it, and are glorious when they win. Their blood is red and strong. Their hearts are big. Their souls chant themselves up to the skies. Yet they are simple as children, and when they are afraid, it is of things which children fear. For in those hearts of theirs is superstition--and also, perhaps, royal blood. For princes and the sons of princes and the noblest aristocracy of France were the first of the gentlemen adventurers who came with ruffles on their sleeves and rapiers at their sides to seek furs worth many times their weight in gold two hundred and fifty years ago, and of these ancient forebears Pierre and Henri and Jacques, with their Maries and Jeannes and Jacquelines, are the living voices of today. And these voices tell many stories. Sometimes they whisper them, as the wind would whisper, for there are stories weird and strange that must be spoken softly. They darken no printed pages. The trees listen to them beside red camp-fires at night. Lovers tell them in the glad sunshine of day. Some of them are chanted in song. Some of them come down through the generations, epics of the wilderness, remembered from father to son. And each year there are the new things to pass from mouth to mouth, from cabin to cabin, from the lower reaches of the Mackenzie to the far end of the world at Athabasca Landing. For the three rivers are always makers of romance, of tragedy, of adventure. The story will never be forgotten of how Follette and Ladouceur swam their mad race through the Death Chute for love of the girl who waited at the other end, or of how Campbell O'Doone, the red-headed giant at Fort Resolution, fought the whole of a great brigade in his effort to run away with a scow captain's daughter. And the brigade loved O'Doone, though it beat him, for these men of the strong north love courage and daring. The epic of the lost scow--how there were men who saw it disappear from under their very eyes, floating upward and afterward riding swiftly away in the skies--is told and retold by strong-faced men, deep in whose eyes are the smoldering flames of an undying superstition, and these same men thrill as they tell over again the strange and unbelievable story of Hartshope, the aristocratic Englishman who set off into the North in all the glory of monocle and unprecedented luggage, and how he joined in a tribal war, became a chief of the Dog Ribs, and married a dark-eyed, sleek-haired, little Indian beauty, who is now the mother of his children. But deepest and most thrilling of all the stories they tell are the stories of the long arm of the Law--that arm which reaches for two thousand miles from Athabasca Landing to the polar sea, the arm Of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police. And of these it is the story of Jim Kent we are going to tell, of Jim Kent and of Marette, that wonderful little goddess of the Valley of Silent Men, in whose veins there must have run the blood of fighting men--and of ancient queens. A story of the days before the railroad came. CHAPTER I In the mind of James Grenfell Kent, sergeant in the Royal Northwest Mounted Police, there remained no shadow of a doubt. He knew that he was dying. He had implicit faith in Cardigan, his surgeon friend, and Cardigan had told him that what was left of his life would be measured out in hours--perhaps in minutes or seconds. It was an unusual case. There was one chance in fifty that he might live two or three days, but there was no chance at all that he would live more than three. The end might come with any breath he drew into his lungs. That was the pathological history of the thing, as far as medical and surgical science knew of cases similar to his own. Personally, Kent did not feel like a dying man. His vision and his brain were clear. He felt no pain, and only at infrequent intervals was his temperature above normal. His voice was particularly calm and natural. At first he had smiled incredulously when Cardigan broke the news. That the bullet which a drunken half-breed had sent into his chest two weeks before had nicked the arch of the aorta, thus forming an aneurism, was a statement by Cardigan which did not sound especially wicked or convincing to him. "Aorta" and "aneurism" held about as much significance for him as his perichondrium or the process of his stylomastoid. But Kent possessed an unswerving passion to grip at facts in detail, a characteristic that had largely helped him to earn the reputation of being the best man-hunter in all the northland service. So he had insisted, and his surgeon friend had explained. The aorta, he found, was the main blood-vessel arching over and leading from the heart, and in nicking it the bullet had so weakened its outer wall that it bulged out in the form of a sack, just as the inner tube of an automobile tire bulges through the outer casing when there is a blowout. "And when that sack gives way inside you," Cardigan had explained, "you'll go like that!" He snapped a forefinger and thumb to drive the fact home. After that it was merely a matter of common sense to believe, and now, sure that he was about to die. Kent had acted. He was acting in the full health of his mind and in extreme cognizance of the paralyzing shock he was contributing as a final legacy to the world at large, or at least to that part of it which knew him or was interested. The tragedy of the thing did not oppress him. A thousand times in his life he had discovered that humor and tragedy were very closely related, and that there were times when only the breadth of a hair separated the two. Many times he had seen a laugh change suddenly to tears, and tears to laughter. The tableau, as it presented itself about his bedside now, amused him. Its humor was grim, but even in these last hours of his life he appreciated it. He had always more or less regarded life as a joke--a very serious joke, but a joke for all that--a whimsical and trickful sort of thing played by the Great Arbiter on humanity at large; and this last count in his own life, as it was solemnly and tragically ticking itself off, was the greatest joke of all. The amazed faces that stared at him, their passing moments of disbelief, their repressed but at times visible betrayals of horror, the steadiness of their eyes, the tenseness of their lips--all added to what he might have called, at another time, the dramatic artistry of his last great adventure. That he was dying did not chill him, or make him afraid, or put a tremble into his voice. The contemplation of throwing off the mere habit of breathing had never at any stage of his thirty-six years of life appalled him. Those years, because he had spent a sufficient number of them in the raw places of the earth, had given him a philosophy and viewpoint of his own, both of which he kept unto himself without effort to impress them on other people. He believed that life itself was the cheapest thing on the face of all the earth. All other things had their limitations. There was so much water and so much land, so many mountains and so many plains, so many square feet to live on and so many square feet to be buried in. All things could be measured, and stood up, and catalogued--except life itself. "Given time," he would say, "a single pair of humans can populate all creation." Therefore, being the cheapest of all things, it was true philosophy that life should be the easiest of all things to give up when the necessity came. Which is only another way of emphasizing that Kent was not, and never had been, afraid to die. But it does not say that he treasured life a whit less than the man in another room, who, a day or so before, had fought like a lunatic before going under an anesthetic for the amputation of a bad finger. No man had loved life more than he. No man had lived nearer it. It had been a passion with him. Full of dreams, and always with anticipations ahead, no matter how far short realizations fell, he was an optimist, a lover of the sun and the moon and the stars, a worshiper of the forests and of the mountains, a man who loved his life, and who had fought for it, and yet who was ready--at the last--to yield it up without a whimper when the fates asked for it. Bolstered up against his pillows, he did not look the part of the fiend he was confessing himself to be to the people about him. Sickness had not emaciated him. The bronze of his lean, clean-cut face had faded a little, but the tanning of wind and sun and campfire was still there. His blue eyes were perhaps dulled somewhat by the nearness of death. One would not have judged him to be thirty-six, even though over one temple there was a streak of gray in his blond hair--a heritage from his mother, who was dead. Looking at him, as his lips quietly and calmly confessed himself beyond the pale of men's sympathy or forgiveness, one would have said that his crime was impossible. Through his window, as he sat bolstered up in his cot, Kent could see the slow-moving shimmer of the great Athabasca River as it moved on its way toward the Arctic Ocean. The sun was shining, and he saw the cool, thick masses of the spruce and cedar forests beyond, the rising undulations of wilderness ridges and hills, and through that open window he caught the sweet scents that came with a soft wind from out of the forests he had loved for so many years. "They've been my best friends," he had said to Cardigan, "and when this nice little thing you're promising happens to me, old man, I want to go with my eyes on them." So his cot was close to the window. Nearest to him sat Cardigan. In his face, more than in any of the others, was disbelief. Kedsty, Inspector of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police, in charge of N Division during an indefinite leave of absence of the superintendent, was paler even than the girl whose nervous fingers were swiftly putting upon paper every word that was spoken by those in the room. O'Connor, staff-sergeant, was like one struck dumb. The little, smooth-faced Catholic missioner whose presence as a witness Kent had requested, sat with his thin fingers tightly interlaced, silently placing this among all the other strange tragedies that the wilderness had given up to him. They had all been Kent's friends, his intimate friends, with the exception of the girl, whom Inspector Kedsty had borrowed for the occasion. With the little missioner he had spent many an evening, exchanging in mutual confidence the strange and mysterious happenings of the deep forests, and of the great north beyond the forests. O'Connor's friendship was a friendship bred of the brotherhood of the trails. It was Kent and O'Connor who had brought down the two Eskimo murderers from the mouth of the Mackenzie, and the adventure had taken them fourteen months. Kent loved O'Connor, with his red face, his red hair, and his big heart, and to him the most tragic part of it all was that he was breaking this friendship now. But it was Inspector Kedsty, commanding N Division, the biggest and wildest division in all the Northland, that roused in Kent an unusual emotion, even as he waited for that explosion just over his heart which the surgeon had told him might occur at any moment. On his death-bed his mind still worked analytically. And Kedsty, since the moment he had entered the room, had puzzled Kent. The commander of N Division was an unusual man. He was sixty, with iron-gray hair, cold, almost colorless eyes in which one would search long for a gleam of either mercy or fear, and a nerve that Kent had never seen even slightly disturbed. It took such a man, an iron man, to run N Division according to law, for N Division covered an area of six hundred and twenty thousand square miles of wildest North America, extending more than two thousand miles north of the 70th parallel of latitude, with its farthest limit three and one-half degrees within the Arctic Circle. To police this area meant upholding the law in a country fourteen times the size of the state of Ohio. And Kedsty was the man who had performed this duty as only one other man had ever succeeded in doing it. Yet Kedsty, of the five about Kent, was most disturbed. His face was ash-gray. A number of times Kent had detected a broken note in his voice. He had seen his hands grip at the arms of the chair he sat in until the cords stood out on them as if about to burst. He had never seen Kedsty sweat until now. Twice the Inspector had wiped his forehead with a handkerchief. He was no longer _Minisak_--"The Rock"--a name given to him by the Crees. The armor that no shaft had ever penetrated seemed to have dropped from him. He had ceased to be Kedsty, the most dreaded inquisitor in the service. He was nervous, and Kent could see that he was fighting to repossess himself. "Of course you know what this means to the Service," he said in a hard, low voice. "It means--" "Disgrace," nodded Kent. "I know. It means a black spot on the otherwise bright escutcheon of N Division. But it can't be helped. I killed John Barkley. The man you've got in the guard-house, condemned to be hanged by the neck until he is dead, is innocent. I understand. It won't be nice for the Service to let it be known that a sergeant in His Majesty's Royal Mounted is an ordinary murderer, but--" "Not an _ordinary_ murderer," interrupted Kedsty. "As you have described it, the crime was deliberate--horrible and inexcusable to its last detail. You were not moved by a sudden passion. You tortured your victim. It is inconceivable!" "And yet true," said Kent. He was looking at the stenographer's slim fingers as they put down his words and Kedsty's. A bit of sunshine touched her bowed head, and he observed the red lights in her hair. His eyes swept to O'Connor, and in that moment the commander of N Division bent over him, so close that his face almost touched Kent's, and he whispered, in a voice so low that no one of the other four could hear, "_Kent--you lie_!" "No, it is true," replied Kent. Kedsty drew back, again wiping the moisture from his forehead. "I killed Barkley, and I killed him as I planned that he should die," Kent went on. "It was my desire that he should suffer. The one thing which I shall not tell you is _why_ I killed him. But it was a sufficient reason." He saw the shuddering tremor that swept through the shoulders of the girl who was putting down the condemning notes. "And you refuse to confess your motive?" "Absolutely--except that he had wronged me in a way that deserved death." "And you make this confession knowing that you are about to die?" The flicker of a smile passed over Kent's lips. He looked at O'Connor and for an instant saw in O'Connor's eyes a flash of their old comradeship. "Yes. Dr. Cardigan has told me. Otherwise I should have let the man in the guard-house hang. It's simply that this accursed bullet has spoiled my luck--and saved him!" Kedsty spoke to the girl. For half an hour she read her notes, and after that Kent wrote his name on the last page. Then Kedsty rose from his chair. "We have finished, gentlemen," he said. They trailed out, the girl hurrying through the door first in her desire to free herself of an ordeal that had strained every nerve in her body. The commander of N Division was last to go. Cardigan hesitated, as if to remain, but Kedsty motioned him on. It was Kedsty who closed the door, and as he closed it he looked back, and for a flash Kent met his eyes squarely. In that moment he received an impression which he had not caught while the Inspector was in the room. It was like an electrical shock in its unexpectedness, and Kedsty must have seen the effect of it in his face, for he moved back quickly and closed the door. In that instant Kent had seen in Kedsty's eyes and face a look that was not only of horror, but what in the face and eyes of another man he would have sworn was fear. It was a gruesome moment in which to smile, but Kent smiled. The shock was over. By the rules of the Criminal Code he knew that Kedsty even now was instructing Staff-Sergeant O'Connor to detail an officer to guard his door. The fact that he was ready to pop off at any moment would make no difference in the regulations of the law. And Kedsty was a stickler for the law as it was written. Through the closed door he heard voices indistinctly. Then there were footsteps, dying away. He could hear the heavy thump, thump of O'Connor's big feet. O'Connor had always walked like that, even on the trail. Softly then the door reopened, and Father Layonne, the little missioner, came in. Kent knew that this would be so, for Father Layonne knew neither code nor creed that did not reach all the hearts of the wilderness. He came back, and sat down close to Kent, and took one of his hands and held it closely in both of his own. They were not the soft, smooth hands of the priestly hierarchy, but were hard with the callosity of toil, yet gentle with the gentleness of a great sympathy. He had loved Kent yesterday, when Kent had stood clean in the eyes of both God and men, and he still loved him today, when his soul was stained with a thing that must be washed away with his own life. "I'm sorry, lad," he said. "I'm sorry." Something rose up in Kent's throat that was not the blood he had been wiping away since morning. His fingers returned the pressure of the little missioner's hands. Then he pointed out through the window to the panorama of shimmering river and green forests. "It is hard to say good-by to all that, Father," he said. "But, if you don't mind, I'd rather not talk about it. I'm not afraid of it. And why be unhappy because one has only a little while to live? Looking back over your life, does it seem so very long ago that you were a boy, a small boy?" "The time has gone swiftly, very swiftly." "It seems only yesterday--or so?" "Yes, only yesterday--or so." Kent's face lit up with the whimsical smile that long ago had reached the little missioner's heart. "Well, that's the way I'm looking at it, Father. There is only a yesterday, a today, and a tomorrow in the longest of our lives. Looking back from seventy years isn't much different from looking back from thirty-six _when_ you're looking back and not ahead. Do you think what I have just said will free Sandy McTrigger?" "There is no doubt. Your statements have been accepted as a death-bed confession." The little missioner, instead of Kent, was betraying a bit of nervousness. "There are matters, my son--some few matters--which you will want attended to. Shall we not talk about them?" "You mean--" "Your people, first. I remember that once you told me there was no one. But surely there is some one somewhere." Kent shook his head. "There is no one now. For ten years those forests out there have been father, mother, and home to me." "But there must be personal affairs, affairs which you would like to entrust, perhaps, to me?" Kent's face brightened, and for an instant a flash of humor leaped into his eyes. "It is funny," he chuckled. "Since you remind me of it, Father, it is quite in form to make my will. I've bought a few little pieces of land here. Now that the railroad has almost reached us from Edmonton, they've jumped up from the seven or eight hundred dollars I gave for them to about ten thousand. I want you to sell the lots and use the money in your work. Put as much of it on the Indians as you can. They've always been good brothers to me. And I wouldn't waste much time in getting my signature on some sort of paper to that effect." Father Layonne's eyes shone softly. "God will bless you for that, Jimmy," he said, using the intimate name by which he had known him. "And I think He is going to pardon you for something else, if you have the courage to ask Him." "I am pardoned," replied Kent, looking out through the window. "I feel it. I know it, Father." In his soul the little missioner was praying. He knew that Kent's religion was not his religion, and he did not press the service which he would otherwise have rendered. After a moment he rose to his feet, and it was the old Kent who looked up into his face, the clean-faced, gray-eyed, unafraid Kent, smiling in the old way. "I have one big favor to ask of you, Father," he said. "If I've got a day to live, I don't want every one forcing the fact on me that I'm dying. If I've any friends left, I want them to come in and see me, and talk, and crack jokes. I want to smoke my pipe. I'll appreciate a box of cigars if you'll send 'em up. Cardigan can't object now. Will you arrange these things for me? They'll listen to you--and please shove my cot a little nearer the window before you go." Father Layonne performed the service in silence. Then at last the yearning overcame him to have the soul speak out, that his God might be more merciful, and he said: "My boy, you are sorry? You repent that you killed John Barkley?" "No, I'm not sorry. It had to be done. And please don't forget the cigars, will you, Father?" "No, I won't forget," said the little missioner, and turned away. As the door opened and closed behind him, the flash of humor leaped into Kent's eyes again, and he chuckled even as he wiped another of the telltale stains of blood from his lips. He had played the game. And the funny part about it was that no one in all the world would ever know, except himself--and perhaps one other. CHAPTER II Outside Kent's window was Spring, the glorious Spring of the Northland, and in spite of the death-grip that was tightening in his chest he drank it in deeply and leaned over so that his eyes traveled over wide spaces of the world that had been his only a short time before. It occurred to him that he had suggested this knoll that overlooked both settlement and river as the site for the building which Dr. Cardigan called his hospital. It was a structure rough and unadorned, unpainted, and sweetly smelling with the aroma of the spruce trees from the heart of which its unplaned lumber was cut. The breath of it was a thing to bring cheer and hope. Its silvery walls, in places golden and brown with pitch and freckled with knots, spoke joyously of life that would not die, and the woodpeckers came and hammered on it as though it were still a part of the forest, and red squirrels chattered on the roof and scampered about in play with a soft patter of feet. "It's a pretty poor specimen of man that would die up here with all that under his eyes," Kent had said a year before, when he and Cardigan had picked out the site. "If he died looking at that, why, he just simply ought to die, Cardigan," he had laughed. And now he was that poor specimen, looking out on the glory of the world! His vision took in the South and a part of the East and West, and in all those directions there was no end of the forest. It was like a vast, many-colored sea with uneven billows rising and falling until the blue sky came down to meet them many miles away. More than once his heart ached at the thought of the two thin ribs of steel creeping up foot by foot and mile by mile from Edmonton, a hundred and fifty miles away. It was, to him, a desecration, a crime against Nature, the murder of his beloved wilderness. For in his soul that wilderness had grown to be more than a thing of spruce and cedar and balsam, of poplar and birch; more than a great, unused world of river and lake and swamp. It was an individual, a thing. His love for it was greater than his love for man. It was his inarticulate God. It held him as no religion in the world could have held him, and deeper and deeper it had drawn him into the soul of itself, delivering up to him one by one its guarded secrets and its mysteries, opening for him page by page the book that was the greatest of all books. And it was the wonder of it now, the fact that it was near him, about him, embracing him, glowing for him in the sunshine, whispering to him in the soft breath of the air, nodding and talking to him from the crest of every ridge, that gave to him a strange happiness even in these hours when he knew that he was dying. And then his eyes fell nearer to the settlement which nestled along the edge of the shining river a quarter of a mile away. That, too, had been the wilderness, in the days before the railroad came. The poison of speculation was stirring, but it had not yet destroyed. Athabasca Landing was still the door that opened and closed on the great North. Its buildings were scattered and few, and built of logs and rough lumber. Even now he could hear the drowsy hum of the distant sawmill that was lazily turning out its grist. Not far away the wind-worn flag of the British Empire was floating over a Hudson Bay Company's post that had bartered in the trades of the North for more than a hundred years. Through that hundred years Athabasca Landing had pulsed with the heart-beats of strong men bred to the wilderness. Through it, working its way by river and dog sledge from the South, had gone the precious freight for which the farther North gave in exchange its still more precious furs. And today, as Kent looked down upon it, he saw that same activity as it had existed through the years of a century. A brigade of scows, laden to their gunwales, was just sweeping out into the river and into its current. Kent had watched the loading of them; now he saw them drifting lazily out from the shore, their long sweeps glinting in the sun, their crews singing wildly and fiercely their beloved Chanson des Voyageurs as their faces turned to the adventure of the North. In Kent's throat rose a thing which he tried to choke back, but which broke from his lips in a low cry, almost a sob. He heard the distant singing, wild and free as the forests themselves, and he wanted to lean out of his window and shout a last good-by. For the brigade--a Company brigade, the brigade that had chanted its songs up and down the water reaches of the land for more than two hundred and fifty years--was starting north. And he knew where it was going--north, and still farther north; a hundred miles, five hundred, a thousand--and then another thousand before the last of the scows unburdened itself of its precious freight. For the lean and brown-visaged men who went with them there would be many months of clean living and joyous thrill under the open skies. Overwhelmed by the yearning that swept over him, Kent leaned back against his pillows and covered his eyes. In those moments his brain painted for him swiftly and vividly the things he was losing. Tomorrow or next day he would be dead, and the river brigade would still be sweeping on--on into the Grand Rapids of the Athabasca, fighting the Death Chute, hazarding valiantly the rocks and rapids of the Grand Cascade, the whirlpools of the Devil's Mouth, the thundering roar and boiling dragon teeth of the Black Run--on to the end of the Athabasca, to the Slave, and into the Mackenzie, until the last rock-blunted nose of the outfit drank the tide-water of the Arctic Ocean. And he, James Kent, would be DEAD! He uncovered his eyes, and there was a wan smile on his lips as he looked forth once more. There were sixteen scows in the brigade, and the biggest, he knew, was captained by Pierre Rossand. He could fancy Pierre's big red throat swelling in mighty song, for Pierre's wife was waiting for him a thousand miles away. The scows were caught steadily now in the grip of the river, and it seemed to Kent, as he watched them go, that they were the last fugitives fleeing from the encroaching monsters of steel. Unconscious of the act, he reached out his arms, and his soul cried out its farewell, even though his lips were silent. He was glad when they were gone and when the voices of the chanting oarsmen were lost in the distance. Again he listened to the lazy hum of the sawmill, and over his head he heard the velvety run of a red squirrel and then its reckless chattering. The forests came back to him. Across his cot fell a patch of golden sunlight. A stronger breath of air came laden with the perfume of balsam and cedar through his window, and when the door opened and Cardigan entered, he found the old Kent facing him. There was no change in Cardigan's voice or manner as he greeted him. But there was a tenseness in his face which he could not conceal. He had brought in Kent's pipe and tobacco. These he laid on a table until he had placed his head close to Kent's hearty listening to what he called the _bruit_--the rushing of blood through the aneurismal sac. "Seems to me that I can hear it myself now and then," said Kent. "Worse, isn't it?" Cardigan nodded. "Smoking may hurry it up a bit," he said. "Still, if you want to--" Kent held out his hand for the pipe and tobacco. "It's worth it. Thanks, old man." Kent loaded the pipe, and Cardigan lighted a match. For the first time in two weeks a cloud of smoke issued from between Kent's lips. "The brigade is starting north," he said. "Mostly Mackenzie River freight," replied Cardigan. "A long run." "The finest in all the North. Three years ago O'Connor and I made it with the Follette outfit. Remember Follette--and Ladouceur? They both loved the same girl, and being good friends they decided to settle the matter by a swim through the Death Chute. The man who came through first was to have her. Gawd, Cardigan, what funny things happen! Follette came out first, but he was dead. He'd brained himself on a rock. And to this day Ladouceur hasn't married the girl, because he says Follette beat him; and that Follette's something-or-other would haunt him if he didn't play fair. It's a queer--" He stopped and listened. In the hall was the approaching tread of unmistakable feet. "O'Connor," he said. Cardigan went to the door and opened it as O'Connor was about to knock. When the door closed again, the staff-sergeant was in the room alone with Kent. In one of his big hands he clutched a box of cigars, and in the other he held a bunch of vividly red fire-flowers. "Father Layonne shoved these into my hands as I was coming up," he explained, dropping them on the table. "And I--well--I'm breaking regulations to come up an' tell you something, Jimmy. I never called you a liar in my life, but I'm calling you one now!" He was gripping Kent's hands in the fierce clasp of a friendship that nothing could kill. Kent winced, but the pain of it was joy. He had feared that O'Connor, like Kedsty, must of necessity turn against him. Then he noticed something unusual in O'Connor's face and eyes. The staff-sergeant was not easily excited, yet he was visibly disturbed now. "I don't know what the others saw, when you were making that confession, Kent. Mebby my eyesight was better because I spent a year and a half with you on the trail. You were lying. What's your game, old man?" Kent groaned. "Have I got to go all over it again?" he appealed. O'Connor began thumping back and forth over the floor. Kent had seen him that way sometimes in camp when there were perplexing problems ahead of them. "You didn't kill John Barkley," he insisted. "I don't believe you did, and Inspector Kedsty doesn't believe it--yet the mighty queer part of it is--" "What?" "That Kedsty is acting on your confession in a big hurry. I don't believe it's according to Hoyle, as the regulations are written. But he's doing it. And I want to know--it's the biggest thing I EVER wanted to know--did you kill Barkley?" "O'Connor, if you don't believe a dying man's word--you haven't much respect for death, have you?" "That's the theory on which the law works, but sometimes it ain't human. Confound it, man, _did you_?" "Yes." O'Connor sat down and with his finger-nails pried open the box of cigars. "Mind if I smoke with you?" he asked. "I need it. I'm shot up with unexpected things this morning. Do you care if I ask you about the girl?" "The girl!" exclaimed Kent. He sat up straighter, staring at O'Connor. The staff-sergeant's eyes were on him with questioning steadiness. "I see--you don't know her," he said, lighting his cigar. "Neither do I. Never saw her before. That's why I am wondering about Inspector Kedsty. I tell you, it's queer. He didn't believe you this morning, yet he was all shot up. He wanted me to go with him to his house. The cords stood out on his neck like that--like my little finger. "Then suddenly he changed his mind and said we'd go to the office. That took us along the road that runs through the poplar grove. It happened there. I'm not much of a girl's man, Kent, and I'd be a fool to try to tell you what she looked like. But there she was, standing in the path not ten feet ahead of us, and she stopped me in my tracks as quick as though she'd sent a shot into me. And she stopped Kedsty, too. I heard him give a sort of grunt--a funny sound, as though some one had hit him. I don't believe I could tell whether she had a dress on or not, for I never saw anything like her face, and her eyes, and her hair, and I stared at them like a thunder-struck fool. She didn't seem to notice me any more than if I'd been thin air, a ghost she couldn't see. "She looked straight at Kedsty, and she kept looking at him--and then she passed us. Never said a word, mind you. She came so near I could have touched her with my hand, and not until she was that close did she take her eyes from Kedsty and look at me. And when she'd passed I thought what a couple of cursed idiots we were, standing there paralyzed, as if we'd never seen a beautiful girl before in our lives. I went to remark that much to the Old Man when--" O'Connor bit his cigar half in two as he leaned nearer to the cot. "Kent, I swear that Kedsty was as white as chalk when I looked at him! There wasn't a drop of blood left in his face, and he was staring straight ahead, as though the girl still stood there, and he gave another of those grunts--it wasn't a laugh--as if something was choking him. And then he said: "'Sergeant, I've forgotten something important. I must go back to see Dr. Cardigan. You have my authority to give McTrigger his liberty at once!'" O'Connor paused, as if expecting some expression of disbelief from Kent. When none came, he demanded, "Was that according to the Criminal Code? Was it, Kent?" "Not exactly. But, coming from the S.O.D., it was law." "And I obeyed it," grunted the staff-sergeant. "And if you could have seen McTrigger! When I told him he was free, and unlocked his cell, he came out of it gropingly, like a blind man. And he would go no farther than the Inspector's office. He said he would wait there for him." "And Kedsty?" O'Connor jumped from his chair and began thumping back and forth across the room again. "Followed the girl," he exploded. "He couldn't have done anything else. He lied to me about Cardigan. There wouldn't be anything mysterious about it if he wasn't sixty and she less than twenty. She was pretty enough! But it wasn't her beauty that made him turn white there in the path. Not on your life it wasn't! I tell you he aged ten years in as many seconds. There was something in that girl's eyes more terrifying to him than a leveled gun, and after he'd looked into them, his first thought was of McTrigger, the man you're saving from the hangman. It's queer, Kent. The whole business is queer. And the queerest of it all is your confession." "Yes, it's all very funny," agreed Kent. "That's what I've been telling myself right along, old man. You see, a little thing like a bullet changed it all. For if the bullet hadn't got me, I assure you I wouldn't have given Kedsty that confession, and an innocent man would have been hanged. As it is, Kedsty is shocked, demoralized. I'm the first man to soil the honor of the finest Service on the face of the earth, and I'm in Kedsty's division. Quite natural that he should be upset. And as for the girl--" He shrugged his shoulders and tried to laugh. "Perhaps she came in this morning with one of the up-river scows and was merely taking a little constitutional," he suggested. "Didn't you ever notice, O'Connor, that in a certain light under poplar trees one's face is sometimes ghastly?" "Yes, I've noticed it, when the trees are in full leaf, but not when they're just opening, Jimmy. It was the girl. Her eyes shattered every nerve in him. And his first words were an order for me to free McTrigger, coupled with the lie that he was coming back to see Cardigan. And if you could have seen her eyes when she turned them on me! They were blue--blue as violets--but shooting fire. I could imagine black eyes like that, but not blue ones. Kedsty simply wilted in their blaze. And there was a reason--I know it--a reason that sent his mind like lightning to the man in the cell!" "Now, that you leave me out of it, the thing begins to get interesting," said Kent. "It's a matter of the relationship of this blonde girl and--" "She isn't blonde--and I'm not leaving you out of it," interrupted O'Connor. "I never saw anything so black in my life as her hair. It was magnificent. If you saw that girl once, you would never forget her again as long as you lived. She has never been in Athabasca Landing before, or anywhere near here. If she had, we surely would have heard about her. She came for a purpose, and I believe that purpose was accomplished when Kedsty gave me the order to free McTrigger." "That's possible, and probable," agreed Kent. "I always said you were the best clue-analyst in the force, Bucky. But I don't see where I come in." O'Connor smiled grimly. "You don't? Well, I may be both blind and a fool, and perhaps a little excited. But it seemed to me that from the moment Inspector Kedsty laid his eyes on that girl he was a little too anxious to let McTrigger go and hang you in his place. A little too anxious, Kent." The irony of the thing brought a hard smile to Kent's lips as he nodded for the cigars. "I'll try one of these on top of the pipe," he said, nipping off the end of the cigar with his teeth. "And you forget that I'm not going to hang, Bucky. Cardigan has given me until tomorrow night. Perhaps until the next day. Did you see Rossand's fleet leaving for up north? It made me think of three years ago!" O'Connor was gripping his hand again. The coldness of it sent a chill into the staff-sergeant's heart. He rose and looked through the upper part of the window, so that the twitching in his throat was hidden from Kent. Then he went to the door. "I'll see you again tomorrow," he said. "And if I find out anything more about the girl, I'll report." He tried to laugh, but there was a tremble in his voice, a break in the humor he attempted to force. Kent listened to the tramp of his heavy feet as they went down the hall. CHAPTER III Again the world came back to Kent, the world that lay just beyond his open window. But scarcely had O'Connor gone when it began to change, and in spite of his determination to keep hold of his nerve Kent felt creeping up with that change a thing that was oppressive and smothering. Swiftly the distant billowings of the forests were changing their tones and colors under the darkening approach of storm. The laughter of the hills and ridges went out. The shimmer of spruce and cedar and balsam turned to a somber black. The flashing gold and silver of birch and poplar dissolved into a ghostly and unanimated gray that was almost invisible. A deepening and somber gloom spread itself like a veil over the river that only a short time before had reflected the glory of the sun in the faces of dark-visaged men of the Company brigade. And with the gloom came steadily nearer a low rumbling of thunder. For the first time since the mental excitement of his confession Kent felt upon him an appalling loneliness. He still was not afraid of death, but a part of his philosophy was gone. It was, after all, a difficult thing to die alone. He felt that the pressure in his chest was perceptible greater than it had been an hour or two before, and the thought grew upon him that it would be a terrible thing for the "explosion" to come when the sun was not shining. He wanted O'Connor back again. He had the desire to call out for Cardigan. He would have welcomed Father Layonne with a glad cry. Yet more than all else would he have had at his side in these moments of distress a woman. For the storm, as it massed heavier and nearer, filling the earth with its desolation, bridged vast spaces for him, and he found himself suddenly face to face with the might-have-beens of yesterday. He saw, as he had never guessed before, the immeasurable gulf between helplessness and the wild, brute freedom of man, and his soul cried out--not for adventure, not for the savage strength of life--but for the presence of a creature frailer than himself, yet in the gentle touch of whose hand lay the might of all humanity. He struggled with himself. He remembered that Dr. Cardigan had told him there would be moments of deep depression, and he tried to fight himself out of the grip of this that was on him. There was a bell at hand, but he refused to use it, for he sensed his own cowardice. His cigar had gone out, and he relighted it. He made an effort to bring his mind back to O'Connor, and the mystery girl, and Kedsty. He tried to visualize McTrigger, the man he had saved from the hangman, waiting for Kedsty in the office at barracks. He pictured the girl, as O'Connor had described her, with her black hair and blue eyes--and then the storm broke. The rain came down in a deluge, and scarcely had it struck when the door opened and Cardigan hurried in to close the window. He remained for half an hour, and after that young Mercer, one of his two assistants, came in at intervals. Late in the afternoon it began to clear up, and Father Layonne returned with papers properly made out for Kent's signature. He was with Kent until sundown, when Mercer came in with supper. Between that hour and ten o'clock Kent observed a vigilance on the part of Dr. Cardigan which struck him as being unusual. Four times he listened with the stethoscope at his chest, but when Kent asked the question which was in his mind, Cardigan shook his head. "It's no worse, Kent. I don't think it will happen tonight." In spite of this assurance Kent was positive there was in Cardigan's manner an anxiety of a different quality than he had perceived earlier in the day. The thought was a definite and convincing one. He believed that Cardigan was smoothing the way with a professional lie. He had no desire to sleep. His light was turned low, and his window was open again, for the night had cleared. Never had air tasted sweeter to him than that which came in through his window. The little bell in his watch tinkled the hour of eleven, when he heard Cardigan's door close for a last time across the hall. After that everything was quiet. He drew himself nearer to the window, so that by leaning forward he could rest himself partly on the sill. He loved the night. The mystery and lure of those still hours of darkness when the world slept had never ceased to hold their fascination for him. Night and he were friends. He had discovered many of its secrets. A thousand times he had walked hand in hand with the spirit of it, approaching each time a little nearer to the heart of it, mastering its life, its sound, the whispering languages of that "other side of life" which rises quietly and as if in fear to live and breathe long after the sun has gone out. To him it was more wonderful than day. And this night that lay outside his window now was magnificent. Storm had washed the atmosphere between earth and sky, and it seemed as though the stars had descended nearer to his forests, shining in golden constellations. The moon was coming up late, and he watched the ruddy glow of it as it rode up over the wilderness, a splendid queen entering upon a stage already prepared by the lesser satellites for her coming. No longer was Kent oppressed or afraid. In still deeper inhalations he drank the night air into his lungs, and in him there seemed to grow slowly a new strength. His eyes and ears were wide open and attentive. The town was asleep, but a few lights burned dimly here and there along the river's edge, and occasionally a lazy sound came up to him--the clink of a scow chain, the bark of a dog, the rooster crowing. In spite of himself he smiled at that. Old Duperow's rooster was a foolish bird and always crowed himself hoarse when the moon was bright. And in front of him, not far away, were two white, lightning-shriven spruce stubs standing like ghosts in the night. In one of these a pair of owls had nested, and Kent listened to the queer, chuckling notes of their honeymooning and the flutter of their wings as they darted out now and then in play close to his window. And then suddenly he heard the sharp snap of their beaks. An enemy was prowling near, and the owls were giving warning. He thought he heard a step. In another moment or two the step was unmistakable. Some one was approaching his window from the end of the building. He leaned over the sill and found himself staring into O'Connor's face. "These confounded feet of mine!" grunted the staff-sergeant. "Were you asleep, Kent?" "Wide-awake as those owls," assured Kent. O'Connor drew up to the window. "I saw your light and thought you were awake," he said. "I wanted to make sure Cardigan wasn't with you. I don't want him to know I am here. And--if you don't mind--will you turn off the light? Kedsty is awake, too--as wide-awake as the owls." Kent reached out a hand, and his room was in darkness except for the glow of moon and stars. O'Connor's bulk at the window shut out a part of this. His face was half in gloom. "It's a crime to come to you like this, Kent," he said, keeping his big voice down to a whisper. "But I had to. It's my last chance. And I know there's something wrong. Kedsty is getting me out of the way--because I was with him when he met the girl over in the poplar bush. I'm detailed on special duty up at Fort Simpson, two thousand miles by water if it's a foot! It means six months or a year. We leave in the motor boat at dawn to overtake Rossand and his outfit, so I had to take this chance of seeing you. I hesitated until I knew that some one was awake in your room." "I'm glad you came," said Kent warmly. "And--good God, how I would like to go with you, Bucky! If it wasn't for this thing in my chest, ballooning up for an explosion--" "I wouldn't be going," interrupted O'Connor in a low voice. "If you were on your feet, Kent, there are a number of things that wouldn't be happening. Something mighty queer has come over Kedsty since this morning. He isn't the Kedsty you knew yesterday or for the last ten years. He's nervous, and I miss my guess if he isn't constantly on the watch for some one. And he's afraid of me. I know it. He's afraid of me because I saw him go to pieces when he met that girl. Fort Simpson is simply a frame-up to get me away for a time. He tried to smooth the edge off the thing by promising me an inspectorship within the year. That was this afternoon, just before the storm. Since then--" O'Connor turned and faced the moonlight for a moment. "Since then I've been on a still-hunt for the girl and Sandy McTrigger," he added. "And they've disappeared, Kent. I guess McTrigger just melted away into the woods. But it's the girl that puzzles me. I've questioned every scow _cheman_ at the Landing. I've investigated every place where she might have got food or lodging, and I bribed Mooie, the old trailer, to search the near-by timber. The unbelievable part of it isn't her disappearance. It's the fact that not a soul in Athabasca Landing has seen her! Sounds incredible, doesn't it? And then, Kent, the big hunch came to me. Remember how we've always played up to the big hunch? And this one struck me strong. I think I know where the girl is." Kent, forgetful of his own impending doom, was deeply interested in the thrill of O'Connor's mystery. He had begun to visualize the situation. More than once they had worked out enigmas of this kind together, and the staff-sergeant saw the old, eager glow in his eyes. And Kent chuckled joyously in that thrill of the game of man-hunting, and said: "Kedsty is a bachelor and doesn't even so much as look at a woman. But he likes home life--" "And has built himself a log bungalow somewhat removed from the town," added O'Connor. "And his Chinaman cook and housekeeper is away." "And the bungalow is closed, or supposed to be." "Except at night, when Kedsty goes there to sleep." O'Connor's hand gripped Kent's. "Jimmy, there never was a team in N Division that could beat us, The girl is hiding at Kedsty's place!" "But why _hiding_?" insisted Kent. "She hasn't committed a crime." O'Connor sat silent for a moment. Kent could hear him stuffing the bowl of his pipe. "It's simply the big hunch," he grunted. "It's got hold of me, Kent, and I can't throw it off. Why, man--" He lighted a match in the cup of his hands, and Kent saw his face. There was more than uncertainty in the hard, set lines of it. "You see, I went back to the poplars again after I left you today," O'Connor went on. "I found her footprints. She had turned off the trail, and in places they were very clear. "She had on high-heeled shoes, Kent--those Frenchy things--and I swear her feet can't be much bigger than a baby's! I found where Kedsty caught up with her, and the moss was pretty well beaten down. He returned through the poplars, but the girl went on and into the edge of the spruce. I lost her trail there. By traveling in that timber it was possible for her to reach Kedsty's bungalow without being seen. It must have been difficult going, with shoes half as big as my hand and heels two inches high! And I've been wondering, why didn't she wear bush-country shoes or moccasins?" "Because she came from the South and not the North," suggested Kent. "Probably up from Edmonton." "Exactly. And Kedsty wasn't expecting her, was he? If he had been, that first sight of her wouldn't have shattered every nerve in his body. That's why the big hunch won't let loose of me, Kent. From the moment he saw her, he was a different man. His attitude toward you changed instantly. If he could save you now by raising his little finger, he wouldn't do it, simply because it's absolutely necessary for him to have an excuse for freeing McTrigger. Your confession came at just the psychological moment. The girl's unspoken demand there in the poplars was that he free McTrigger, and it was backed up by a threat which Kedsty understood and which terrified him to his marrow. McTrigger must have seen him afterward, for he waited at the office until Kedsty came. I don't know what passed between them. Constable Doyle says they were together for half an hour. Then McTrigger walked out of barracks, and no one has seen him since. It's mighty queer. The whole thing is queer. And the queerest part of the whole business is this sudden commission of mine at Fort Simpson." Kent leaned back against his pillows. His breath came in a series of short, hacking coughs. In the star glow O'Connor saw his face grow suddenly haggard and tired-looking, and he leaned far in so that in both his own hands he held one of Kent's. "I'm tiring you, Jimmy," he said huskily. "Good-by, old pal! I--I--" He hesitated and then lied steadily. "I'm going up to take a look around Kedsty's place. I won't be gone more than half an hour and will stop on my way back. If you're asleep--" "I won't be asleep," said Kent. O'Connor's hands gripped closer. "Good-by, Jimmy." "Good-by." And then, as O'Connor stepped back into the night, Kent's voice called after him softly: "I'll be with you on the long trip, Bucky. Take care of yourself--always." O'Connor's answer was a sob, a sob that rose in his throat like a great fist, and choked him, and filled his eyes with scalding tears that shut out the glow of moon and stars. And he did not go toward Kedsty's, but trudged heavily in the direction of the river, for he knew that Kent had called his lie, and that they had said their last farewell. CHAPTER IV It was a long time after O'Connor had gone before Kent at last fell asleep. It was a slumber weighted with the restlessness of a brain fighting to the last against exhaustion and the inevitable end. A strange spirit seemed whirling Kent back through the years he had lived, even to the days of his boyhood, leaping from crest to crest, giving to him swift and passing visions of valleys almost forgotten, of happenings and things long ago faded and indistinct in his memory. Vividly his dreams were filled with ghosts--ghosts that were transformed, as his spirit went back to them, until they were riotous with life and pulsating with the red blood of reality. He was a boy again, playing three-old-cat in front of the little old red brick schoolhouse half a mile from the farm where he was born, and where his mother had died. And Skinny Hill, dead many years ago, was his partner at the bat--lovable Skinny, with his smirking grin and his breath that always smelled of the most delicious onions ever raised in Ohio. And then, at dinner hour, he was trading some of his mother's cucumber pickles for some of Skinny's onions--two onions for a pickle, and never a change in the price. And he played old-fashioned casino with his mother, and they were picking blackberries together in the woods, and he killed over again a snake that he had clubbed to death more than twenty years ago, while his mother ran away and screamed and then sat down and cried. He had worshiped that mother, and the spirit of his dreams did not let him look down into the valley where she lay dead, under a little white stone in the country cemetery a thousand miles away, with his father close beside her. But it gave him a passing thrill of the days in which he had fought his way through college--and then it brought him into the North, his beloved North. For hours the wilderness was heavy about Kent. He moved restlessly, at times he seemed about to awaken, but always he slipped back into the slumberous arms of his forests. He was on the trail in the cold, gray beginning of Winter, and the glow of his campfire made a radiant patch of red glory in the heart of the night, and close to him in that glow sat O'Connor. He was behind dogs and sledge, fighting storm; dark and mysterious streams rippled under his canoe; he was on the Big River, O'Connor with him again--and then, suddenly, he was holding a blazing gun in his hand, and he and O'Connor stood with their backs to a rack, facing the bloodthirsty rage of McCaw and his free-traders. The roar of the guns half roused him, and after that came pleasanter things--the droning of wind in the spruce tops, the singing of swollen streams in Springtime, the songs of birds, the sweet smells of life, the glory of life as he had lived it, he and O'Connor. In the end, half between sleep and wakefulness, he was fighting a smothering pressure on his chest. It was an oppressive and torturing thing, like the tree that had fallen on him over in the Jackfish country, and he felt himself slipping off into darkness. Suddenly there was a gleam of light. He opened his eyes. The sun was flooding in at his window, and the weight on his chest was the gentle pressure of Cardigan's stethoscope. In spite of the physical stress of the phantoms which his mind has conceived, Kent awakened so quietly that Cardigan was not conscious of the fact until he raised his head. There was something in his face which he tried to conceal, but Kent caught it before it was gone. There were dark hollows under his eyes. He was a bit haggard, as though he had spent a sleepless night. Kent pulled himself up, squinting at the sun and grinning apologetically. He had slept well along into the day, and-- He caught himself with a sudden grimace of pain. A flash of something hot and burning swept through his chest. It was like a knife. He opened his mouth to breathe in the air. The pressure inside him was no longer the pressure of a stethoscope. It was real. Cardigan, standing over him, was trying to look cheerful. "Too much of the night air, Kent," he explained. "That will pass away--soon." It seemed to Kent that Cardigan gave an almost imperceptible emphasis to the word "soon," but he asked no question. He was quite sure that he understood, and he knew how unpleasant for Cardigan the answer to it would be. He fumbled under his pillow for his watch. It was nine o'clock. Cardigan was moving about uneasily, arranging the things on the table and adjusting the shade at the window. For a few moments, with his back to Kent, he stood without moving. Then he turned, and said: "Which will you have, Kent--a wash-up and breakfast, or a visitor?" "I am not hungry, and I don't feel like soap and water just now. Who's the visitor? Father Layonne or--Kedsty?" "Neither. It's a lady." "Then I'd better have the soap and water! Do you mind telling me who it is?" Cardigan shook his head. "I don't know. I've never seen her before. She came this morning while I was still in pajamas, and has been waiting ever since. I told her to come back again, but she insisted that she would remain until you were awake. She has been very patient for two hours." A thrill which he made no effort to conceal leaped through Kent. "Is she a young woman?" he demanded eagerly. "Wonderful black hair, blue eyes, wears high-heeled shoes just about half as big as your hand--and very beautiful?" "All of that," nodded Cardigan. "I even noticed the shoes, Jimmy. A very beautiful young woman!" "Please let her come in," said Kent. "Mercer scrubbed me last night, and I feel fairly fit. She'll forgive this beard, and I'll apologize for your sake. What is her name?" "I asked her, and she didn't seem to hear. A little later Mercer asked her, and he said she just looked at him for a moment and he froze. She is reading a volume of my Plutarch's 'Lives'--actually reading it. I know it by the way she turns the pages!" Kent drew himself up higher against his pillows and faced the door when Cardigan went out. In a flash all that O'Connor had said swept back upon him--this girl, Kedsty, the mystery of it all. Why had she come to see him? What could be the motive of her visit--unless it was to thank him for the confession that had given Sandy McTrigger his freedom? O'Connor was right. She was deeply concerned in McTrigger and had come to express her gratitude. He listened. Distant footsteps sounded in the hall. They approached quickly and paused outside his door. A hand moved the latch, but for a moment the door did not open. He heard Cardigan's voice, then Cardigan's footsteps retreating down the hall. His heart thumped. He could not remember when he had been so upset over an unimportant thing. CHAPTER V The latch moved slowly, and with its movement came a gentle tap on the panel. "Come in," he said. The next instant he was staring. The girl had entered and closed the door behind her. O'Connor's picture stood in flesh and blood before him. The girl's eyes met his own. They were like glorious violets, as O'Connor had said, but they were not the eyes he had expected to see. They were the wide-open, curious eyes of a child. He had visualized them as pools of slumbering flame--the idea O'Connor had given him--and they were the opposite of that. Their one emotion seemed to be the emotion roused by an overwhelming, questioning curiosity. They were apparently not regarding him as a dying human being, but as a creature immensely interesting to look upon. In place of the gratitude he had anticipated, they were filled with a great, wondering interrogation, and there was not the slightest hint of embarrassment in their gaze. For a space it seemed to Kent that he saw nothing but those wonderful, dispassionate eyes looking at him. Then he saw the rest of her--her amazing hair, her pale, exquisite face, the slimness and beauty of her as she stood with her back to the door, one hand still resting on the latch. He had never seen anything quite like her. He might have guessed that she was eighteen, or twenty, or twenty-two. Her hair, wreathed in shimmering, velvety coils from the back to the crown of her head, struck him as it had struck O'Connor, as unbelievable. The glory of it gave to her an appearance of height which she did not possess, for she was not tall, and her slimness added to the illusion. And then, greatly to his embarrassment in the next instant, his eyes went to her feet. Again O'Connor was right--tiny feet, high-heeled pumps, ravishingly turned ankles showing under a skirt of some fluffy brown stuff or other-- Correcting himself, his face flushed red. The faintest tremble of a smile was on the girl's lips. She looked down, and for the first time he saw what O'Connor had seen, the sunlight kindling slumberous fires in her hair. Kent tried to say something, but before he succeeded she had taken possession of the chair near his bedside. "I have been waiting a long time to see you," she said. "You are James Kent, aren't you?" "Yes, I'm Jim Kent. I'm sorry Dr. Cardigan kept you waiting. If I had known--" He was getting a grip on himself again, and smiled at her. He noticed the amazing length of her dark lashes, but the violet eyes behind them did not smile back at him. The tranquillity of their gaze was disconcerting. It was as if she had not quite made up her mind about him yet and was still trying to classify him in the museum of things she had known. "He should have awakened me," Kent went on, trying to keep himself from slipping once more. "It isn't polite to keep a young lady waiting two hours!" This time the blue eyes made him feel that his smile was a maudlin grin. "Yes--you are different." She spoke softly, as if expressing the thought to herself. "That is what I came to find out, if you were different. You are dying?" "My God--yes--I'm dying!" gasped Kent. "According to Dr. Cardigan I'm due to pop off this minute. Aren't you a little nervous, sitting so near to a man who's ready to explode while you're looking at him?" For the first time the eyes changed. She was not facing the window, yet a glow like the glow of sunlight flashed into them, soft, luminous, almost laughing. "No, it doesn't frighten me," she assured him. "I have always thought I should like to see a man die--not quickly, like drowning or being shot, but slowly, an inch at a time. But I shouldn't like to see YOU die." "I'm glad," breathed Kent. "It's a great satisfaction to me." "Yet I shouldn't be frightened if you did." "Oh!" Kent drew himself up straighter against his pillows. He had been a man of many adventures. He had faced almost every conceivable kind of shock. But this was a new one. He stared into the blue eyes, tongueless and mentally dazed. They were cool and sweet and not at all excited. And he knew that she spoke the truth. Not by a quiver of those lovely lashes would she betray either fear or horror if he popped off right there. It was astonishing. Something like resentment shot for an instant into his bewildered brain. Then it was gone, and in a flash it came upon him that she was but uttering his own philosophy of life, showing him life's cheapness, life's littleness, the absurdity of being distressed by looking upon the light as it flickered out. And she was doing it, not as a philosopher, but with the beautiful unconcern of a child. Suddenly, as if impelled by an emotion in direct contradiction to her apparent lack of sympathy, she reached out a hand and placed it on Kent's forehead. It was another shock. It was not a professional touch, but a soft, cool little pressure that sent a comforting thrill through him. The hand was there for only a moment, and she withdrew it to entwine the slim fingers with those of the others in her lap. "You have no fever," she said. "What makes you think you are dying?" Kent explained what was happening inside him. He was completely shunted off his original track of thought and anticipation. He had expected to ask for at least a mutual introduction when his visitor came into his room, and had anticipated taking upon himself the position of a polite inquisitor. In spite of O'Connor, he had not thought she would be quite so pretty. He had not believed her eyes would be so beautiful, or their lashes so long, or the touch of her hand so pleasantly unnerving. And now, in place of asking for her name and the reason for her visit, he became an irrational idiot, explaining to her certain matters of physiology that had to do with aortas and aneurismal sacs. He had finished before the absurdity of the situation dawned upon him, and with absurdity came the humor of it. Even dying, Kent could not fail to see the funny side of a thing It struck him as suddenly as had the girl's beauty and her bewildering and unaffected ingenuousness. Looking at him, that same glow of mysterious questioning in her eyes, the girl found him suddenly laughing straight into her face. "This is funny. It's very funny, Miss--Miss--" "Marette," she supplied, answering his hesitation. "It's funny, Miss Marette." "Not Miss Marette. Just Marette," she corrected. "I say, it's funny," he tried again. "You see, it's not so terribly pleasant as you might think to--er--be here, where I am, dying. And last night I thought about the finest thing in the world would be to have a woman beside me, a woman who'd be sort of sympathetic, you know, ease the thing off a little, maybe say she was sorry. And then the Lord answers my prayer, and _you_ come--and you sort of give me the impression that you made the appointment with yourself to see how a fellow looks when he pops off." The shimmer of light came into the blue eyes again. She seemed to have done with her mental analysis of him, and he saw that a bit of color was creeping into her cheeks, pale when she had entered the room. "You wouldn't be the first I've seen pop off," she assured him. "There have been a number, and I've never cried very much. I'd rather see a man die than some animals. But I shouldn't like to see YOU do it. Does that comfort you--like the woman you prayed the Lord for?" "It does," gasped Kent. "But why the devil, Miss Marette--" "Marette," she corrected again. "Yes, Marette--why the devil have you come to see me at just the moment I'm due to explode? And what's your other name, and how old are you, and what do you want of me?" "I haven't any other name, I'm twenty, and I came to get acquainted with you and see what you are like." "Bully!" exclaimed Kent. "We're getting there fast! And now, why?" The girl drew her chair a few inches nearer, and for a moment Kent thought that her lovely mouth was trembling on the edge of a smile. "Because you have lied so splendidly to save another man who was about to die." "_Et tu, Brute_!" sighed Kent, leaning back against his pillows. "Isn't it possible for a decent man to kill another man and not be called a liar when he tells about it? Why do so many believe that I lie?" "They don't," said the girl. "They believe you--now. You have gone so completely into the details of the murder in your confession that they are quite convinced. It would be too bad if you lived, for you surely would be hanged. Your lie sounds and reads like the truth. But I know it is a lie. You did not kill John Barkley." "And the reason for your suspicion?" For fully half a minute the girl's eyes rested on, his own. Again they seemed to be looking through him and into him. "Because I know the man who DID kill him," she said quietly, "and it was not you." Kent made a mighty effort to appear calm. He reached for a cigar from the box that Cardigan had placed on his bed, and nibbled the end of it. "Has some one else been confessing?" he asked. She shook her head the slightest bit. "Did you--er--see this other gentleman kill John Barkley?" he insisted. "No." "Then I must answer you as I have answered at least one other. I killed John Barkley. If you suspect some other person, your suspicion is wrong." "What a splendid liar!" she breathed softly. "Don't you believe in God?" Kent winced. "In a large, embracing sense, yes," he said. "I believe in Him, for instance, as revealed to our senses in all that living, growing glory you see out there through the window Nature and I have become pretty good pals, and you see I've sort of built up a mother goddess to worship instead of a he-god. Sacrilege, maybe, but it's a great comfort at times. But you didn't come to talk religion?" The lovely head bent still nearer him. He felt an impelling desire to put up his hand and touch her shining hair, as she laid her hand on his forehead. "I know who killed John Barkley," she insisted. "I know how and when and why he was killed. Please tell me the truth. I want to know. Why did you confess to a crime which you did not commit?" Kent took time to light his cigar. The girl watched him closely, almost eagerly. "I may be mad," he said. "It is possible for any human being to be mad and not know it. That's the funny part about insanity. But if I'm not insane, I killed Barkley; if I didn't kill him, I must be insane, for I'm very well convinced that I did. Either that, or you are insane. I have my suspicions that you are. Would a sane person wear pumps with heels like those up here?" He pointed accusingly to the floor. For the first time the girl smiled, openly, frankly, gloriously. It was as if her heart had leaped forth for an instant and had greeted him. And then, like sunlight shadowed by cloud, the smile was gone. "You are a brave man," she said. "You are splendid. I hate men. But I think if you lived very long, I should love you. I will believe that you killed Barkley. You compel me to believe it. You confessed, when you found you were going to die, that an innocent man might be saved. Wasn't that it?" Kent nodded weakly. "That's it. I hate to think of it that way, but I guess it's true. I confessed because I knew I was going to die. Otherwise I am quite sure that I should have let the other fellow take my medicine for me. You must think I am a beast." "All men are beasts," she agreed quickly. "But you are--a different kind of beast. I like you. If there were a chance, I might fight for you. I can fight." She held up her two small hands, half smiling at him again. "But not with those," he exclaimed. "I think you would fight with your eyes. O'Connor told me they half killed Kedsty when you met them in the poplar grove yesterday." He had expected that the mention of Inspector Kedsty's name would disturb her. It had no effect that he could perceive. "O'Connor was the big, red-faced man with Mr. Kedsty?" "Yes, my trail partner. He came to me yesterday and raved about your eyes. They ARE beautiful; I've never seen eyes half so lovely. But that wasn't what struck Bucky so hard. It was the effect they had on Kedsty. He said they shattered every nerve in Kedsty's body, and Kedsty isn't the sort to get easily frightened. And the queer part of it was that the instant you had gone, he gave O'Connor an order to free McTrigger--and then turned and followed you. All the rest of that day O'Connor tried to discover something about you at the Landing. He couldn't find hide nor hair--I beg pardon!--I mean he couldn't find out anything about you at all. We made up our minds that for some reason or other you were hiding up at Kedsty's bungalow. You don't mind a fellow saying all this--when he is going to pop off soon--do you?" He was half frightened at the directness with which he had expressed the thing. He would gladly have buried his own curiosity and all of O'Connor's suspicions for another moment of her hand on his forehead. But it was out, and he waited. She was looking down, her fingers twisting some sort of tasseled dress ornament in her lap, and Kent mentally measured the length of her lashes with a foot rule in mind. They were superb, and in the thrill of his admiration he would have sworn they were an inch long. She looked up suddenly and caught the glow in his eyes and the flush that lay under the tan of his cheeks. Her own color had deepened a little. "What if you shouldn't die?" she asked him bluntly, as if she had not heard a word of all he had said about Kedsty. "What would you do?" "I'm going to." "But if you shouldn't?" Kent shrugged his shoulders. "I suppose I'd have to take my medicine. You're not going?" She had straightened up and was sitting on the edge of her chair. "Yes, I'm going. I'm afraid of my eyes. I may look at you as I looked at Mr. Kedsty, and then--pop you'd go, quick! And I don't want to be here when you die!" He heard a soft little note of laughter in her throat. It sent a chill through him. What an adorable, blood-thirsty little wretch she was! He stared at her bent head, at the shining coils of her wonderful hair. Undone, he could see it completely hiding her. And it was so soft and warm that again he was tempted to reach out and touch it. She was wonderful, and yet it was not possible that she had a heart. Her apparent disregard of the fact that he was a dying man was almost diabolic. There was no sympathy in the expression of her violet eyes as she looked at him. She was even making fun of the fact that he was about to die! She stood up, surveying for the first time the room in which she had been sitting. Then she turned to the window and looked out. She reminded Kent of a beautiful young willow that had grown at the edge of a stream, exquisite, slender, strong. He could have picked her up in his arms as easily as a child, yet he sensed in the lithe beauty of her body forces that could endure magnificently. The careless poise of her head fascinated him. For that head and the hair that crowned it he knew that half the women of the earth would have traded precious years of their lives. And then, without turning toward him, she said, "Some day, when I die, I wish I might have as pleasant a room as this." "I hope you never die," he replied devoutly. She came back and stood for a moment beside him. "I have had a very pleasant time," she said, as though he had given her a special sort of entertainment. "It's too bad you are going to die. I'm sure we should have been good friends. Aren't you?" "Yes, very sure. If you had only arrived sooner--" "And I shall always think of you as a different kind of man-beast," she interrupted him. "It is really true that I shouldn't like to see you die. I want to get away before it happens. Would you care to have me kiss you?" For an instant Kent felt that his aorta was about to give away. "I--I would," he gasped huskily. "Then--close your eyes, please." He obeyed. She bent over him. He felt the soft touch of her hands and caught for an instant the perfume of her face and hair, and then the thrill of her lips pressed warm and soft upon his. She was not flushed or embarrassed when he looked at her again. It was as if she had kissed a baby and was wondering at its red face. "I've only kissed three men before you," she avowed. "It is strange. I never thought I should do it again. And now, good-by!" She moved quickly to the door. "Wait," he cried plaintively. "Please wait. I want to know your name. It is Marette--" "Radisson," she finished for him. "Marette Radisson, and I come from away off there, from a place we call the Valley of Silent Men." She was pointing into the north. "The North!" he exclaimed. "Yes, it is far north. Very far." Her hand was on the latch. The door opened slowly. "Wait," he pleaded again. "You must not go." "Yes, I must go. I have remained too long. I am sorry I kissed you. I shouldn't have done that. But I had to because you are such a splendid liar!" The door opened quickly and closed behind her. He heard her steps almost running down the hall, where not long ago he had listened to the last of O'Connor's. And then there was silence, and in that silence he heard her words again, drumming like little hammers in his head, "_Because you are such a splendid liar_!" CHAPTER VI James Kent, among his other qualities good and bad, possessed a merciless opinion of his own shortcomings, but never, in that opinion, had he fallen so low as in the interval which immediately followed the closing of his door behind the mysterious girl who had told him that her name was Marette Radisson. No sooner was she gone than the overwhelming superiority of her childlike cleverness smote him until, ashamed of himself, he burned red in his aloneness. He, Sergeant Kent, the coolest man on the force next to Inspector Kedsty, the most dreaded of catechists when questioning criminals, the man who had won the reputation of facing quietly and with deadly sureness the most menacing of dangers, had been beaten--horribly beaten--by a girl! And yet, in defeat, an irrepressible and at times distorted sense of humor made him give credit to the victor. The shame of the thing was his acknowledgment that a bit of feminine beauty had done the trick. He had made fun of O'Connor when the big staff-sergeant had described the effect of the girl's eyes on Inspector Kedsty. And, now, if O'Connor could know of what had happened here-- And then, like a rubber ball, that saving sense of humor bounced up out of the mess, and Kent found himself chuckling as his face grew cooler. His visitor had come, and she had gone, and he knew no more about her than when she had entered his room, except that her very pretty name was Marette Radisson. He was just beginning to think of the questions he had wanted to ask, a dozen, half a hundred of them--more definitely who she was; how and why she had come to Athabasca Landing; her interest in Sandy McTrigger; the mysterious relationship that must surely exist between her and Inspector Kedsty; and, chiefly, her real motive in coming to him when she knew that he was dying. He comforted himself by the assurance that he would have learned these things had she not left him so suddenly. He had not expected that. The question which seated itself most insistently in his mind was, why had she come? Was it, after all, merely a matter of curiosity? Was her relationship to Sandy McTrigger such that inquisitiveness alone had brought her to see the man who had saved him? Surely she had not been urged by a sense of gratitude, for in no way had she given expression to that. On his death-bed she had almost made fun of him. And she could not have come as a messenger from McTrigger, or she would have left her message. For the first time he began to doubt that she knew the man at all, in spite of the strange thing that had happened under O'Connor's eyes. But she must know Kedsty. She had made no answer to his half-accusation that she was hiding up at the Inspector's bungalow. He had used that word--"hiding." It should have had an effect. And she was as beautifully unconscious of it as though she had not heard him, and he knew that she had heard him very distinctly. It was then that she had given him that splendid view of her amazingly long lashes and had countered softly, "What if you shouldn't die?" Kent felt himself suddenly aglow with an irresistible appreciation of the genius of her subtlety, and with that appreciation came a thrill of deeper understanding. He believed that he knew why she had left him so suddenly. It was because she had seen herself close to the danger-line. There were things which she did not want him to know or question her about, and his daring intimation that she was hiding in Kedsty's bungalow had warned her. Was it possible that Kedsty himself had sent her for some reason which he could not even guess at? Positively it was not because of McTrigger, the man he had saved. At least she would have thanked him in some way. She would not have appeared quite so adorably cold-blooded, quite so sweetly unconscious of the fact that he was dying. If McTrigger's freedom had meant anything to her, she could not have done less than reveal to him a bit of sympathy. And her greatest compliment, if he excepted the kiss, was that she had called him a splendid liar! Kent grimaced and drew in a deep breath because of the tightness in his chest. Why was it that every one seemed to disbelieve him? Why was it that even this mysterious girl, whom he had never seen before in his life, politely called him a liar when he insisted that he had killed John Barkley? Was the fact of murder necessarily branded in one's face? If so, he had never observed it. Some of the hardest criminals he had brought in from the down-river country were likable-looking men. There was Horrigan, for instance, who for seven long weeks kept him in good humor with his drollery, though he was bringing him in to be hanged. And there were McTab, and _le Bête Noir_--the Black Beast--a lovable vagabond in spite of his record, and Le Beau, the gentlemanly robber of the wilderness mail, and half a dozen others he could recall without any effort at all. No one called them liars when, like real men, they confessed their crimes when they saw their game was up. To a man they had given up the ghost with their boots on, and Kent respected their memory because of it. And he was dying--and even this stranger girl called him a liar? And no case had ever been more complete than his own. He had gone mercilessly into the condemning detail of it all. It was down in black and white. He had signed it. And still he was disbelieved. It was funny, deuced funny, thought Kent. Until young Mercer opened the door and came in with his late breakfast, he had forgotten that he had really been hungry when he awakened with Cardigan's stethoscope at his chest. Mercer had amused him from the first. The pink-faced young Englishman, fresh from the old country, could not conceal in his face and attitude the fact that he was walking in the presence of the gallows whenever he entered the room. He was, as he had confided in Cardigan, "beastly hit up" over the thing. To feed and wash a man who would undoubtedly die, but who would be hanged by the neck until he was dead if he lived, filled him with peculiar and at times conspicuous emotions. It was like attending to a living corpse, if such a thing could be conceived. And Mercer had conceived it. Kent had come to regard him as more or less of a barometer giving away Cardigan's secrets. He had not told Cardigan, but had kept the discovery for his own amusement. This morning Mercer's face was less pink, and his pale eyes were paler, Kent thought. Also he started to sprinkle sugar on his eggs in place of salt. Kent laughed and stopped his hand. "You may sugar my eggs when I'm dead, Mercer," he said, "but while I'm alive I want salt on 'em! Do you know, old man, you look bad this morning. Is it because this is my last breakfast?" "I hope not, sir, I hope not," replied Mercer quickly. "Indeed, I hope you are going to live, sir." "Thanks!" said Kent dryly. "Where is Cardigan?" "The Inspector sent a messenger for him, sir. I think he has gone to see him. Are your eggs properly done, sir?" "Mercer, if you ever worked in a butler's pantry, for the love of heaven forget it now!" exploded Kent, "I want you to tell me something straight out. How long have I got?" Mercer fidgeted for a moment, and a shade or two more of the red went out of his face. "I can't say, sir. Doctor Cardigan hasn't told me. But I think not very long, sir. Doctor Cardigan is cut up all in rags this morning. And Father Layonne is coming to see you at any moment." "Much obliged," nodded Kent, calmly beginning his second egg. "And, by the way, what did you think of the young lady?" "Ripping, positively ripping!" exclaimed Mercer. "That's the word," agreed Kent. "Ripping. It sounds like the calico counter in a dry-goods store, but means a lot. Don't happen to know where she is staying or why she is at the Landing, do you?" He knew that he was asking a foolish question and scarcely expected an answer from Mercer. He was astonished when the other said: "I heard Doctor Cardigan ask her if we might expect her to honor us with another visit, and she told him it would be impossible, because she was leaving on a down-river scow tonight. Fort Simpson, I think she said she was going to, sir." "The deuce you say!" cried Kent, spilling a bit of his coffee in the thrill of the moment. "Why, that's where Staff-Sergeant O'Connor is bound for!" "So I heard Doctor Cardigan tell her. But she didn't reply to that. She just--went. If you don't mind a little joke in your present condition, sir, I might say that Doctor Cardigan was considerably flayed up over her. A deuced pretty girl, sir, deuced pretty! And I think he was shot through!" "Now you're human, Mercer. She was pretty, wasn't she?" "Er--yes--stunningly so, Mr. Kent," agreed Mercer, reddening suddenly to the roots of his pasty, blond hair. "I don't mind confessing that in this unusual place her appearance was quite upsetting." "I agree with you, friend Mercer," nodded Kent. "She upset me. And--see here, old man!--will you do a dying man the biggest favor he ever asked in his life?" "I should be most happy, sir, most happy." "It's this," said Kent. "I want to know if that girl actually leaves on the down-river scow tonight. If I'm alive tomorrow morning, will you tell me?" "I shall do my best, sir." "Good. It's simply the silly whim of a dying man, Mercer. But I want to be humored in it. And I'm sensitive--like yourself. I don't want Cardigan to know. There's an old Indian named Mooie, who lives in a shack just beyond the sawmill. Give him ten dollars and tell him there is another ten in it if he sees the business through, and reports properly to you, and keeps his mouth shut afterward. Here--the money is under my pillow." Kent pulled out a wallet and put fifty dollars in Mercer's hands. "Buy cigars with the rest of it, old man. It's of no more use to me. And this little trick you are going to pull off is worth it. It's my last fling on earth, you might say." "Thank you, sir. It is very kind of you." Mercer belonged to a class of wandering Englishmen typical of the Canadian West, the sort that sometimes made real Canadians wonder why a big and glorious country like their own should cling to the mother country. Ingratiating and obsequiously polite at all times, he gave one the impression of having had splendid training as a servant, yet had this intimation been made to him, he would have become highly indignant. Kent had learned their ways pretty well. He had met them in all sorts of places, for one of their inexplicable characteristics was the recklessness and apparent lack of judgment with which they located themselves. Mercer, for instance, should have held a petty clerical job of some kind in a city, and here he was acting as nurse in the heart of a wilderness! After Mercer had gone with the breakfast things and the money, Kent recalled a number of his species. And he knew that under their veneer of apparent servility was a thing of courage and daring which needed only the right kind of incentive to rouse it. And when roused, it was peculiarly efficient in a secretive, artful-dodger sort of way. It would not stand up before a gun. But it would creep under the mouths of guns on a black night. And Kent was positive his fifty dollars would bring him results--if he lived. Just why he wanted the information he was after, he could not have told himself. It was a pet aphorism between O'Connor and him that they had often traveled to success on the backs of their hunches. And his proposition to Mercer was made on the spur of one of those moments when the spirit of a hunch possessed him. His morning had been one of unexpected excitement, and now he leaned back in an effort to review it and to forget, if he could, the distressing thing that was bound to happen to him within the next few hours. But he could not get away from the thickening in his chest. It seemed growing on him. Now and then he was compelled to make quite an effort to get sufficient air into his lungs. He found himself wondering if there was a possibility that the girl might return. For a long time he lay thinking about her, and it struck him as incongruous and in bad taste that fate should have left this adventure for his last. If he had met her six months ago--or even three--it was probable that she would so have changed the events of life for him that he would not have got the half-breed's bullet in his chest. He confessed the thing unblushingly. The wilderness had taken the place of woman for him. It had claimed him, body and soul. He had desired nothing beyond its wild freedom and its never-ending games of chance. He had dreamed, as every man dreams, but realities and not the dreams had been the red pulse of his life. And yet, if this girl had come sooner-- He revisioned for himself over and over again her hair and eyes, the slimness of her as she had stood at the window, the freedom and strength of that slender body, the poise of her exquisite head, and he felt again the thrill of her hand and the still more wonderful thrill of her lips as she had pressed them warmly upon his. _And she was of the North_! That was the thought that overwhelmed him. He did not permit himself to believe that she might have told him an untruth. He was confident, if he lived until tomorrow, that Mercer would corroborate his faith in her. He had never heard of a place called the Valley of Silent Men, but it was a big country, and Fort Simpson with its Hudson Bay Company's post and its half-dozen shacks was a thousand miles away. He was not sure that such a place as that valley really existed. It was easier to believe that the girl's home was at Fort Providence, Fort Simpson, Fort Good Hope, or even at Fort McPherson. It was not difficult for him to picture her as the daughter of one of the factor lords of the North. Yet this, upon closer consideration, he gave up as unreasonable. The word "Fort" did not stand for population, and there were probably not more than fifty white people at all the posts between the Great Slave and the Arctic. She was not one of these, or the fact would have been known at the Landing. Neither could she be a riverman's daughter, for it was inconceivable that either a riverman or a trapper would have sent this girl down into civilization, where this girl had undoubtedly been. It was that point chiefly which puzzled Kent. She was not only beautiful. She had been tutored in schools that were not taught by wilderness missioners. In her, it seemed to him, he had seen the beauty and the wild freedom of the forests as they had come to him straight out of the heart of an ancient aristocracy that was born nearly two hundred years ago in the old cities of Quebec and Montreal. His mind flashed back at that thought: he remembered the time when he had sought out every nook and cranny of that ancient town of Quebec, and had stood over graves two centuries old, and deep in his soul had envied the dead the lives they had lived. He had always thought of Quebec as a rare old bit of time-yellowed lace among cities--the heart of the New World as it had once been, still beating, still whispering of its one-time power, still living in the memory of its mellowed romance, its almost forgotten tragedies--a ghost that lived, that still beat back defiantly the destroying modernism that would desecrate its sacred things. And it pleased him to think of Marette Radisson as the spirit of it, wandering north, and still farther north--even as the spirits of the profaned dead had risen from the Landing to go farther on. And feeling that the way had at last been made easy for him, Kent smiled out into the glorious day and whispered softly, as if she were standing there, listening to him: "If I had lived--I would have called you--my Quebec. It's pretty, that name. It stands for a lot. And so do you." And out in the hall, as Kent whispered those words, stood Father Layonne, with a face that was whiter than the mere presence of death had ever made it before. At his side stood Cardigan, aged ten years since he had placed his stethoscope at Kent's chest that morning. And behind these two were Kedsty, with a face like gray rock, and young Mercer, in whose staring eyes was the horror of a thing he could not yet quite comprehend. Cardigan made an effort to speak and failed. Kedsty wiped his forehead, as he had wiped it the morning of Kent's confession. And Father Layonne, as he went to Kent's door, was breathing softly to himself a prayer. CHAPTER VII 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. Probably _le père_ would 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. CHAPTER VIII 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 of _terra 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 heard _that_, 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. CHAPTER IX 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 words _she 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. CHAPTER X What a terrible and inexcusable madness had possessed him, Kent realized the instant he rose from Mercer's prostrate body. Never had his brain flamed to that madness before. He believed at first that he had killed Mercer. It was neither pity nor regret that brought him to his senses. Mercer, a coward and a traitor, a sneak of the lowest type, had no excuse for living. It was the thought that he had lost his chance to reach the river that cleared his head as he swayed over Mercer. He heard running feet. He saw figures approaching swiftly through the starlight. And he was too weak to fight or run. The little strength he had saved up, and which he had planned to use so carefully in his flight, was gone. His wound, weeks in bed, muscles unaccustomed to the terrific exertion he had made in these moments of his vengeance, left him now panting and swaying as the running footsteps came nearer. His head swam. For a space he was sickeningly dizzy, and in the first moment of that dizziness, when every drop of blood in his body seemed rushing to his brain, his vision was twisted and his sense of direction gone. In his rage he had overexerted himself. He knew that something had gone wrong inside him and that he was helpless. Even then his impulse was to stagger toward the inanimate Mercer and kick him, but hands caught him and held him. He heard an amazed voice, then another--and something hard and cold shut round his wrists like a pair of toothless jaws. It was Constable Carter, Inspector Kedsty's right-hand man about barracks, that he saw first; then old Sands, the caretaker at Cardigan's place. Swiftly as he had turned sick, his brain grew clear, and his blood distributed itself evenly again through his body. He held up his hands. Carter had slipped a pair of irons on him, and the starlight glinted on the shining steel. Sands was bending over Mercer, and Carter was saying in a low voice: "It's too bad, Kent. But I've got to do it. I saw you from the window just as Mercer screamed. Why did you stop for _him_?" Mercer was getting up with the assistance of Sands. He turned a bloated and unseeing face toward Kent and Carter. He was blubbering and moaning, as though entreating for mercy in the fear that Kent had not finished with him. Carter pulled Kent away. "There's only one thing for me to do now," he said. "It isn't pleasant. But the law says I must take you to barracks." In the sky Kent saw the stars clearly again, and his lungs were drinking in the cool air as in the wonderful moments before his encounter with Mercer. He had lost. And it was Mercer who had made him lose. Carter felt the sudden tightening of his muscles as he walked with a hand on his arm. And Kent shut his teeth close and made no answer to what Carter had said, except that Carter heard something which he thought was a sob choked to death in the other's throat. Carter, too, was a man bred of the red blood of the North, and he knew what was in Kent's heart. For only by the breadth of a hair had Kent failed in his flight. Pelly was on duty at barracks, and it was Pelly who locked him in one of the three cells behind the detachment office. When he was gone, Kent sat down on the edge of his prison cot and for the first time let the agony of his despair escape in a gasping breath from between his lips. Half an hour ago the world had reached out its arms to him, and he had gone forth to its welcome, only to have the grimmest tragedy of all his life descend upon him like the sword of Damocles. For this was real tragedy. Here there was no hope. The tentacles of the law had him in their grip, and he could no longer dream of escape. Ghastly was the thought that it was he, James Kent, who had supervised the building of these cells! Acquainted with every trick and stratagem of the prisoner plotting for his freedom, he had left no weak point in their structure. Again he clenched his hands, and in his soul he cursed Mercer as he went to the little barred window that overlooked the river from his cell. The river was near now. He could hear the murmur of it. He could see its movement, and that movement, played upon by the stars, seemed now a writhing sort of almost noiseless laughter taunting him in his folly. He went back to his cot, and in his despair buried his face in his hands. In the half-hour after that he did not raise his head. For the first time in his life he knew that he was beaten, so utterly beaten that he no more had the desire to fight, and his soul was dark with the chaos of the things he had lost. At last he opened his eyes to the blackness of his prison room, and he beheld a marvelous thing. Across the gloom of the cell lay a shaft of golden fire. It was the light of the rising moon coming through his little, steel-barred window. To Kent it had crept into his cell like a living thing. He watched it, fascinated. His eyes followed it to the foot-square aperture, and there, red and glorious as it rose over the forests, the moon itself filled the world. For a space he saw nothing but that moon crowding the frame of his window. And as he rose to his feet and stood where his face was flooded in the light of it, he felt stirring within him the ghosts of his old hopes. One by one they rose up and came to life. He held out his hands, as if to fill them with the liquid glow; his heart beat faster in that glory of the moonrise. The taunting murmur of the river changed once more into hopeful song, his fingers closed tightly around the bars, and the fighting spirit rose in him again. As that spirit surged stronger, beating down his despair, driving the chaos out of his brain, he watched the moon as it climbed higher, changing from the red of the lower atmosphere to the yellow gold of the greater heights, marveling at the miracle of light and color that had never failed to stir him. And then he laughed. If Pelly or Carter had heard him, they would have wondered if he was mad. It was madness of a sort--the madness of restored confidence, of an unlimited faith, of an optimism that was bound to make dreams come true. Again he looked beyond the bars of his cell. The world was still there; the river was there; all the things that were worth fighting for were there. And he would fight. Just how, he did not try to tell himself now. And then he laughed again, softly, a bit grimly, for he saw the melancholy humour of the fact that he had built his own prison. He sat down again on the edge of his cot, and the whimsical thought struck him that all those he had brought to this same cell, and who had paid the first of their penance here, must be laughing at him now in the spirit way. In his mental fancy a little army of faces trooped before him, faces dark and white, faces filled with hatred and despair, faces brave with the cheer of hope and faces pallid with the dread of death. And of these ghosts of his man-hunting prowess it was Anton Fournet's face that came out of the crowd and remained with him. For he had brought Anton to this same cell--Anton, the big Frenchman, with his black hair, his black beard, and his great, rolling laugh that even in the days when he was waiting for death had rattled the paper-weights on Kedsty's desk. Anton rose up like a god before Kent now. He had killed a man, and like a brave man he had not denied it. With a heart in his great body as gentle as a girl's, Anton had taken pride in the killing. In his prison days he sang songs to glorify it. He had killed the white man from Chippewyan who had stolen his neighbor's wife! Not _his_ wife, but his neighbor's! For Anton's creed was, "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you," and he had loved his neighbor with the great forest love of man for man. His neighbor was weak, and Anton was strong with the strength of a bull, so that when the hour came, it was Anton who had measured out vengeance. When Kent brought Anton in, the giant had laughed first at the littleness of his cell, then at the unsuspected strength of it, and after that he had laughed and sung great, roaring songs every day of the brief tenure of life that was given him. When he died, it was with the smiling glory in his face of one who had cheaply righted a great wrong. Kent would never forget Anton Fournet. He had never ceased to grieve that it had been his misfortune to bring Anton in, and always, in close moments, the thought of Anton, the stout-hearted, rallied him back to courage. Never would he be the man that Anton Fournet had been, he told himself many times. Never would his heart be as great or as big, though the Law had hanged Anton by the neck until the soul was choked out of his splendid body, for it was history that Anton Fournet had never harmed man, woman, or child until he set out to kill a human snake and the Law placed its heel upon him and crushed him. And tonight Anton Fournet came into the cell again and sat with Kent on the cot where he had slept many nights, and the ghosts of his laughter and his song filled Kent's ears, and his great courage poured itself out in the moonlit prison room so that at last, when Kent stretched himself on the cot to sleep, it was with the knowledge that the soul of the splendid dead had given him a strength which it was impossible to have gained from the living. For Anton Fournet had died smiling, laughing, singing--and it was of Anton Fournet that he dreamed when he fell asleep. And in that dream came also the vision of a man called Dirty Fingers--and with it inspiration. CHAPTER XI Where a bit of the big river curved inward like the tongue of a friendly dog, lapping the shore at Athabasca Landing, there still remained Fingers' Row--nine dilapidated, weather-worn, and crazily-built shacks put there by the eccentric genius who had foreseen a boom ten years ahead of its time. And the fifth of these nine, counting from either one end or the other, was named by its owner, Dirty Fingers himself, the Good Old Queen Bess. It was a shack covered with black tar paper, with two windows, like square eyes, fronting the river as if always on the watch for something. Across the front of this shack Dirty Fingers had built a porch to protect himself from the rain in springtime, from the sun in Summer time, and from the snow in the months of Winter. For it was here that Dirty Fingers sat out all of that part of his life which was not spent in bed. Up and down two thousand miles of the Three Rivers was Dirty Fingers known, and there were superstitious ones who believed that little gods and devils came to sit and commune with him in the front of the tar-papered shack. No one was so wise along those rivers, no one was so satisfied with himself, that he would not have given much to possess the many things that were hidden away in Dirty Fingers' brain. One would not have suspected the workings of that brain by a look at Dirty Fingers on the porch of his Good Old Queen Bess. He was a great soft lump of a man, a giant of flabbiness. Sitting in his smooth-worn, wooden armchair, he was almost formless. His head was huge, his hair uncut and scraggy, his face smooth as a baby's, fat as a cherub's, and as expressionless as an apple. His folded arms always rested on a huge stomach, whose conspicuousness was increased by an enormous watch-chain made from beaten nuggets of Klondike gold, and Dirty Fingers' thumb and forefinger were always twiddling at this chain. How he had come by the name of Dirty Fingers, when his right name was Alexander Toppet Fingers, no one could definitely say, unless it was that he always bore an unkempt and unwashed appearance. Whatever the quality of the two hundred and forty-odd pounds of flesh in Dirty Fingers' body, it was the quality of his brain that made people hold him in a sort of awe. For Dirty Fingers was a lawyer, a wilderness lawyer, a forest bencher, a legal strategist of the trail, of the river, of the great timber-lands. Stored away in his brain was every rule of equity and common law of the great North country. For his knowledge he went back two hundred years. He knew that a law did not die of age, that it must be legislated to death, and out of the moldering past he had dug up every trick and trap of his trade. He had no law-books. His library was in his head, and his facts were marshaled in pile after pile of closely-written, dust-covered papers in his shack. He did not go to court as other lawyers; and there were barristers in Edmonton who blessed him for that. His shack was his tabernacle of justice. There he sat, hands folded, and gave out his decisions, his advice, his sentences. He sat until other men would have gone mad. From morning until night, moving only for his meals or to get out of heat or storm, he was a fixture on the porch of the Good Old Queen Bess. For hours he would stare at the river, his pale eyes never seeming to blink. For hours he would remain without a move or a word. One constant companion he had, a dog, fat, emotionless, lazy, like his master. Always this dog was sleeping at his feet or dragging himself wearily at his heels when Dirty Fingers elected to make a journey to the little store where he bartered for food and necessities. It was Father Layonne who came first to see Kent in his cell the morning after Kent's unsuccessful attempt at flight. An hour later it was Father Layonne who traveled the beaten path to the door of Dirty Fingers' shack. If a visible emotion of pleasure ever entered into Dirty Fingers' face, it was when the little missioner came occasionally to see him. It was then that his tongue let itself loose, and until late at night they talked of many things of which other men knew but little. This morning Father Layonne did not come casually, but determinedly on business, and when Dirty Fingers learned what that business was, he shook his head disconsolately, folded his fat arms more tightly over his stomach, and stated the sheer impossibility of his going to see Kent. It was not his custom. People must come to him. And he did not like to walk. It was fully a third of a mile from his shack to barracks, possibly half a mile. And it was mostly upgrade! If Kent could be brought to him-- In his cell Kent waited. It was not difficult for him to hear voices in Kedsty's office when the door was open, and he knew that the Inspector did not come in until after the missioner had gone on his mission to Dirty Fingers. Usually he was at the barracks an hour or so earlier. Kent made no effort to figure out a reason for Kedsty's lateness, but he did observe that after his arrival there was more than the usual movement between the office door and the outside of the barracks. Once he was positive that he heard Cardigan's voice, and then he was equally sure that he heard Mercer's. He grinned at that. He must be wrong, for Mercer would be in no condition to talk for several days. He was glad that a turn in the hall hid the door of the detachment office from him, and that the three cells were in an alcove, safely out of sight of the curious eyes of visitors. He was also glad that he had no other prisoner for company. His situation was one in which he wanted to be alone. To the plan that was forming itself in his mind, solitude was as vital as the cooperation of Alexander Toppet Fingers. Just how far he could win that cooperation was the problem which confronted him now, and he waited anxiously for the return of Father Layonne, listening for the sound of his footsteps in the outer hall. If, after all, that inspirational thought of last night came to nothing, if Fingers should fail him-- He shrugged his shoulders. If that happened, he could see no other chance. He would have to go on and take his medicine at the hands of a jury. But if Fingers played up to the game-- He looked out on the river again, and again it was the river that seemed to answer him. If Fingers played with him, they would beat Kedsty and the whole of N Division! And in winning he would prove out the greatest psychological experiment he had ever dared to make. The magnitude of the thing, when he stopped to think of it, was a little appalling, but his faith was equally large. He did not consider his philosophy at all supernatural. He had brought it down to the level of the average man and woman. He believed that every man and woman possessed a subliminal consciousness which it was possible to rouse to tremendous heights if the right psychological key was found to fit its particular lock, and he believed he possessed the key which fitted the deeply-buried and long-hidden thing in Dirty Fingers' remarkable brain. Because he believed in this metaphysics which he had not read out of Aristotle, he had faith that Fingers would prove his salvation. He felt growing in him stronger than ever a strange kind of elation. He felt better physically than last night. The few minutes of strenuous action in which he had half killed Mercer had been a pretty good test, he told himself. It had left no bad effect, and he need no longer fear the reopening of his wound. A dozen times he had heard a far door open and close. Now he heard it again, and a few moments later it was followed by a sound which drew a low cry of satisfaction from him. Dirty Fingers, because of overweight and lack of exercise, had what he called an "asthmatic wind," and it was this strenuous working of his lungs that announced his approach to Kent. His dog was also afflicted and for the same reasons, so that when they traveled together there was some rivalry between them. "We're both bad put out for wind, thank God," Dirty Fingers would say sometimes. "It's a good thing, for if we had more of it, we'd walk farther, and we don't like walking." The dog was with Fingers now, also Father Layonne, and Pelly. Pelly unlocked the cell, then relocked it again after Fingers and the dog entered. With a nod and a hopeful look the missioner returned with Pelly to the detachment office. Fingers wiped his red face with a big handkerchief, gasping deeply for breath. Togs, his dog, was panting as if he had just finished the race of his life. "A difficult climb," wheezed Fingers. "A most difficult climb." He sat down, rolling out like a great bag of jelly in the one chair in the cell, and began to fan himself with his hat. Kent had already taken stock of the situation. In Fingers' florid countenance and in his almost colorless eyes he detected a bit of excitement which Fingers was trying to hide. Kent knew what it meant. Father Layonne had found it necessary to play his full hand to lure Fingers up the hill, and had given him a hint of what it was that Kent had in store for him. Already the psychological key had begun to work. Kent sat down on the edge of his cot and grinned sympathetically. "It hasn't always been like this, has it, Fingers?" he said then, leaning a bit forward and speaking with a sudden, low-voiced seriousness. "There was a time, twenty years ago, when you didn't puff after climbing a hill. Twenty years make a big difference, sometimes." "Yes, sometimes," agreed Fingers in a wheezy whisper. "Twenty years ago you were--a fighter." It seemed to Kent that a deeper color came into Dirty Fingers' pale eyes in the few seconds that followed these words. "A fighter," he repeated. "Most men were fighters in those days of the gold rushes, weren't they, Fingers? I've heard a lot of the old stories about them in my wanderings, and some of them have made me thrill. They weren't afraid to die. And most of them were pretty white when it came to a show-down. You were one of them, Fingers. I heard the story one Winter far north. I've kept it to myself, because I've sort of had the idea that you didn't want people to know or you would have told it yourself. That's why I wanted you to come to see me, Fingers. You know the situation. It's either the noose or iron bars for me. Naturally one would seek for assistance among those who have been his friends. But I do not, with the exception of Father Layonne. Just friendship won't save me, not the sort of friendship we have today. That's why I sent for you. Don't think that I am prying into secrets that are sacred to you, Fingers. God knows I don't mean it that way. But I've got to tell you of a thing that happened a long time ago, before you can understand. You haven't forgotten--you will never forget--Ben Tatman?" As Kent spoke the name, a name which Dirty Fingers had heard no lips but his own speak aloud in nearly a quarter of a century, a strange and potent force seemed suddenly to take possession of the forest bencher's huge and flabby body. It rippled over and through him like an electrical voltaism, making his body rigid, stiffening what had seemed to be fat into muscle, tensing his hands until they knotted themselves slowly into fists. The wheeze went out of his breath, and it was the voice of another man who answered Kent. "You have heard--about--Ben Tatman?" "Yes. I heard it away up in the Porcupine country. They say it happened twenty years ago or more. This Tatman, so I was told, was a young fellow green from San Francisco--a bank clerk, I think--who came into the gold country and brought his wife with him. They were both chuck-full of courage, and the story was that each worshiped the ground the other walked on, and that the girl had insisted on being her husband's comrade in adventure. Of course neither guessed the sort of thing that was ahead of them. "Then came that death Winter in Lost City. You know better than I what the laws were in those days, Fingers. Food failed to come up. Snow came early, the thermometer never rose over fifty below zero for three straight months, and Lost City was an inferno of starvation and death. You could go out and kill a man, then, and perhaps get away with it, Fingers. But if you stole so much as a crust of bread or a single bean, you were taken to the edge of the camp and told to go! And that meant certain death--death from hunger and cold, more terrible than shooting or hanging, and for that reason it was the penalty for theft. "Tatman wasn't a thief. It was seeing his young wife slowly dying of hunger, and his horror at the thought of seeing her fall, as others were falling, a victim to scurvy, that made him steal. He broke into a cabin in the dead of night and stole two cans of beans and a pan of potatoes, more precious than a thousand times their weight in gold. And he was caught. Of course, there was the wife. But those were the days when a woman couldn't save a man, no matter how lovely she was. Tatman was taken to the edge of camp and given his pack and his gun--but no food. And the girl, hooded and booted, was at his side, for she was determined to die with him. For her sake Tatman had lied up to the last minute, protesting his innocence. "But the beans and the potatoes were found in his cabin, and that was evidence enough. And then, just as they were about to go straight out into the blizzard that meant death within a few hours, then--" Kent rose to his feet, and walked to the little window, and stood there, looking out. "Fingers, now and then a superman is born on earth. And a superman was there in that crowd of hunger-stricken and embittered men. At the last moment he stepped out and in a loud voice declared that Tatman was innocent and that he was guilty. Unafraid, he made a remarkable confession. He had stolen the beans and the potatoes and had slipped them into the Tatman cabin when they were asleep. Why? Because he wanted to save the woman from hunger! Yes, he lied, Fingers. He lied because he loved the wife that belonged to another man--lied because in him there was a heart as true as any heart God ever made. He lied! And his lie was a splendid thing. He went out into that blizzard, strengthened by a love that was greater than his fear of death, and the camp never heard of him again. Tatman and his wife returned to their cabin and lived. Fingers--" Kent whirled suddenly from the window. "Fingers--" And Fingers, like a sphynx, sat and stared at Kent. "You were that man," Kent went on, coming nearer to him. "You lied, because you loved a woman, and you went out to face death because of that woman. The men at Lost City didn't know it, Fingers. The husband didn't know it. And the girl, that girl-wife you worshiped in secret, didn't dream of it! But that was the truth, and you know it deep down in your soul. You fought your way out. You lived! And all these years, down here on your porch, you've been dreaming of a woman, of the girl you were willing to die for a long time ago. Fingers, am I right? And if I am, will you shake hands?" Slowly Fingers had risen from his chair. No longer were his eyes dull and lifeless, but flaming with a fire that Kent had lighted again after many years. And he reached out a hand and gripped Kent's, still staring at him as though something had come back to him from the dead. "I thank you, Kent, for your opinion of that man," he said. "Somehow, you haven't made me--ashamed. But it was only the shell of a man that won out after that day when I took Tatman's place. Something happened. I don't know what. But--you see me now. I never went back into the diggings. I degenerated. I became what I am." "And you are today just what you were when you went out to die for Mary Tatman," cried Kent. "The same heart and the same soul are in you. Wouldn't you fight again today for her?" A stifled cry came from Fingers' lips. "My God, yes, Kent--I would!" "And that's why I wanted you, of all men, to come to me, Fingers," Kent went on swiftly. "To you, of all the men on earth, I wanted to tell my story. And now, will you listen to it? Will you forgive me for bringing up this memory that must be precious to you, only that you might more fully understand what I am going to say? I don't want you to think of it as a subterfuge on my part. It is more than that. It is--Fingers, is it inspiration? Listen, and tell me." And for a long time after that James Kent talked, and Fingers listened, the soul within him writhing and dragging itself back into fierce life, demanding for the first time in many years the something which it had once possessed, but which it had lost. It was not the lazy, mysterious, silent Dirty Fingers who sat in the cell with Kent. In him the spirit of twenty years ago had roused itself from long slumber, and the thrill of it pounded in his blood. Two-Fisted Fingers they had called him then, and he was Two-Fisted Fingers in this hour with Kent. Twice Father Layonne came to the head of the cell alcove, but turned back when he heard the low and steady murmur of Kent's voice. Nothing did Kent keep hidden, and when he had finished, something that was like the fire of a revelation had come into Fingers' face. "My God!" he breathed deeply. "Kent, I've been sitting down there on my porch a long time, and a good many strange things have come to me, but never anything like this. Oh, if it wasn't for this accursed flesh of mine!" He jumped from his chair more quickly than he had moved in ten years, and he laughed as he had not laughed in all that time. He thrust out a great arm and doubled it up, like a prizefighter testing his muscle. "Old? I'm not old! I was only twenty-eight when that happened up there, and I'm forty-eight now. That isn't old. It's what is in me that's grown old. I'll do it, Kent! I'll do it, if I hang for it!" Kent fairly leaped upon him. "God bless you!" he cried huskily. "God bless you, Fingers! Look! Look at that!" He pulled Fingers to the little window, and together they looked out upon the river, shimmering gloriously under a sun-filled sky of blue. "Two thousand miles of it," he breathed. "Two thousand miles of it, running straight through the heart of that world we both have known! No, you're not old, Fingers. The things you used to know are calling you again, as they are calling me, for somewhere off there are the ghosts of Lost City, ghosts--and realities!" "Ghosts--and hopes," said Fingers. "Hopes make life," softly whispered Kent, as if to himself. And then, without turning from the window, his hand found Fingers' and clasped it tight. "It may be that mine, like yours, will never come true. But they're fine to think about, Fingers. Funny, isn't it, that their names should be so strangely alike--Mary and Marette? I say, Fingers--" Heavy footsteps sounded in the hall. Both turned from the window as Constable Pelly came to the door of the cell. They recognized this intimation that their time was up, and with his foot Fingers roused his sleeping dog. It was a new Fingers who walked back to the river five minutes later, and it was an amazed and discomfited dog who followed at his heels, for at times the misshapen and flesh-ridden Togs was compelled to trot for a few steps to keep up. And Fingers did not sink into the chair on the shady porch when he reached his shack. He threw off his coat and waistcoat and rolled up his sleeves, and for hours after that he was buried deep in the accumulated masses of dust-covered legal treasures stored away in hidden corners of the Good Old Queen Bess. CHAPTER XII That morning Kent had heard wild songs floating up from the river, and now he felt like shouting forth his own joy and exultation in song. He wondered if he could hide the truth from the eyes of others, and especially from Kedsty if he came to see him. It seemed that some glimmer of the hope blazing within him must surely reveal itself, no matter how he tried to hold it back. He felt the vital forces of that hope more powerful within him now than in the hour when he had crept from the hospital window with freedom in his face. For then he was not sure of himself. He had not tested his physical strength. And in the present moment, fanned by his unbounded optimism, the thought came to him that perhaps it was good luck and not bad that had thrown Mercer in his way. For with Fingers behind him now, his chances for a clean get-away were better. He would not be taking a hazardous leap chanced on the immediate smiles of fortune. He would be going deliberately, prepared. He blessed the man who had been known as Dirty Fingers, but whom he could not think of now in the terms of that name. He blessed the day he had heard that chance story of Fingers, far north. He no longer regarded him as the fat pig of a man he had been for so many years. For he looked upon the miracle of a great awakening. He had seen the soul of Fingers lift itself up out of its tabernacle of flesh and grow young again; he had seen stagnant blood race with new fire. He had seen emotions roused that had slept for long years. And he felt toward Fingers, in the face of that awakening, differently than he had felt toward any other living man. His emotion was one of deep and embracing comradeship. Father Layonne did not come again until afternoon, and then he brought information that thrilled Kent. The missioner had walked down to see Fingers, and Fingers was not on his porch. Neither was the dog. He had knocked loudly on the door, but there was no answer. Where was Fingers? Kent shook his head, feigning an anxious questioning, but inside him his heart was leaping. He knew! He told Father Layonne he was afraid all Fingers' knowledge of the law could do him but little good, that Fingers had told him as much, and the little missioner went away considerably depressed. He would talk with Fingers again, he said, and offer certain suggestions he had in mind. Kent chuckled when he was gone. How shocked _le Pere_ would be if he, too, could know! The next morning Father Layonne came again, and his information was even more thrilling to Kent. The missioner was displeased with Fingers. Last night, noticing a light in his shack, he had walked down to see him. And he had found three men closely drawn up about a table with Dirty Fingers. One of them was Ponte, the half-breed; another was Kinoo the outcast Dog Rib from over on Sand Creek; the third was Mooie, the old Indian trailer. Kent wanted to jump up and shout, for those three were the three greatest trailers in all that part of the Northland. Fingers had lost no time, and he wanted to voice his approbation like a small boy on the Fourth of July. But his face, seen by Father Layonne, betrayed none of the excitement that was in his blood. Fingers had told him he was going into a timber deal with these men, a long-distance deal where there would be much traveling, and that he could not interrupt himself just then to talk about Kent. Would Father Layonne come again in the morning? And he had gone again that morning, and Fingers' place was locked up! All the rest of the day Kent waited eagerly for Fingers. For the first time Kedsty came to see him, and as a matter of courtesy said he hoped Fingers might be of assistance to him. He did not mention Mercer and remained no longer than a couple of minutes, standing outside the cell. In the afternoon Doctor Cardigan came and shook hands warmly with Kent. He had found a tough job waiting for him, he said. Mercer was all cut up, in a literal as well as a mental way. He had five teeth missing, and he had to have seventeen stitches taken in his face. It was Cardigan's opinion that some one had given him a considerable beating--and he grinned at Kent. Then he added in a whisper, "My God, Kent, how I wish you had made it!" It was four o'clock when Fingers came. Even less than yesterday did he look like the old Fingers. He was not wheezing. He seemed to have lost flesh. His face was alive. That was what struck Kent--the new life in it. There was color in his eyes. And Togs, the dog, was not with him. He smiled when he shook hands with Kent, and nodded, and chuckled. And Kent, after that, gripped him by the shoulders and shook him in his silent joy. "I was up all last night," said Fingers in a low voice. "I don't dare move much in the day, or people will wonder. But, God bless my soul!--I did move last night, Kent. I must have walked ten miles, more or less. And things are coming--coming!" "And Ponte, Kinoo, Mooie--?" "Are working like devils," whispered Fingers. "It's the only way, Kent. I've gone through all my law, and there's nothing in man-made law that can save you. I've read your confession, and I don't think you could even get off with the penitentiary. A noose is already tied around your neck. I think you'd hang. We've simply got to get you out some other way. I've had a talk with Kedsty. He has made arrangements to have you sent to Edmonton two weeks from tomorrow. We'll need all that time, but it's enough." For three days thereafter Fingers came to Kent's cell each afternoon, and each time was looking better. Something was swiftly putting hardness into his flesh and form into his body. The second day he told Kent that he had found the way at last, and that when the hour came, escape would be easy, but he thought it best not to let Kent in on the little secret just yet. He must be patient and have faith. That was the chief thing, to have faith at all times, no matter what happened. Several times he emphasized that "no matter what happens." The third day he puzzled Kent. He was restless, a bit nervous. He still thought it best not to tell Kent what his scheme was, until to-morrow. He was in the cell not more than five or ten minutes, and there was an unusual pressure in the grip of his hand when he bade Kent good-by. Somehow Kent did not feel so well when he had gone. He waited impatiently for the next day. It came, and hour after hour he listened for Fingers' heavy tread in the hall. The morning passed. The afternoon lengthened. Night came, and Fingers had not come. Kent did not sleep much between the hour when he went to bed and morning. It was eleven o'clock when the missioner made his call. Before he left, Kent gave him a brief note for Fingers. He had just finished his dinner, and Carter had taken the dishes away, when Father Layonne returned. A look at his face, and Kent knew that he bore unpleasant tidings. "Fingers is an--an apostate," he said, his lips twitching as if to keep back a denunciation still more emphatic. "He was sitting on his porch again this morning, half asleep, and says that after a great deal of thought he has come to the definite opinion that he can do nothing for you. He read your note and burned it with a match. He asked me to tell you that the scheme he had in mind was too risky--for him. He says he won't come up again. And--" The missioner was rubbing his brown, knotted hands together raspingly. "Go on," said Kent a little thickly. "He has also sent Inspector Kedsty the same word," finished Father Layonne. "His word to Kedsty is that he can see no fighting chance for you, and that it is useless effort on his part to put up a defense for you. Jimmy!" His hand touched Kent's arm gently. Kent's face was white. He faced the window, and for a space he did not see. Then with pencil and paper he wrote again to Fingers. It was late in the afternoon before Father Layonne returned with an answer. Again it was verbal. Fingers had read his note and had burned it with a match. He was particular that the last scrap of it was turned into ash, the missioner said. And he had nothing to say to Kent that he had not previously said. He simply could not go on with their plans. And he requested Kent not to write to him again. He was sorry, but that was his definite stand in the matter. Even then Kent could not bring himself to believe. All the rest of the day he tried to put himself in Fingers' brain, but his old trick of losing his personality in that of another failed him this time. He could find no reason for the sudden change in Fingers, unless it was what Fingers had frankly confessed to Father Layonne--fear. The influence of mind, in this instance, had failed in its assault upon a mass of matter. Fingers' nerve had gone back on him. The fifth day Kent rose from his cot with hope still not quite dead in his heart. But that day passed and the sixth, and the missioner brought word that Fingers was the old Dirty Fingers again, sitting from morning till night on his porch. On the seventh day came the final crash to Kent's hopes. Kedsty's program had changed. He, Kent, was to start for Edmonton the following morning under charge of Pelly and a special constable! After this Kent felt a strange change come over him. Years seemed to multiply themselves in his body. His mind, beaten back, no longer continued in its old channels of thought. The thing pressed upon him now as fatalistic. Fingers had failed him. Fortune had failed him. Everything had failed, and for the first time in the weeks of his struggle against death and a thing worse than death, he cursed himself. There was a limit to optimism and a limit to hope. His limit was reached. In the afternoon of this seventh day came a depressing gloom. It was filled with a drizzling rain. Hour after hour this drizzle kept up, thickening as the night came. He ate his supper by the light of a cell lamp. By eight o'clock it was black outside. In that blackness there was an occasional flash of lightning and rumble of thunder. On the roof of the barracks the rain beat steadily and monotonously. His watch was in his hand--it was a quarter after nine o'clock, when he heard the door at the far exit of the hall open and close. He had heard it a dozen times since supper and paid no attention to it, but this time it was followed by a voice at the detachment office that hit him like an electrical shock. Then, a moment later, came low laughter. It was a woman who laughed. He stood up. He heard the detachment office door close, and silence followed. The watch in his hand seemed ticking off the seconds with frantic noise. He shoved it into his pocket and stood staring out into the prison alcove. A few minutes later the office door opened again. This time it was not closed. He heard distinctly a few light, hesitating footsteps, and his heart seemed to stop its beating. They came to the head of the lighted alcove, and for perhaps the space of a dozen seconds there was silence again. Then they advanced. Another moment, and Kent was staring through the bars into the glorious eyes of Marette Radisson! CHAPTER XIII In that moment Kent did not speak. He made no sound. He gave no sign of welcome, but stood in the middle of his cell, staring. If life had hung upon speech in those few seconds, he would have died, but everything he would have said, and more, was in his face. The girl must have seen it. With her two hands she was gripping at the bars of the cell and looking through at him. Kent saw that her face was pale in the lamp glow. In that pallor her violet eyes were like pools of black. The hood of her dripping raincoat was thrown partly back, and against the whiteness of her cheeks her hair glistened wet, and her long lashes were heavy with the rain. Kent, without moving over the narrow space between them, reached out his hands and found his voice. "Marette!" Her hands had tightened about the bars until they were bloodless. Her lips were parted. She was breathing quickly, but she did not smile; she made no response to his greeting, gave no sign even of recognition. What happened after that was so sudden and amazing that his heart stopped dead still. Without warning she stepped back from the cell and began to scream and then drew away from him, still facing him and still screaming, as if something had terrified her. Kent heard the crash of a chair in the detachment office, excited voices, and the running of feet. Marette Radisson had withdrawn to the far corner of the alcove, and as Carter and Pelly ran toward her, she stood, a picture of horror, pointing at Kent's cell. The two constables rushed past her. Close behind them followed the special officer detailed to take Kent to Edmonton. Kent had not moved. He was like one petrified. Close up against the bars came the faces of Pelly, Carter, and the special constable, filled with the expressions of men who had expected to look in upon tragedy. And then, behind their backs, Kent saw the other thing happen. Swift as a flash Marette Radisson's hand went in and out of her raincoat, and at the backs of the three men she was leveling a revolver! Not only did Kent see that swift change, but the still swifter change that came into her face. Her eyes shot to his just once, and they were filled with a laughing, exultant fire. With one mighty throb Kent's heart seemed to leap out through the bars of his prison, and at the look in his face and eyes Carter swung suddenly around. "Please don't make any disturbance, gentlemen," said Marette Radisson. "The first man that makes a suspicious move, I shall kill!" Her voice was calm and thrilling. It had a deadly ring in it. The revolver in her hand was held steadily. It was a slim-barreled, black thing. The very color of it was menacing. And behind it were the girl's eyes, pools of flame. The three men were facing them now, shocked to speechlessness. Automatically they seemed to obey her command to throw up their hands. Then she leveled her grim little gun straight at Pelly's heart. "You have the key," she said. "Unlock the cell!" Felly fumbled and produced the key. She watched him closely. Then suddenly the special constable dropped his arms with a coarse laugh. "A pretty trick," he said, "but the bluff won't work!" "Oh, but it will!" came the reply. The little black gun was shifted to him, even as the constable's fingers touched his revolver holster. With half-smiling lips, Marette's eyes blazed at him. "Please put up your hands," she commanded. The constable hesitated; then his fingers gripped the butt of his gun. Kent, holding his breath, saw the almost imperceptible tensing of Marette's body and the wavering of Pelly's arms over his head. Another moment and he, too, would have called the bluff if it were that. But that moment did not come. From the slim, black barrel of the girl's revolver leaped forth a sudden spurt of smoke and flame, and the special constable lurched back against the cell bars, caught himself as he half fell, and then stood with his pistol arm hanging limp and useless at his side. He had not made a sound, but his face was twisted in pain. "Open the cell door!" A second time the deadly-looking little gun was pointed straight at Pelly's heart. The half-smile was gone from the girl's lips now. Her eyes blazed a deeper fire. She was breathing quickly, and she leaned a little toward Pelly, repeating her command. The words were partly drowned in a sudden crash of thunder. But Pelly understood. He saw her lips form the words, and half heard, "Open the door, or I shall kill you!" He no longer hesitated. The key grated in the lock, and Kent himself flung the door wide open and sprang out. He was quick to see and seize upon opportunity and swift to act. The astounding audacity of the girl's ruse, her clever acting in feigning horror to line the guards up at the cell door and the thrilling decisiveness with which she had used the little black gun in her hand set every drop of blood in his body afire. No sooner was he outside his cell than he was the old Jim Kent, fighting man. He whipped Carter's automatic out of its holster and, covering Pelly and the special constable, relieved them of their guns. Behind him he heard Marette's voice, calm and triumphant, "Lock them in the cell, Mr. Kent!" He did not look at her, but swung his gun on Pelly and the special constable, and they backed through the door into the cell. Carter had not moved. He was looking straight at the girl, and the little black gun was leveled at his breast. Pelly and the wounded man did not see, but on Carter's lips was a strange smile. His eyes met Kent's, and there was revealed for an instant a silent flash of comradeship and an unmistakable something else. Carter was glad! It made Kent want to reach out and grip his hand, but in place of that he backed him into the cell, turned the key in the lock, and with the key in his hand faced Marette Radisson. Her eyes were shining gloriously. He had never seen such splendid, fighting eyes, nor the birdlike swiftness with which she turned and ran down the hall, calling him to follow her. He was only a step behind her in passing Kedsty's office. She reached the outer door and opened it. It was pitch-dark outside, and a deluge of rain beat into their faces. He observed that she did not replace the hood of her raincoat when she darted out. As he closed the door, her hand groped to his arm and from that found his hand. Her fingers clung to his tightly. He did not ask questions as they faced the black chaos of rain. A rending streak of lightning revealed her for an instant, her bare head bowed to the wind. Then came a crash of thunder that shook the earth under their feet, and her fingers closed more tightly about his hand. And in that crash he heard her voice, half laughing, half broken, saying, "I'm afraid--of thunder!" In that storm his laugh rang out, a great, free, joyous laugh. He wanted to stop in that instant, sweep her up into his arms, and carry her. He wanted to shout like an insane man in his mad joy. And a moment before she had risked everything in facing three of the bravest men in the service and had shot one of them! He started to say something, but she increased her speed until she was almost running. She was not leading Jim in the direction of the river, but toward the forest beyond Kedsty's bungalow. Not for an instant did she falter in that drenched and impenetrable darkness. There was something imperative in the clasp of her fingers, even though they tightened perceptibly when the thunder crashed. They gave Kent the conviction that there was no doubt in her mind as to the point she was striving for. He took advantage of the lightning, for each time it gave him a glimpse of her bare, wet head bowed to the storm, her white profile, and her slim figure fighting over the sticky earth under her feet. It was this presence of her, and not the thought of escape, that exalted him now. She was at his side. Her hand lay close in his. The lightning gave him glimpses of her. He felt the touch of her shoulder, her arm, her body, as they drew close together. The life and warmth and thrill of her seemed to leap into his own veins through the hand he held. He had dreamed of her. And now suddenly she had become a part of him, and the glory of it rode overwhelmingly over all other emotions that were struggling in his brain--the glory of the thought that it was she who had come to him in the last moment, who had saved him, and who was now leading him to freedom through the crash of storm. At the crest of a low knoll between barracks and Kedsty's bungalow she stopped for the first time. He had there, again, the almost irresistible impulse to reach out in the darkness and take her into his arms, crying out to her of his joy, of a happiness that had come to him greater even than the happiness of freedom. But he stood, holding her hand, his tongue speechless, and he was looking at her when the lightning revealed her again. In a rending flash it cut open the night so close that the hiss of it was like the passing of a giant rocket, and involuntarily she shrank against him, and her free hand caught his arm at the instant thunder crashed low over their heads. His own hand groped out, and in the blackness it touched for an instant her wet face and then her drenched hair. "Marette," he cried, "where are we going?" "Down there," came her voice. Her hand had left his arm, and he sensed that she was pointing, though he could not see. Ahead of them was a chaotic pit of gloom, a sea of blackness, and in the heart of that sea he saw a light. He knew that it was a lamp in one of Kedsty's windows and that Marette was guiding herself by that light when she started down the slope with her hand still in his. That she had made no effort to withdraw it made him unconscious of the almost drowning discomfort of the fresh deluge of rain that beat their faces. One of her fingers had gripped itself convulsively about his thumb, like a child afraid of falling. And each time the thunder crashed that soft hold on his thumb tightened, and Kent's soul acclaimed. They drew swiftly nearer to the light, for it was not far from the knoll to Kedsty's place. Kent's mind leaped ahead. A little west by north from the inspector's bungalow was Kim's Bayou and it was undoubtedly to the forest trail over which she had gone at least once before, on the night of the mysterious assault upon Mooie, that Marette was leading him. Questions began to rush upon him now, immediate demanding questions. They were going to the river. They must be going to the river. It was the quickest and surest way of escape. Had Marette prepared for that? And was she going with him? He had no time to answer. Their feet struck the gravel path leading to the door of Kedsty's place, and straight up this path the girl turned, straight toward the light blazing in the window. Then, to his amazement, he heard in the sweep of storm her voice crying out in glad triumph, "We're home!" Home! His breath came in a sudden gulp. He was more than astounded. He was shocked. Was she mad or playing an amazingly improper joke? She had freed him from a cell to lead him to the home of the Inspector of Police, the deadliest enemy the world now held for him. He stopped, and Marette Radisson tugged at his hand, pulling him after her, insisting that he follow. She was clutching his thumb as though she thought he might attempt to escape. "It is safe, M'sieu Jeems," she cried. "Don't be afraid!" M'sieu Jeems! And the laughing note of mockery in her voice! He rallied himself and followed her up the three steps to the door. Her hand found the latch, the door opened, and swiftly they were inside. The lamp in the window was close to them, but for a space he could not see because of the water in his eyes. He blinked it out, drew a hand across his face, and looked at Marette. She stood three or four paces from him. Her face was very white, and she was panting as if hard-run for breath, but her eyes were shining, and she was smiling at him. The water was running from her in streams. "You are wet," she said. "And I am afraid you will catch cold. Come with me!" Again she was making fun of him just as she had made fun of him at Cardigan's! She turned, and he ran upstairs behind her. At the top she waited for him, and as he came up, she reached out her hand, as if apologizing for having taken it from him when they entered the bungalow. He held it again as she led him down the hall to a door farthest from the stair. This she opened, and they entered. It was dark inside, and the girl withdrew her hand again, and Kent heard her moving across the room. In that darkness a new and thrilling emotion possessed him. The air he was breathing was not the air he had breathed in the hall. In it was the sweet scent of flowers, and of something else--the faint and intangible perfume of a woman's room. He waited, staring. His eyes were wide when a match leaped into flame in Marette's fingers. Then he stood in the glow of a lamp. He continued to stare in the stupidity of a shock to which he was not accustomed. Marette, as if to give him time to acquaint himself with his environment, was taking off her raincoat. Under it her slim little figure was dry, except where the water had run down from her uncovered head to her shoulders. He noticed that she wore a short skirt, and boots, adorably small boots of splendidly worked caribou. And then suddenly she came toward him with both hands reaching out to him. "Please shake hands and say you're glad," she said. "Don't look so--so--frightened. This is my room and you are safe here." He held her hands tight, staring into the wonderful, violet eyes that were looking at him with the frank and unembarrassed directness of a child's. "I--I don't understand," he struggled. "Marette, where is Kedsty?" "He should be returning very soon." "And he knows you are here, of course?" She nodded. "I have been here for a month." Kent's hands closed tighter about hers. "I--I don't understand," he repeated. "Tonight Kedsty will know that it was you who rescued me and you who shot Constable Willis. Good God, we must lose no time in getting away!" "There is great reason why Kedsty dare not betray my presence in his house," she said quietly. "He would die first! And he will not suspect that I have brought you to my room, that an escaped murderer is hiding under the very roof of the Inspector of Police! They will search for you everywhere but here! Isn't it splendid? He planned it all, every move, even to the screaming in front of your cell--" "You mean--Kedsty?" She withdrew her hands and stepped back from him, and again he saw in her eyes a flash of the fire that had come into them when she leveled her gun at the three men in the prison alcove. "No, not Kedsty. He would hang you, and he would kill me, if he dared. I mean that great, big, funny-looking friend of yours, M'sieu Fingers!" CHAPTER XIV The manner in which Kent stared at Marette Radisson after her announcement that it was Dirty Fingers who had planned his escape must have been, he thought afterward, little less than imbecile. He had wronged Fingers, he believed. He had called him a coward and a backslider. In his mind he had reviled him for helping to raise his hopes to the highest pitch, only to smash them in the end. And all the time Dirty Fingers had been planning this! Kent began to grin. The thing was clear in a moment--that is, the immediate situation was clear--or he thought it was. But there were questions--one, ten, a hundred of them. They wanted to pile over the end of his tongue, questions that had little or nothing to do with Kedsty. He saw nothing now but Marette. She had begun to take down her hair. It fell about her in wet, shining masses. Kent had never seen anything like it. It clung to her face, her neck, her shoulders and arms, and shrouded her slender body to her hips, lovely in its confusion. Little drops of water glistened in it like diamonds in the lamp glow, trickling down and dropping to the floor. It was like a glowing coat of velvety sable beaten by storm. Marette ran her arms up through it, shaking it out in clouds, and a mist of rain leaped out from it, some of it striking Kent in the face. He forgot Fingers. He forgot Kedsty. His brain flamed only with the electrifying nearness of her. It was the thought of her that had inspired the greatest hope in him. It was his dreams of her, somewhere on the Big River, that had given him his great courage to believe in the ultimate of things. And now time and space had taken a leap backward. She was not four or five hundred miles north. There was no long quest ahead of him. She was here, within a few feet of him, tossing the wet from that glorious hair he had yearned to touch, brushing it out now, with her back toward him, in front of her mirror. And as he sat there, uttering no word, looking at her, the demands of the immense responsibility that had fallen upon him and of the great fight that lay ahead pounded within him with naked fists. Fingers had planned. She had executed. It was up to him to finish. He saw her, not as a creature to win, but as a priceless possession. Her fight had now become his fight. The rain was beating against the window near him. Out there was blackness, the river, the big world. His blood leaped with the old fighting fire. They were going tonight; they must be going tonight! Why should they wait? Why should they waste time under Kedsty's roof when freedom lay out there for the taking? He watched the swift movements of her hand, listened to the silken rustle of the brush as it smoothed out her long hair. Bewilderment, reason, desire for action fought inside him. Suddenly she faced him again. "It has just this moment occurred to me," she said, "that you haven't said 'Thank you.'" So suddenly that he startled her he was at her side. He did not hesitate this time, as he had hesitated in his room at Cardigan's place. He caught her two hands in his, and with them he felt the soft, damp crush of her hair between his fingers. Words tumbled from his lips. He could not remember afterward all that he said. Her eyes widened, and they never for an instant left his own. Thank her! He told her what had happened to him--in the heart and soul of him--from the hour she had come to him at Cardigan's. He told her of dreams and plans, of his determination to find her again after he had escaped, if it took him all his life. He told her of Mercer, of his discovery of her visit to Kim's Bayou, of his scheme to follow her down the Three Rivers, to seek for her at Fort Simpson, to follow her to the Valley of Silent Men, wherever it was. Thank her! He held her hands so tight they hurt, and his voice trembled. Under the cloud of her hair a slow fire burned in Marette Radisson's cheeks. But it did not show in her eyes. They looked at him so steadily, so unfalteringly, that his own face burned before he had finished what was in his mind to say, and he freed her hands and stepped back from her again. "Forgive me for saying all that," he entreated. "But it's true. You came to me there, at Cardigan's place, like something I'd always dreamed about, but never expected to find. And you came to me again, at the cell, like--" "Yes, I know how I came," she interrupted him. "Through the mud and the rain, Mr. Kent. And it was so black I lost my way and was terrified to think that I might not find barracks. I was half an hour behind Mr. Fingers' schedule. For that reason I think Inspector Kedsty may return at any moment, and you must not talk so loud--or so much." "Lord!" he breathed in a whisper. "I have said a lot in a short time, haven't I? But it isn't a hundredth part of what I want to get out of my system. I won't ask the million questions that want to be asked. But I must know why we are here. Why have we come to Kedsty's? Why didn't we make for the river? There couldn't be a better night to get away." "But it is not so good as the fifth night from now will be," she said, resuming the task of drying her hair. "On that night you may go to the river. Our plans were a little upset, you know, by Inspector Kedsty's change in the date on which you were to leave for Edmonton. Arrangements have been made so that on the fifth night you may leave safely." "And you?" "I shall remain here." And then she added in a low voice that struck his heart cold, "I shall remain to pay Kedsty the price which he will ask for what has happened tonight." "Good God!" he cried. "Marette!" She turned on him swiftly. "No, no, I don't mean that he will hurt me," she cried, a fierce little note in her voice. "I would kill him before that! I'm sorry I told you. But you must not question me. You shall not!" She was trembling. He had never seen her excited like that before, and as she stood there before him, he knew that he was not afraid for her in the way that had flashed into his mind. She had not spoken empty words. She would fight. She would kill, if it was necessary to kill. And he saw her, all at once, as he had not seen her before. He remembered a painting which he had seen a long time ago in Montreal. It was _L'Esprit de la Solitude_--The Spirit of the Wild--painted by Conné, the picturesque French-Canadian friend of Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal, and a genius of the far backwoods who had drawn his inspiration from the heart of the wilderness itself. And that painting stood before him now in flesh and blood, its crudeness gone, but the marvelous spirit it had breathed remaining. Shrouded in her tumbled hair, her lips a little parted, every line of her slender body vibrant with an emotion which seemed consuming her, her beautiful eyes aglow with its fire, he saw in her, as Conné must have seen at another time, the soul of the great North itself. She seemed to him to breathe of the God's country far down the Three Rivers; of its almost savage fearlessness; its beauty, its sunshine, and its storm; its tragedy, its pathos, and its song. In her was the courage and the glory of that North. He had seen; and now he felt these things, and the thrill of them swept over him like an inundation. He had heard her soft laugh, she had made fun of him when he thought he was dying; she had kissed him, she had fought for him, she had clung in terror to his hand when the lightning flashed; and now she stood with her little hands clenched in her hair, like a storm about to break. A moment ago she was so near that he had almost taken her in his arms. Now, in an instant, she had placed something so vast between them that he would not have dared to touch her hand or her hair. Like sun and cloud and wind she changed, and for him each change added to the wonder of her. And now it was storm. He saw it in her eyes, her hands, her body. He felt the electrical nearness of it in those low-spoken, trembling words, "_You shall not_!" The room seemed surcharged for a moment with impending shock. And then his physical eyes took in again the slimness of her, seized upon the alluring smallness of her and the fact that he could have tossed her to the ceiling without great effort. And yet he saw her as one sees a goddess. "No, I won't ask you questions, when you look at me like that," he said, finding his tongue. "I won't ask you what this price is that Kedsty may demand, because you're not going to pay it. If you won't go with me, I won't go. I'd rather stay here and be hung. I'm not asking you questions, so please don't shoot, but if you told me the truth, and you belong in the North, you're going back with me--or I'm not going. I'll not budge an inch." She drew a deep breath, as if something had greatly relieved her. Again her violet eyes came out from the shadow into sunlight, and her trembling mouth suddenly broke into a smile. It was not apologetic. There was about it a quick and spontaneous gladness which she made no effort at all to conceal. "That is nice of you," she said. "I'm glad to hear you say it. I never knew how pleasant it was to have some one who was willing to be hung for me. But you will go. And I will not go. There isn't time to explain all about it just now, for Inspector Kedsty will be here very soon, and I must dry my hair and show you your hiding-place--if you have to hide." She began to brush her hair again. In the mirror Kent caught a glimpse of the smile still trembling on her lips. "I'm not questioning you," he guarded himself again, "but if you could only understand how anxious I am to know where Kedsty is, how Fingers found you, why you made us believe you were leaving the Landing and then returned--and--how badly I want to know something about you--I almost believe you'd talk a little while you are drying your hair." "It was Mooie, the old Indian," she said. "It was he who found out in some way that I was here, and then M'sieu Fingers came himself one night when the Inspector was away--got in through a window and simply said that you had sent him, when I was just about to shoot him. You see, I knew you weren't going to die. Kedsty had told me that. I was going to help you in another way, if M'sieu Fingers hadn't come. Inspector Kedsty was over there tonight, at his cabin, when the thing happened down there. It was a part of Fingers' scheme--to keep him out of the way." Suddenly she grew rigid. The brush remained poised in her hair. Kent, too, heard the sound that she had heard. It was a loud tapping at one of the curtained windows, the tapping of some metallic object. And that window was fifteen feet above the ground! With a little cry the girl threw down her brush, ran to the window, and raised and lowered the curtain once. Then she turned to Kent, swiftly dividing her hair into thick strands and weaving them into a braid. "It is Mooie," she cried. "Kedsty is coming!" She caught his hand and hurried him toward the head of the bed, where two long curtains were strung on a wire. She drew these apart. Behind them were what seemed to Kent an innumerable number of feminine garments. "You must hide in them, if you have to," she said, the excited little tremble in her voice again. "I don't think it will come to that, but if it does, you must! Bury yourself way back in them, and keep quiet. If Kedsty finds you are here--" She looked into his eyes, and it seemed to Kent that there was something which was very near to fear in them now. "If he should find you here, it would mean something terrible for me," she went on, her hands creeping to his arms. "I can not tell you what it is now, but it would be worse than death. Will you promise to stay here, no matter what happens down there, no matter what you may hear? Will you--Mr. Kent?" "Not if you call me Mr. Kent," he said, something thickening in his throat. "Will you--Jeems? Will you--no matter what happens--if I promise--when I come back--to kiss you?" Her hands slipped almost caressingly from his arms, and then she had turned swiftly and was gone through the partly open door, closing it after her, before he could give his promise. CHAPTER XV For a space he stood where she had left him, staring at the door through which she had gone. The nearness of her in those last few seconds of her presence, the caressing touch of her hands, what he had seen in her eyes, her promise to kiss him if he did not reveal himself--these things, and the thought of the splendid courage that must be inspiring her to face Kedsty now, made him blind even to the door and the wall at which he was apparently looking. He saw only her face, as he had seen it in that last moment--her eyes, the tremble of her lips, and the fear which she had not quite hidden from him. She was afraid of Kedsty. He was sure of it. For she had not smiled; there was no flicker of humor in her eyes, when she called him Jeems, an intimate use of the names Jim and James in the far North. It was not facetiously that she had promised to kiss him. An almost tragic seriousness had possessed her. And it was that seriousness that thrilled him--that, and the amazing frankness with which she had coupled the name Jeems with the promise of her lips. Once before she had called him Jeems. But it was M'sieu Jeems then, and there had been a bit of taunting laughter in her voice. Jim or James meant nothing, but Jeems--He had heard mothers call little children that, in moments of endearment. He knew that wives and sweethearts used it in that same way. For Jim and James were not uncommon names up and down the Three Rivers, even among the half-breeds and French, and Jeems was the closer and more intimate thing bred of it. His heart was thumping riotously as he went to the door and listened. A little while ago, when she faced him with flashing eyes, commanding him not to question her, he had felt an abyss under his feet. Now he was on a mountain. And he knew that no matter what he heard, unless it was her cry for help, he would not go down. After a little he opened the door a mere crack so that sound might come to him. She had not forbidden that. Through the crack he could see a dim glow of light in the lower hall. But he heard no sound, and it occurred to him that old Mooie could still run swiftly, and that it might be some time before Kedsty would arrive. As he waited, he looked about the room. His first impression was that Marette must have lived in it for a long time. It was a woman's room, without the newness of sudden and unpremeditated occupancy. He knew that formerly it had been Kedsty's room, but nothing of Kedsty remained in it now. And then, as his wondering eyes beheld the miracle, a number of things struck him with amazing significance. He no longer doubted that Marette Radisson was of the far Northland. His faith in that was absolute. If there had been a last question in his mind, it was wiped away because she called him Jeems. Yet this room seemed to give the lie to his faith. Fascinated by his discovery of things, he drew away from the door and stood over the dressing-table in front of the mirror. Marette had not prepared the room for him, and her possessions were there. It did not strike him as sacrilege to look at them, the many intimate little things that are mysteriously used in the process of a lady's toilette. It was their number and variety that astounded him. He might have expected them in the boudoir of the Governor General's daughter at Ottawa, but not here--and much less farther north. What he saw was of exquisite material and workmanship. And then, as if attracted by a magnet, his eyes were drawn to something else. It was a row of shoes neatly and carefully arranged on the floor at one side of the dressing-table. He stared at them, astounded. Never had he seen such an array of feminine footwear intended for the same pair of feet. And it was not Northern footwear. Every individual little beauty in that amazing row stood on a high heel! Their variety was something to which he had long been a stranger. There were buttoned boots, laced boots, brown boots, black boots, and white boots, with dangerously high and fragile looking heels; there were dainty little white kid slippers, slippers with bows, slippers with cut steel buckles, and slippers with dainty ribbon ties; there were high-heeled oxfords and high-heeled patent leather pumps! He gasped. He reached over, moved by an automatic sort of impulse, and took a satiny little pump in his hand. The size of it gave him a decidedly pleasant mental shock, and, beginning to feel like one prying into a sleeper's secrets, he looked inside it. The size was there--number three. And it had come from Favre's in Montreal! One after another he looked inside half a dozen others. And all of them had come from Favre's in Montreal. The little shoes, more than all else that he had seen or that had happened, sent a question pounding through his brain. Who was Marette Radisson? And that question was followed by other questions, until they tumbled over one another in his head. If she was from Montreal, why was she going north? If she belonged in the North, if she was a part of it, why was she taking all of this apparently worthless footwear with her? Why had she come to Athabasca Landing? What was she to Kedsty? Why was she hiding under his roof? Why-- He stopped himself, trying to find some one answer in all that chaos of questions. It was impossible for him to take his eyes from the shoes. A thought seized him. Ludicrously he dropped upon his knees in front of the row and with a face growing hotter each moment examined them all. But he wanted to know. And the discovery he made was that most of the footwear had been worn, some of it so slightly, however, that the impression of the foot was barely visible. He rose to his feet and continued his inquiry. Of course she had expected him to look about. One couldn't help seeing, unless one were blind. He would have cut off a hand before opening one of the dressing-table drawers. But Marette herself had told him to hide behind the curtains if it became necessary, and it was an excusable caution for him to look behind those curtains now, to see what sort of hiding-place he had. He returned to the door first and listened. There was still no sound from below. Then he drew the curtains apart, as Marette had drawn them. Only he looked longer. He would tell her about it when she returned, if the act needed an apology. His impression was a man's impression. What he saw was a billowing, filmy mass of soft stuff, and out of it there greeted him the faintest possible scent of lilac sachet powder. He closed the curtains with a deep breath of utter joy and of consternation. The two emotions were a jumble to him. The shoes, all that mass of soft stuff behind the curtains, were exquisitely feminine. The breath of perfume had come to him straight out of a woman's soul. There were seduction and witchery to it. He saw Marette, an enrapturing vision of loveliness, floating before his eyes in that sacred and mysterious vestment of which he had stolen a half-frightened glimpse. In white--the white, cobwebby thing of laces and embroidery that had hung straight before his eyes--in white--with her glorious black hair, her violet eyes, her-- And then it was that the incongruity of the thing, the almost sheer impossibility of it, clashed in upon his vision. Yet his faith was not shaken. Marette Radisson was of the North. He could not disbelieve that, even in the face of these amazing things that confronted him. Suddenly he heard a sound that was like the explosion of a gun under his feet. It was the opening and closing of the hall door--but mostly the closing. The slam of it shook the house and rattled the glass in the windows. Kedsty had returned, and he was in a rage. Kent extinguished the light so that the room was in darkness. Then he went to the door. He could hear the quick, heavy tread of Kedsty's feet After that came the closing of a second door, followed by the rumble of Kedsty's voice. Kent was disappointed. The Inspector of Police and Marette were in a room too far distant for him to distinguish what was said. But he knew that Kedsty had returned to barracks and had discovered what had happened there. After an interval his voice was a steady rumble. It rose higher. He heard the crash of a chair. Then the voice ceased, and after it came the tramping of Kedsty's feet. Not once did he catch the sound of Marette's voice, but he was sure that in the interval of silence she was talking. Then Kedsty's voice broke forth more furiously than before. Kent's fingers dug into the sill of the door. Each moment added to his conviction that Marette was in danger. It was not physical violence he feared. He did not believe Kedsty capable of perpetrating that upon a woman. It was fear that he would take her to barracks. The fact that Marette had told him there was a powerful reason why Kedsty would not do this failed to assure him. For she had also told him that Kedsty would kill her, if he dared. He held himself in readiness. At a cry from her, or the first move on Kedsty's part to take her from the bungalow, he would give battle in spite of Marette's warning. He almost hoped one of these two things would happen. As he stood there, listening, waiting, the thought became almost a prayer. He had Pelly's revolver. Within twenty seconds he could have Kedsty looking down the barrel of it. The night was ideal for escape. Within half an hour they would be on the river. They could even load up with provisions from Kedsty's place. He opened the door a little more, scarcely making an effort to combat the impulse that dragged him out. Marette must be in danger, or she would not have confessed to him that she was in the house of a man who would like to see her dead. Why she was there did not interest him deeply now. It was the fact of the moment that was moving him swiftly toward action. The door below opened again, and Kent's body grew rigid. He heard Kedsty charging through the lower hall like a mad bull. The outer door opened, slammed shut, and he was gone. Kent drew back into the darkness of his room. It was some moments before he heard Marette coming slowly up the stairs. She seemed to be groping her way, though there was a dim illumination out there. Then she came through the door into the blackness of her room. "Jeems," she whispered. He went to her. Her hands reached out, and again they rested on his arms. "You--you didn't come down the stair?" "No." "You--didn't hear?" "I heard no words. Only Kedsty's voice." It seemed to him that her voice, when she spoke again, trembled with an immeasurable relief. "You were good, Jeems. I am glad." In that darkness he could not see. Yet something reached into him, thrilling him, quickening his pulse with a thing to which his eyes were blind. He bent down. He found her lips upturned, offering him the sweetness of the kiss which was to be his reward; and as he felt their warmth upon his own, he felt also the slightest pressure of her hands upon his arms. "He is gone. We will light the lamp again," she said then. CHAPTER XVI Kent stood still while Marette moved in that gloom, found matches, and lighted the lamp. He had not spoken a word after the kiss. He had not taken advantage of it. The gentle pressure of her hands had restrained him from taking her in his arms. But the kiss itself fired him with a wild and glorious thrill that was like a vibrant music to which every atom of life in his body responded. If he claimed his reward at all, he had expected her kiss to be perhaps indifferent, at least neutral. But the lips she had given him there in the darkness of the room were warm, living, breathing lips. They had not been snatched away from him too quickly. Their sweetness, for an instant, had lingered. Then, in the lamp glow, he was looking into Marette Radisson's face. He knew that his own was aflame. He had no desire to hide its confession, and he was eager to find what lay in her own eyes. And he was astonished, and then startled. The kiss had not disturbed Marette. It was as if it had never happened. She was not embarrassed, and there was no hint of color in her face. It was her deathly whiteness that startled him, a pallor emphasized by the dark masses of her hair, and a strange glow in her eyes. It was not a glow brought there by the kiss. It was fear, fading slowly out of them as he looked, until at last it was gone, and her lips trembled with an apologetic smile. "He was very angry," she said. "How easily some men lose their tempers, don't they--Jeems?" The little break in her voice, her brave effort to control herself, and the whimsical bit of smile that accompanied her words made him want to do what the gentle pressure of her hands had kept him from doing a few moments before--pick her up in his arms. What she was trying to hide he saw plainly. She had been in danger, a danger greater than that which she had quietly and fearlessly faced at barracks. And she was still afraid of that menace. It was the last thing which she wanted him to know, and yet he knew it. A new force swept through him. It was the force which comes of mastery, of possessorship, of fighting grimly against odds. It rose in a mighty triumph. It told him this girl belonged to him, that she was his to fight for. And he was going to fight. Marette saw the change that came into his face. For a moment after she had spoken there was silence between them. Outside the storm beat in a fiercer blast. A roll of thunder crashed over the bungalow. The windows rattled in a sweep of wind and rain. Kent, looking at her, his muscles hardening, his face growing grimmer, nodded toward the window at which Mooie's signal had come. "It is a splendid night--for us," he said. "And we must go." She did not answer. "In the eyes of the law I am a murderer," he went on. "You saved me. You shot a man. In those same eyes you are a criminal. It is folly to remain here. It is sheer suicide for both of us. If Kedsty--" "If Kedsty does not do what I told him to do to-night, I shall kill him!" she said. The quietness of her words, the steadiness of her eyes, held him speechless. Again it seemed to him, as it had seemed to him in his room at Cardigan's place, that it was a child who was looking at him and speaking to him. If she had shown fear a few moments before, that fear was not revealed in her face now. She was not excited. Her eyes were softly and quietly beautiful. She amazed him and discomfited him. Against that child-like sureness he felt himself helpless. Its potency was greater than his strength and greater than his determination. It placed between them instantly a vast gulf, a gulf that might be bridged by prayer and entreaty, but never by force. There was no hint of excitement in her threat against Kedsty, and yet in the very calmness of it he felt its deadliness. A whimsical half-smile was trembling on her lips again, and a warmer glow came into her eyes. "Do you know," she said, "that according to an old and sacred code of the North you belong to me?" "I have heard of that code," he replied. "A hundred years ago I should have been your slave. If it exists today, I am happy." "Yes, you see the point, Jeems, don't you? You were about to die, probably. I think they would have hanged you. And I saved your life. Therefore your life belongs to me, for I insist that the code still lives. You are my property, and I am going to do with you as I please, until I turn you over to the Rivers. And you are not going tonight. You shall wait here for Laselle and his brigade." "Laselle--Jean Laselle?" She nodded. "Yes, that is why you must wait. We have made a splendid arrangement. When Laselle and his brigade start north, you go with them. And no one will ever know. You are safe here. No one will think of looking for you under the roof of the Inspector of Police." "But you, Marette!" He caught himself, remembering her injunction not to question her. Marette shrugged her slim shoulders the slightest bit and nodded for him to look upon what she knew he had already seen, her room. "It is not uncomfortable," she said. "I have been here for a number of weeks, and nothing has happened to me. I am quite safe. Inspector Kedsty has not looked inside that door since the day your big red-headed friend saw me down in the poplars. He has not put a foot on the stair. That is the dead-line. And--I know--you are wondering. You are asking yourself a great many questions--_a bon droit_, M'sieu Jeems. You are burning up with them. I can see it. And I--" There was something suddenly pathetic about her, as she sank into the big-armed, upholstered chair which had been Kedsty's favorite reading chair. She was tired, and for a moment it seemed to Kent that she was almost ready to cry. Her ringers twisted nervously at the shining end of the braid in her lap, and more than ever he thought how slim and helpless, she was, yet how gloriously unafraid, how unconquerable with that something within her that burned like the fire of a dynamo. The flame of that force had gone down now, as though the fire itself was dying out; but when she raised her eyes to him, looking up at him from out of the big chair, he knew that back of the yearning, child-like glow that lay in them the heart of that fire was living and unquenchable. Again, for him, she had ceased to be a woman. It was the soul of a child that lay in her wide-open, wonderfully blue eyes. Twice before he had seen that miracle, and it held him now, as it had held him that first time when she had stood with her back at Cardigan's door. And as it had changed then, so it changed now, slowly, and she was a woman again, with that great gulf of unapproachableness between them. But the yearning was still there, revealing itself to him, and yet, like the sun, infinitely remote from him. "I wish that I might answer those questions for you," she said, in a voice that was low and tired. "I should like to have you know, because I--I have great faith in you, Jeems. But I cannot. It is impossible. It is inconceivable. If I did--" She made a hopeless little gesture. "If I told you everything, you would not like me any more. And I want you to like me--until you go north with M'sieu Jean and his brigade." "And when I do that," cried Kent, almost savagely, "I shall find this place you call the Valley of Silent Men, if it takes me all my life." It was becoming a joy for him to see the sudden flashes of pleasure that leaped into her eyes. She attempted no concealment. Whatever her emotions were they revealed themselves unaffectedly and with a simple freedom from embarrassment that swept him with an almost reverential worship. And what he had just said pleased her. Unreservedly her glowing eyes and her partly smiling lips told him that, and she said: "I am glad you feel that way, Jeems. And I think you would find it--in time. Because--" Her little trick of looking at him so steadily, as if there was something inside him which she was trying to see more clearly, made him feel more helplessly than ever her slave. It was as if, in those moments, she forgot that he was of flesh and blood, and was looking into his heart to see what was there before she gave voice to things. And then she said, still twisting her braid between her slim fingers, "You would find it--perhaps--because you are one who would not give up easily. Shall I tell you why I came to see you at Doctor Cardigan's? It was curiosity, at first--largely that. Just why or how I was interested in the man you freed is one of the things I can not tell you. And I can not tell you why I came to the Landing. Nor can I say a word about Kedsty. It may be, some day, that you will know. And then you will not like me. For nearly four years before I saw you that day I had been in a desolation. It was a terrible place. It ate my heart and soul out with its ugliness, its loneliness, its emptiness. A little while longer and I would have died. Then the thing happened that brought me away. Can you guess where it was?" He shook his head, "No." "To all the others it was a beautiful place, Montreal." "You were at school there?" he guessed. "Yes, the Villa Maria. I wasn't quite sixteen then. They were kind. I think they liked me. But each night I prayed one prayer. You know what the Three Rivers are to us, to the people of the North. The Athabasca is Grandmother, the Slave is Mother, the Mackenzie is Daughter, and over them watches always the goddess Niska, the Gray Goose. And my prayer was that I might go back to them. In Montreal there were people, people everywhere, thousands and tens of thousands of them, so many that I was lonely and heartsick and wanted to get away. For the Gray Goose blood is in me, Jeems. I love the forests. And Niska's God doesn't live in Montreal. Her sun doesn't rise there. Her moon isn't the same there. The flowers are not hers. The winds tell different stories. The air is another air. People, when they look at you, look in another way. Away down the Three Rivers I had loved men. There I was learning to hate them. Then, something happened. I came to Athabasca Landing. I went to see you because--" She clasped her two hands tightly in her lap. "Because, after those four terrible years, you were the first man I found who was playing a great, big, square game to the end. Don't ask me how I found it out. Please don't ask me anything. I am telling you all you can know, all you _shall_ know. But I did find it out. And then I learned that you were not going to die. Kedsty told me that. And when I had talked with you I knew that you would play any game square, and I made up my mind to help you. That is why I am telling you all this--just to let you know that I have faith in you, and that you must not break that faith. You must not insist on knowing more about me. You must still play the game. I am playing mine, and you must play yours. And to play yours clean, you must go with Laselle's brigade and leave me with Kedsty. You must forget what has happened. You must forget what MAY happen. You can not help me. You can only harm me. And if--some day, a long time from now--you should happen to find the Valley of Silent Men--" He waited, his heart pounding like a fist. "I may--be there," she finished, in a voice so low that it was scarcely above a whisper. It seemed to him that she was looking a long way off, and it was not in his direction. And then she smiled, not at him, but in a half-hopeless little way. "I think I shall be disappointed if you don't find it," she said then, and her eyes were pure as the blue flowers from which they had stolen their color, as she looked at him. "You know the great Sulphur Country beyond Fort Simpson, westward between the Two Nahannis?" "Yes. That is where Kilbane and his patrol were lost. The Indians call it the Devil Country. Is that it?" She nodded. "They say no living thing has ever been through the Sulphur Country," she said. "But that is not true. I have been through it. It is beyond the Sulphur Country you must go to find the Valley of Silent Men, straight through that gap between the North and the South Nahanni. That is the way _you_ must go if you should ever find it, Jeems, for otherwise you would have to come down from Dawson or up from Skagway, and the country is so great that you would never come upon it in a thousand years. The police will not find you there. You will always be safe. Perhaps I shall tell you more before the Brigade comes. But that is all tonight. I may never tell you anything more. And you must not question me." Speechless he had stood, all the life of his soul burning like a fire in his eyes as he looked at her and listened to her, and now, quietly and unexcitedly, he said: "Marette, I am going to play this game as you want me to play it, because I love you. It is only honest for me to tell you in words what you must already know. And I am going to fight for you as long as there is a drop of blood in my body. If I go with Jean Laselle's brigade, will you promise me--" His voice trembled. He was repressing a mighty emotion. But not by the quiver of one of her long lashes did Marette Radisson give evidence that she had even heard his confession of love. She interrupted him before he had finished. "I can promise you nothing, no matter what you do. Jeems, Jeems, you are not like those other men I learned to hate? You will not INSIST? If you do--if you are like them--yes, you may go away from here tonight and not wait for Jean Laselle. Listen! The storm will not break for hours. If you are going to demand a price for playing the game as I want you to play it, you may go. You have my permission." She was very white. She rose from the big chair and stood before him. There was no anger in her voice or gesture, but her eyes glowed like luminous stars. There was something in them which he had not seen before, and suddenly a thought struck his heart cold as ice. With a low cry he stretched out his hands, "My God, Marette, I am not a murderer! I did not kill John Barkley!" She did not answer him. "You don't believe me," he cried. "You believe that I killed Barkley, and that now--a murderer--I dare to tell you that I love you!" She was trembling. It was like a little shiver running through her. For only a flash it seemed to him that he had caught a glimpse of something terrible, a thing she was hiding, a thing she was fighting as she stood there with her two little clenched hands. For in her face, in her eyes, in the beating throb of her white throat he saw, in that moment, the almost hidden agony of a hurt thing. And then it was gone, even as he entreated again, pleading for her faith. "I did not kill John Barkley!" "I am not thinking of that, Jeems," she said. "It is of something--" They had forgotten the storm. It was howling and beating at the windows outside. But suddenly there came a sound that rose above the monotonous tumult of it, and Marette started as if it had sent an electric shock through her. Kent, too, turned toward the window. It was the metallic tap, tap, tapping which once before had warned them of approaching danger. And this time it was insistent. It was as if a voice was crying out to them from beyond the window. It was more than premonition--it was the alarm of a near and impending menace. And in that moment Kent saw Marette Radisson's hands go swiftly to her throat and her eyes leap with sudden fire, and she gave a little cry as she listened to the sound. CHAPTER XVII In ten seconds, it seemed to Kent, Marette Radisson was again the splendid creature who had held the three men at bay over the end of her little black gun at barracks. The sound of Mooie's second warning came at first as a shock. Accompanying it there was a moment of fear, of fear driven almost to the point of actual terror. Following it came a reaction so swift that Kent was dazed. Within those ten seconds the girl's slender body seemed to grow taller; a new light flamed in her face; her eyes, turning swiftly to him, were filled with the same fire with which they had faced the three constables. She was unafraid. She was ready to fight. In such moments as these it was the quiet and dispassionate composure of her voice that amazed him most. It was musical in its softness now. Yet in that softness was a hidden thing. It was like velvet covering steel. She had spoken of Niska, the Gray Goose, the goddess of the Three Rivers. And he thought that something of the spirit of a goddess must be in Marette Radisson to give her the courage with which she faced him, even as the metallic thing outside tapped its warning again at the window. "Inspector Kedsty is coming back," she said. "I did not think he would do that--tonight." "He has not had time to go to barracks," said Kent. "No. Possibly he has forgotten something. Before he arrives, I want to show you the nest I have made for you, Jeems. Come quickly!" It was her first intimation that he was not to remain in her room, a possibility that had already caused him some inward embarrassment. She seized a number of matches, turned down her light, and hurried into the hall. Kent followed her to the end of this hall, where she paused before a low half-door that apparently opened into some sort of a space close under the sloping roof of the bungalow. "It is an old storeroom," she whispered. "I have made it quite comfortable, I think. I have covered the window, so you may light the lamp. But you must see that no light shows under this door. Lock it on the inside, and be very quiet. For whatever you find in there you must thank M'sieu Fingers." She pulled the door slightly open and gave him the matches. The illumination in the lower hall made its way only dimly to where they stood. In the gloom he found himself close to the soft glow of her eyes. His fingers closed about her hand as he took the matches. "Marette, you believe me?" he entreated. "You believe that I love you, that I didn't kill John Barkley, that I am going to fight for you as long as God gives me breath to fight?" For a moment there was silence. Her hand withdrew gently from his. "Yes, I think that I believe. Good-night, Jeems." She went from him quickly. At her door she turned. "Go in now, please," she called back softly. "If you care as you say you do, _go in_." She did not wait for his reply. Her own door closed behind her, and Kent, striking a match, stooped low and entered his hiding-place. In a moment he saw directly ahead of him a lamp on a box. He lighted this, and his first movement then was to close the door and turn the key that was in the lock. After that he looked about him. The storeroom was not more than ten feet square, and the roof was so close over his head that he could not stand upright. It was not the smallness of the place that struck him first, but the preparations which Marette had made for him. In a corner was a bed of blankets, and the rough floor of the place was carpeted with blankets, except for a two-or-three-foot space around the edge of it. Beyond the box was a table and a chair, and it was the burden of this table that made his pulse jump quickest. Marette had not forgotten that he might grow hungry. It was laid sumptuously, with a plate for one, but with food for half a dozen. There were a brace of roasted grouse, brown as nuts; a cold roast of moose meat or beef; a dish piled high with golden potato salad; olives, pickles, an open can of cherries, a loaf of bread, butter, cheese--and one of Kedsty's treasured thermos bottles, which undoubtedly held hot coffee or tea. And then he noticed what was on the chair--a belt and holster and a Colt automatic forty-five! Marette had not figured on securing a gun in the affair at barracks, and her foresight had not forgotten a weapon. She had placed it conspicuously where he could not fail to see it at once. And just beyond the chair, on the floor, was a shoulder-pack. It was of the regulation service sort, partly filled. Resting against the pack was a Winchester. He recognized the gun. He had seen it hanging in Dirty Fingers' shack. For a matter of five minutes he scarcely moved from where he stood beside the table. Nothing but an unplastered roof was between him and the storm, and over his head the thunder crashed, and the rain beat in torrents. He saw where the window was, carefully covered with a blanket. Even through the blanket he caught faintly the illumination of lightning. This window overlooked the entrance to Kedsty's bungalow, and the idea came to him of turning out the light and opening it. In darkness he took down the blanket. But the window itself was not movable, and after assuring himself of this fact he flattened his face against it, peering out into the chaos of the night. In that instant came a flare of lightning, and to Kent, looking down, was revealed a sight that tightened every muscle in his body. More vividly than if it had been day he saw a man standing below in the deluge. It was not Mooie. It was not Kedsty. It was no one that he had ever seen. Even more like a ghost than a man was that apparition of the lightning flare. A great, gaunt giant of a ghost, bare-headed, with long, dripping hair and a long, storm-twisted beard. The picture shot to his brain with the swiftness of the lightning itself. It was like the sudden throwing of a cinema picture on a screen. Then blackness shut it out. Kent stared harder. He waited. Again came the lightning, and again he saw that tragic, ghost-like figure waiting in the storm. Three times he saw it. And he knew that the mysterious, bearded giant was an old man. The fourth time the lightning came, the figure was gone. And in that flare it was the bowed figure of Kedsty he saw hurrying up the gravel path to the door. Quickly Kent covered the window, but he did not relight the lamp. Before Kedsty could have reached the foot of the stair, he had unlocked the door. Cautiously he opened it three or four inches and sat down with his back against the wall, listening. He heard Kedsty pass through into the big room where Marette had waited for him a short time before. After that there was silence except for the tumult of the storm. For an hour Kent listened. In all that time he did not hear a sound from the lower hall or from Marette's room. He wondered if she was sleeping, and if Kedsty had gone to bed, waiting for morning before he set in action his bloodhounds of the law. Kent had no intention of disturbing the comfortable looking bed of blankets. He was not only sleepless, but filled with a premonition of events about to happen. He felt impinging itself more and more upon him a sense of watchfulness. That Inspector Kedsty and Marette Radisson were under the same roof, and that there was some potent and mysterious reason which kept Kedsty from betraying the girl's presence, was the thought which troubled him most. He was not developing further the plans for his own escape. He was thinking of Marette. What was her power over Kedsty? Why was it that Kedsty would like to see her dead? Why was she in his house? Again and again he asked himself the questions and found no answers to them. And yet, even in this purgatory of mystery that environed him, he felt himself happier than he had ever been in his life. For Marette was not four or five hundred miles down the river. She was in the same house with him. And he had told her that he loved her. He was glad that he had been given courage to let her know that. He relighted the lamp, and opened his watch and placed it on the table, where frequently he could look at the time. He wanted to smoke his pipe, but the odor of tobacco, he was sure, would reach Kedsty, unless the Inspector had actually retired into his bedroom for the night. Half a dozen times he questioned himself as to the identity of the ghostly apparition he had seen in the lightning flare of the storm. Perhaps it was some one of Fingers' strange friends from out of the wilderness, Mooie's partner in watching the bungalow. The picture of that giant of a man with his great beard and long hair, as his eyes had caught him in a sea of electrical fire, was indelibly burned into his brain. It was a tragic picture. Again he put out the light and bared the blanketed window, but he saw nothing but the sodden gleam of the earth when the lightning flashed. A second time he opened the door a few inches and sat down with his back to the wall, listening. How long it was before drowsiness stole upon him he did not know, but it came, and for a few moments at a time, as his eyes closed, it robbed him of his caution. And then, for a space, he slept. A sound brought him suddenly into wide wakefulness. His first impression was that the sound had been a cry. For a moment or two, as his senses adjusted themselves, he was not sure. Then swiftly the thing grew upon him. He rose to his feet and widened the crack of his door. A bar of light shot across the upper hall. It was from Marette's room. He had taken off his boots to deaden the sound of his feet, and he stepped outside his door. He was positive he heard a low cry, a choking, sobbing cry, only barely audible, and that it came from down the stair. No longer hesitating, he moved quickly to Marette's room and looked in. His first glimpse was of the bed. It had not been used. The room was empty. Something cold and chilling gripped at his heart, and an impulse which he no longer made an effort to resist pulled him to the head of the stair. It was more than an impulse--it was a demand. Step by step he went down, his hand on the butt of his Colt. He reached the lower hall, which was still lighted, and a step or two brought him to a view of the door that opened into the big living-room beyond. That door was partly open, and the room itself was filled with light. Soundlessly Kent approached. He looked in. What he saw first brought him relief together with shock. At one end of the long desk table over which hung a great brass lamp stood Marette. She was in profile to him. He could not see her face. Her hair fell loose about her, glowing like a rich, sable cape in the light of the lamp. She was safe, alive, and yet the attitude of her as she looked down was the thing that gave him shock. He was compelled to move a few inches more before he could see what she was staring at. And then his heart stopped dead still. Huddled down in his chair, with his head flung back so that the terrible ghastliness of his face fronted Kent, was Kedsty. And Kent, in an instant, knew. Only a dead man could look like that. With a cry he entered the room. Marette did not start, but an answering cry came into her throat as she turned her eyes from Kedsty to him. To Kent it was like looking upon the dead in two ways. Marette Radisson, living and breathing, was whiter than Kedsty, who was white with the unbreathing pallor of the actually dead. She did not speak. She made no sound after that answering cry in her throat. She simply looked. And Kent spoke her name gently as he saw her great, wide eyes blazing dully their agony and despair. Then, like one stunned and fascinated, she stared down upon Kedsty again. Every instinct of the man-hunter became alive in Kent's brain as he, too, turned toward the Inspector of Police. Kedsty's arms hung limp over the side of his chair. On the floor under his right hand was his Colt automatic. His head was strained so far over the back of the chair that it looked as though his neck had been broken. On his forehead, close up against his short-cropped, iron-gray hair, was a red stain. Kent approached and bent over him. He had seen death too many times not to recognize it now, but seldom had he seen a face twisted and distorted as Kedsty's was. His eyes were open and bulging in a glassy stare. His jaws hung loose. His-- It was then Kent's blood froze in his veins. Kedsty had received a blow, but it was not the blow that had killed him. Afterward he had been choked to death. And the thing that had choked him was _a tress of woman's hair_. In the seconds that followed that discovery Kent could not have moved if his own life had paid the penalty of inaction. For the story was told--there about Kedsty's throat and on his chest. The tress of hair was long and soft and shining and black. It was twisted twice around Kedsty's neck, and the loose end rippled down over his shoulder, _glowing like a bit of rich sable in the lamplight_. It was that thought of velvety sable that had come to him at the doorway, looking at Marette. It was the thought that came to him now. He touched it; he took it in his fingers; he unwound it from about Kedsty's neck, where it had made two deep rings in the flesh. From his fingers it rippled out full length. And he turned slowly and faced Marette Radisson. Never had human eyes looked at him as she was looking at him now. She reached out a hand, her lips mute, and Kent gave her the tress of hair. And the next instant she turned, with a hand clasped at her own throat, and passed through the door. After that he heard her going unsteadily up the stairs. CHAPTER XVIII Kent did not move. His senses for a space were stunned. He was almost physically insensible to all emotions but that one of shock and horror. He was staring at Kedsty's gray-white, twisted face when he heard Marette's door close. A cry came from his lips, but he did not hear it--was unconscious that he had made a sound. His body shook with a sudden tremor. He could not disbelieve, for the evidence was there. From behind, as he had sat in his chair Marette Radisson had struck the Inspector of Police with some blunt object. The blow had stunned him. And after that-- He drew a hand across his eyes, as if to clear his vision. What he had seen was impossible. The evidence was impossible. Assaulted, in deadly peril, defending either honor or love, Marette Radisson was of the blood to kill. But to creep up behind her victim--it was inconceivable! Yet there had been no struggle. Even the automatic on the floor gave no evidence of that. Kent picked it up. He looked at it closely, and again the unconscious cry of despair came in a half groan from his lips. For on the butt of the Colt was a stain of blood and a few gray hairs. Kedsty had been stunned by a blow from his own gun! As Kent placed it on the table, his eyes caught suddenly a gleam of steel under the edge of a newspaper, and he drew out from their hiding-place the long-bladed clipping scissors which Kedsty had used in the preparation of his scrap-books and official reports. It was the last link in the deadly evidence--the automatic with its telltale stain, the scissors, the tress of hair, and Marette Radisson. He felt a sensation of sudden dizziness. Every nerve-center in his body had received its shock, and when the shock had passed it left him sweating. Swiftly the reaction came. It was a lie, he told himself. The evidence was false. Marette could not have committed that crime, as the crime had visualized itself before his eyes. There was something which he had not seen, something which he could not see, something that was hiding itself from him. He became, in an instant, the old James Kent. The instinctive processes of the man-hunter leaped to their stations like trained soldiers. He saw Marette again, as she had looked at him when he entered the room. It was not murder he had caught in her wide-open eyes. It was not hatred. It was not madness. It was a quivering, bleeding soul crying out to him in an agony that no other human eyes had ever revealed to him before. And suddenly a great voice cried out in his brain, drowning all other things, telling him how contemptible a thing was love unless in that love was faith. With his heart choking him, he turned again to Kedsty. The futility of the thing which he had told himself was faith gripped at him sickeningly, yet he fought for that faith, even as his eyes looked again upon the ghastly torture that was in Kedsty's face. He was becoming calmer. He touched the dead man's cheek and found that it was no longer warm. The tragedy must have occurred an hour before. He examined more closely the abrasion on Kedsty's forehead. It was not a deep wound, and the blow that had made it must have stunned the Inspector of Police for only a short time. In that space the other thing had happened. In spite of his almost superhuman effort to keep the picture away from him, Kent saw it vividly--the swift turning to the table, the inspiration of the scissors, the clipping of the long tress of hair, the choking to death of Kedsty as he regained consciousness. Over and over again he whispered to himself the impossibility of it, the absurdity of it, the utter incongruity of it. Only a brain gone mad would have conceived that monstrous way of killing Kedsty. And Marette was not mad. She was sane. Like the eyes of a hunting ferret his own eyes swept quickly about the room. At the four windows there were long curtain cords. On the walls, hung there as trophies, were a number of weapons. On one end of Kedsty's desk, used as a paperweight, was a stone tomahawk. Still nearer to the dead man's hands, unhidden by papers, was a boot-lace. Under his limp right hand was the automatic. With these possible instruments of death close at hand, ready to be snatched up without trouble or waste of time, why had the murderer used a tress of woman's hair? The boot-lace drew Kent's eyes. It was impossible not to see it, forty-eight inches long and quarter-inch-wide buckskin. He began seeking for its mate, and found it on the floor where Marette Radisson had been standing. And again the unanswerable question pounded in Kent's brain--why had Kedsty's murderer used a tress of hair instead of a buckskin lace or one of the curtain cords hanging conspicuously at the windows? He went to each of these windows and found them locked. Then, a last time, he bent over Kedsty. He knew that in the final moments of his life Kedsty had suffered a slow and torturing agony. His twisted face left the story. And the Inspector of Police was a powerful man. He had struggled, still partly dazed by the blow. But it had taken strength to overcome him even then, to hold his head back, to choke life out of him slowly with the noose of hair. And Kent, now that the significance of what he saw began to grow upon him more clearly, felt triumphing over all other things in his soul a slow and mighty joy. It was inconceivable that with the strength of her own hands and body Marette Radisson had killed Kedsty. A greater strength than hers had held him in the death-chair, and a greater strength than hers had choked life from the Inspector of Police! He drew slowly out of the room, closing the door noiselessly behind him. He found that the front door was as Kedsty had left it, unlocked. Close to that door he stood for a space, scarcely allowing himself to breathe. He listened, but no sound came down the dimly illumined stairway. A new thing was pressing upon him now. It rode over the shock of tragedy, over the first-roused instincts of the man-hunter, overwhelming him with the realization of a horror such as had never confronted him before. It gripped him more fiercely than the mere killing of Kedsty. His thought was of Marette, of the fate which dawn and discovery would bring for her. His hands clenched and his jaws tightened. The world was against him, and tomorrow it would be against her. Only he, in the face of all that condemning evidence in the room beyond, would disbelieve her guilty of Kedsty's death. And he, Jim Kent, was already a murderer in the eyes of the law. He felt within him the slow-growing inspiration of a new spirit, the gathering might of a new force. A few hours ago he was an outcast. He was condemned. Life, for him, had been robbed of its last hope. And in that hour of his grimmest despair Marette Radisson had come to him. Through storm that had rocked the earth under her feet and set ablaze the chaotic blackness of the sky over her head she had struggled--for him. She had counted no cost. She had measured no chances. She had simply come--_because she believed in him_. And now, upstairs, she was the victim of the terrible price that was the first cost of his freedom. For he believed, now that the thought came to him like a dagger stroke, that this was so. Her act in freeing him had brought about the final climax, and as a result of it, Kedsty was dead. He went to the foot of the stair. Quietly, in his shoeless feet, he began to climb them. He wanted to cry out Marette's name even before he came to the top. He wanted to reach up to her with his arms outstretched. But he came silently to her door and looked in. She lay in a crumpled, huddled heap on her bed. Her face was hidden, and all about her lay her smothering hair. For a moment he was frightened. He could not see that she was breathing. So still was she that she was like one dead. His footsteps were unheard as he moved across the room. He knelt down beside her, reached out his arms, and gathered her into them. "Marette!" he cried in a low voice. He felt the sudden quiver, like a little shock, that ran through her. He crushed his face down, so that it lay in her hair, still damp from its wetting. He drew her closer, tightening his arms about her slender body, and a little cry came from her a cry that was a broken thing, a sob without tears. "Marette!" It was all he said. It was all he could say in that moment when his heart was beating like a drum against her breast. And then he felt the slow pressure of her hands against him, saw her white face, her wide, staring eyes within a few inches of his own, and she drew away from him, back against the wall, still huddled like a child on the bed, with her eyes fixed on him in a way that frightened him. There were no tears in them. She had not been crying. But her face was as white as he had seen it down in Kedsty's room. Some of the horror and shock had gone out of it. In it was another look as her eyes glowed upon Kent. It was a look of incredulity, of disbelief, a thing slowly fading away under the miracle of an amazing revelation. The truth thrust itself upon him. Marette had not expected that he would come to her like this. She had believed that he would take flight into the night, escaping from her as he would have run from a plague. She put up her two hands, in the trick they had of groping at her white throat, and her lips formed a word which she did not speak. Kent, to his own amazement, was smiling and still on his knees. He pulled himself to his feet, and stood up straight, looking down at her in that same strange, comforting, all-powerful way. The thrill of it was passing into her veins. A flush of color was driving the deathly pallor from her face. Her lips were parted, and she breathed quickly, a little excitedly. "I thought--you would go!" she said. "Not without you," he said. "I have come to take you with me." He drew out his watch. It was two o'clock. He held it down so that she could look at the dial. "If the storm keeps up, we have three hours before dawn," he said. "How soon can you be ready, Marette?" He was fighting to make his voice quiet and unexcited. It was a terrific struggle. And Marette was not blind to it. She drew herself from the bed and stood up before him, her two hands still clasped at her throbbing throat. "You believe--that I killed Kedsty," she said in a voice that was forced from her lips. "And you have come to help me--to pay me for what I tried to do for you? That is it--Jeems?" "Pay you?" he cried. "I couldn't pay you in a million years! From that day you first came to Cardigan's place you gave me life. You came when the last spark of hope in me had died. I shall always believe that I would have died that night. But you saved me. "From the moment I saw you I loved you, and I believe it was that love that kept me alive. And then you came to me again, down there, through this storm. Pay you! I can't. I never shall be able to. Because you thought I had killed a man made no difference You came just the same. And you came ready to kill, if necessary--for me. I'm not trying to tell myself _why_! But you did. You were ready to kill. And I am ready to kill--tonight--for you! I haven't got time to think about Kedsty. I'm thinking about you. If you killed him, I'm just telling myself there was a mighty good reason for it. But I don't believe it was you who killed him. You couldn't do it--with those hands!" He reached out suddenly and seized them, slipping his grip to her wrists, so that her hands lay upward in his own, hands that were small, slim-fingered, soft-palmed, beautiful. "They couldn't!" he cried, almost fiercely. "I swear to God they couldn't!" Her eyes and face flamed at his words. "You believe that, Jeems?" "Yes, just as you believe that I did not kill John Barkley. But the world is against us. It is against us both now. And we've got to hunt that hidden valley of yours together. Understand, Marette? And I'm--rather glad." He turned toward the door. "Will you be ready in ten minutes?" he asked. She nodded. "Yes, in ten minutes." He ran out into the hall and down the stair, locking the front door. Then he returned to his hiding-place under the roof. He knew that a strange sort of madness was in his blood, for in the face of tonight's tragedy only madness could inspire him with the ecstatic thrill that was in his veins. Kedsty's death seemed far removed from a more important thing--the fact that from this hour Marette was his to fight for, that she belonged to him, that she must go with him. He loved her. In spite of whoever she was and whatever she had done, he loved her. Very soon she would tell him what had happened in the room below, and the thing would be clear. There was one little corner of his brain that fought him. It kept telling him, like a parrot, that it was a tress of Marette's hair about Kedsty's throat, and that it was the hair that had choked him. But Marette would explain that, too. He was sure of it. In the face of the facts below he was illogical and unreasonable. He knew it. But his love for this girl, who had come strangely and tragically into his life, was like an intoxicant. And his faith was illimitable. She did not kill Kedsty. Another part of his brain kept repeating that over and over, even as he recalled that only a few hours before she had told him quite calmly that she would kill the Inspector of Police--if a certain thing should happen. His hands worked as swiftly as his thoughts. He laced up his service boots. All the food and dishes on the table he made into a compact bundle and placed in the shoulder-pack. He carried this and the rifle out into the hall. Then he returned to Marette's room. The door was closed. At his knock the girl's voice told him that she was not quite ready. He waited. He could hear her moving about quickly in her room. An interval of silence followed. Another five minutes passed--ten--fifteen. He tapped at the door again. This time it was opened. He stared, amazed at the change in Marette. She had stepped back from the door to let him enter, and stood full in the lamp-glow. Her slim, beautiful body was dressed in a velvety blue corduroy; the coat was close-fitting and boyish; the skirt came only a little below her knees. On her feet were high-topped caribou boots. About her waist was a holster and the little black gun. Her hair was done up and crowded under a close-fitting turban. She was exquisitely lovely, as she stood there waiting for him, and in that loveliness Kent saw there was not one thing out of place. The corduroy, the turban, the short skirt, and the high, laced boots were made for the wilderness. She was not a tenderfoot. She was a little _sourdough_--clear through! Gladness leaped into Kent's face. But it was not the transformation of her dress alone that amazed him. She was changed in another way. Her cheeks were flushed. Her eyes glowed with a strange and wonderful radiance as she looked at him. Her lips were red, as he had seen them that first time at Cardigan's place. Her pallor, her fear, her horror were gone, and in their place was the repressed excitement of one about to enter upon a strange adventure. On the floor was a pack only half as large as Kent's and when he picked it up, he found it of almost no weight. He fastened it to his own pack while Marette put on her raincoat and went down the stair ahead of him. In the hall below she was waiting, when he came down, with Kedsty's big rubber slicker in her hands. "You must put it on," she said. She shuddered slightly as she held the garment. The color was almost gone from her cheeks, as she faced the door beyond which the dead man sat in his chair, but the marvelous glow was still in her eyes as she helped Kent with his pack and the slicker and afterward stood for an instant with her hands touching his breast and her lips as if about to speak something which she held back. A few steps beyond them they heard the storm. It seemed to rush upon the bungalow in a new fury, beating at the door, crashing over their heads in thunder, daring them to come out. Kent reached up and turned out the hall light. In darkness he opened the door. Rain and wind swept in. With his free hand he groped out, found Marette, drew her after him, and closed the door again. Entering from the lighted hall into the storm was like being swallowed in a pit of blackness. It engulfed and smothered them. Then came suddenly a flash of lightning, and he saw Marette's face, white and drenched, but looking at him with that same strange glow in her eyes. It thrilled him. Even in the darkness it was there. It had been there since he had returned to her from Kedsty and had knelt at her bedside, with his arms about her for a moment. Only now, in the beat of the storm, did an answer to the miracle of it come to him. It was because of _him_. It was because of his _faith_ in her. Even death and horror could not keep it from her eyes. He wanted to cry out the joy of his discovery, to give wild voice to it in the teeth of the wind and the rain. He felt sweeping through him a force mightier than that of the night. Her hands were on his arm, as if she was afraid of losing him in that pit of blackness; the soft cling of them was like a contact through which came a warm thrill of electrical life. He put out his arm and drew her to him, so that for a moment his face pressed against the top of her wet little turban. And then he heard her say: "There is a scow at the bayou, Jeems. It is close to the end of the path. M'sieu Fingers has kept it there, waiting, ready." He had been thinking of Crossen's place and an open boat. He blessed Fingers again, as he took Marette's hand in his own and started for the trail that led through the poplar thicket. Their feet slopped deep in wet and mud, and with the rain there was a wind that took their breath away. It was impossible to see a tree an arm's length away, and Kent hoped that the lightning would come frequently enough to guide him. In the first flare of it he looked down the slope that led riverward. Little rivulets of water were running down it. Rocks and stumps were in their way, and underfoot it was slippery. Marette's fingers were clinging to his again, as she had held to them on the wild race up to Kedsty's bungalow from the barracks. He had tingled then in the sheer joy of their thrill, but it was a different thrill that stirred him now--an overwhelming emotion of possessorship. This night, with its storm and its blackness, was the most wonderful of all his nights. He sensed nothing of its discomfort. It could not beat back the joyous racing of the blood in his body. Sun and stars, day and night, sunshine and cloud, were trivial and inconsequential to him now. For close to him, struggling with him, fighting through the night with him, trusting him, helpless without him, was the living, breathing thing he loved more than he loved his own life. For many years, without knowing it, he had waited for this night, and now that it was upon him, it inundated and swept away his old life. He was no longer the huntsman, but the hunted. He was no longer alone, but had a priceless thing to fight for, a priceless and helpless thing that was clinging to his fingers in the darkness. He did not feel like a fugitive, but as one who has come into a great triumph. He sensed no uncertainty or doubt. The river lay ahead, and for him the river had become the soul and the promise of life. It was Marette's river and his river, and in a little while they would be on it. And Marette would then tell him about Kedsty. He was sure of that. She would tell him what had happened while he slept. His faith was illimitable. They came into the sodden dip at the foot of the ridge, and the lightning revealed to him the edge of the poplar growth in which O'Connor had seen Marette many weeks ago. The bayou trail wound through this, and Kent struck out for it blindly in the darkness. He did not try to talk, but he freed his companion's hand and put his arm about her when they came to the level ground, so that she was sheltered by him from the beat of the storm. Then brush swished in their faces, and they stopped, waiting for the lightning again. Kent was not anxious for it to come. He drew the girl still closer, and in that pit of blackness, with the deluge about her and the crash of thunder over her head, she snuggled up against his breast, the throb of her body against him, waiting, watching, with him. Her frailty, the helplessness of her, the slimness of her in the crook of his arm, filled him with an exquisite exultation. He did not think of her now as the splendid, fearless creature who had leveled her little black gun at the three men in barracks. She was no longer the mysterious, defiant, unafraid person who had held him in a sort of awe that first hour in Kedsty's place. For she was crumpled against him now, utterly dependent and afraid. In that chaos of storm something told him that her nerve was broken, that without him she would be lost and would cry out in fear. _And he was glad_! He held her tighter; he bent his head until his face touched the wet, crushed hair under the edge of her turban. And then the lightning split open the night again, and he saw the way ahead of him to the trail. Even in darkness it was not difficult to follow in the clean-cut wagon path. Over their heads the tops of the poplars swished and wailed. Under their feet the roadway in places was a running stream or inundated until it became a pool. In pitch blackness they struck such a pool, and in spite of the handicap of his packs and rifle Kent stopped suddenly, and picked Marette up in his arms, and carried her until they reached high ground. He did not ask permission. And Marette, for a minute or two, lay crumpled up close in his arms, and for a thrilling instant his face touched her rain-wet cheek. The miracle of their adventure was that neither spoke. To Kent the silence between them had become a thing which he had no desire to break. In that silence, excused and abetted by the tumult of the storm, he felt that a wonderful something was drawing them closer and closer together, and that words might spoil the indescribable magic of the thing that was happening. When he set Marette on her feet again, her hand accidentally fell upon his, and for a moment her fingers closed upon it in a soft pressure that meant more to him than a thousand words of gratitude. A quarter of a mile beyond the poplar thicket they came to the edge of the spruce and cedar timber, and Soon the thick walls of the forest shut them in, sheltering them from the wind, but the blackness was even more like that of a bottomless pit. Kent had noticed that the thunder and lightning were drifting steadily eastward, and now the occasional flashes of electrical fire scarcely illumined the trail ahead of them. The rain was not beating so fiercely. They could hear the wail of the spruce and cedar tops and the slush of their boots in mud and water. An interval came, where the spruce-tops met overhead, when it was almost calm. It was then that Kent threw out of him a great, deep breath and laughed joyously and exultantly. "Are you wet, little Gray Goose?" "Only outside, Big Otter. My feathers have kept me dry." Her voice had a trembling, half-sobbing, half-rejoicing note in it. It was not the voice of one who had recently killed a man. In it was a pathos which Kent knew she was trying to hide behind brave words. Her hands clung to the arm of his rubber slicker even as they stood there, close together, as if she was afraid something might drag them apart in that treacherous gloom. Kent, fumbling for a moment, drew from an inner pocket a dry handkerchief. Then he found her face, tilted it a bit upward, and wiped it dry. He might have done the same thing to a child who had been crying. After that he scrubbed his own, and they went on, his arm about her again. It was half a mile from the edge of the forest to the bayou, and half a dozen times in that distance Kent took the girl in his arms and carried her through water that almost reached his boot tops. The lightning no longer served them. The rain still fell steadily, but the wind had gone with the eastward sweep of the storm. Close-hung with the forest walls, the bayou itself was indiscernible in the blackness. Marette guided him now, though Kent walked ahead of her, holding firmly to her hand. Unless Fingers had changed its location, the scow should be somewhere within forty or fifty paces of the end of the trail. It was small, a two-man scow, with a tight little house built amidships. And it was tied close up against the shore. Marette told him this as they felt their way through brush and reeds. Then he stumbled against something taut and knee-high, and he found it was the tie-rope. Leaving Marette with her back to the anchor tree, he went aboard. The water was three or four inches deep in the bottom of the scow, but the cabin was built on a platform raised above the floor of the boat, and Kent hoped it was still dry. He groped until he found the twisted wire which held the door shut. Opening it, he ducked his head low and entered. The little room was not more than four feet high, and for greater convenience he fell upon his knees while fumbling under his slicker for his water-proof box of matches. The water had not yet risen above the floor. The first light he struck revealed the interior to him. It was a tiny cabin, scarcely larger than some boxes he had seen. It was about eight feet long by six in width, and the ceiling was so low that, even kneeling, his head touched it. His match burned out, and he lighted another. This time he saw a candle stuck in a bit of split birch that projected from the wall. He crept to it and lighted it. For a moment he looked about him, and again he blessed Fingers. The little scow was prepared for a voyage. Two narrow bunks were built at the far end, one so close above the other that Kent grinned as he thought of squeezing between. There were blankets. Within reach of his arm was a tiny stove, and close to the stove a supply of kindling and dry wood. The whole thing made him think of a child's playhouse. Yet there was still room for a wide, comfortable, cane-bottomed chair, a stool, and a smooth-planed board fastened under a window, so that it answered the purpose of a table. This table was piled with many packages. He stripped off his packs and returned for Marette. She had come to the edge of the scow and called to him softly as she heard him splashing through the water. Her arms were reaching toward him, to meet him in the darkness. He carried her through the shallow sea about his feet and laughed as he put her down on the edge of the platform at the door. It was a low, joyous laugh. The yellow light of the candle sputtered in their wet faces. Only dimly could he see her, but her eyes were shining. "Your nest, little Gray Goose," he cried gently. Her hand reached up and touched his face. "You have been good to me, Jeems," she said, a little tremble in her voice. "You may--kiss me." Out in the beat of the rain Kent's heart choked him with song. His soul swelled with the desire to shout forth a paean of joy and triumph at the world he was leaving this night for all time. With the warm thrill of Marette's lips he had become the superman, and as he leaped ashore in the darkness and cut the tie-rope with a single slash of his knife, he wanted to give voice to the thing that was in him as the rivermen had chanted in the glory of their freedom the day the big brigade started north. And he _did_ sing, under his laughing, sobbing breath. With a giant's strength he sent the scow out into the bayou, and then back and forth he swung the long one-man sweep, twisting the craft riverward with the force of two pairs of arms instead of one. Behind the closed door of the tiny cabin was all that the world now held worth fighting for. By turning his head he could see the faint illumination of the candle at the window. The light--the cabin--Marette! He laughed inanely, foolishly, like a boy. He began to hear a dull, droning murmur, a sound that with each stroke of the sweep grew into a more distinct, cataract-like roar. It was the river. Swollen by flood, it was a terrifying sound. But Kent did not dread it. It was _his_ river; it was his friend. It was the pulse and throb of life to him now. The growing tumult of it was not menace, but the joyous thunder of many voices calling to him, rejoicing at his coming. It grew in his ears. Over his head the black sky opened again, and a deluge of rain fell straight down. But above the sound of it the rush of the river drew nearer, and still nearer. He felt the first eddying swirl of it against the scow head, and powerful hands seemed to reach in out of the darkness. He knew that the nose of the current had caught him and was carrying him out on the breast of the stream. He shipped the sweep and straightened himself, facing the utter chaos of blackness ahead. He felt under him the slow and mighty pulse of the great flood as it swept toward the Slave, the Mackenzie, and the Arctic. And he cried out at last in the downpour of storm, a cry of joy, of exultation, of hope that reached beyond the laws of men--and then he turned toward the little cabin, where through the thickness of sodden night the tiny window was glowing yellow with candle-light. CHAPTER XIX To the cabin Kent groped his way, and knocked, and it was Marette who opened the door for him and stepped back for him to enter. Like a great wet dog he came in, doubling until his hands almost touched the floor. He sensed the incongruity of it, the misplacement of his overgrown body in this playhouse thing, and he grinned through the trickles of wet that ran down his face, and tried to see. Marette had taken off her turban and rain-coat, and she, too, stooped low in the four-feet space of the cabin--but not so ridiculously low as Kent. He dropped on his knees again. And then he saw that in the tiny stove a fire was burning. The crackle of it rose above the beat of the rain on the roof, and the air was already mellowing with the warmth of it. He looked at Marette. Her wet hair was still clinging to her face, her feet and arms and part of her body were wet; but her eyes were shining, and she was smiling at him. She seemed to him, in this moment, like a child that was glad it had found refuge. He had thought that the terror of the night would show in her face, but it was gone. She was not thinking of the thunder and the lightning, the black trail, or of Kedsty lying dead in his bungalow. She was thinking of him. He laughed outright. It was a joyous, thrilling thing, this black night with the storm over their heads and the roll of the great river under them--they two--alone--in this cockleshell cabin that was not high enough to stand in and scarcely big enough in any direction to turn round in. The snug cheer of it, the warmth of the fire beginning to reach their chilled bodies, and the inspiring crackle of the birch in the little stove filled Kent, for a space, with other thoughts than those of the world they were leaving. And Marette, whose eyes and lips were smiling at him softly in the candle-glow, seemed also to have forgotten. It was the little window that brought them back to the tragedy of their flight. Kent visioned it as it must look from the shore--a telltale blotch of light traveling through the darkness. There were occasional cabins for several miles below the Landing, and eyes turned riverward in the storm might see it. He made his way to the window and fastened his slicker over it. "We're off, Gray Goose," he said then, rubbing his hands. "Would it seem more homelike if I smoked?" She nodded, her eyes on the slicker at the window. "It's pretty safe," said Kent, fishing out his pipe, and beginning to fill it. "Everybody asleep, probably. But we won't take any chances." The scow was swinging sideways in the current. Kent felt the change in its movement, and added: "No danger of being wrecked, either. There isn't a rock or rapids for thirty miles. River clear as a floor. If we bump ashore, don't get frightened." "I'm not afraid--of the river," she said. Then, with rather startling unexpectedness, she asked him, "Where will they look for us tomorrow?" Kent lighted his pipe, eyeing her a bit speculatively as she seated herself on the stool, leaning toward him as she waited for an answer to her question. "The woods, the river, everywhere," he said. "They'll look for a missing boat, of course. We've simply got to watch behind us and take advantage of a good start." "Will the rain wipe out our footprints, Jeems?" "Yes. Everything in the open." "But--perhaps--in a sheltered place--?" "We were in no sheltered place," he assured her. "Can you remember that we were, Gray Goose?" She shook her head slowly. "No. But there was Mooie, under the window." "His footprints will be wiped out." "I am glad. I would not have him, or M'sieu Fingers, or any of our friends brought into this trouble." She made no effort to hide the relief his words brought her. He was a little amazed that she should worry over Fingers and the old Indian in this hour of their own peril. That danger he had decided to keep as far from her mind as possible. But she could not help realizing the impending menace of it. She must know that within a few hours Kedsty would be found, and the long arm of the wilderness police would begin its work. And if it caught them-- She had thrust her feet toward him and was wriggling them inside her boots, so that he heard the slushing sound of water. "Ugh, but they are wet!" she shivered. "Will you unlace them and pull them off for me, Jeems?" He laid his pipe aside and knelt close to her. It took him five minutes to get the boots off. Then he held one of her sodden little feet close between his two big hands. "Cold--cold as ice," he said. "You must take off your stockings, Marette. Please." He arranged a pile of wood in front of the stove and covered it with a blanket which he pulled from one of the bunks. Then, still on his knees, he drew the cane chair close to the fire and covered it with a second blanket. A few moments later Marette was tucked comfortably in this chair, with her bare feet on the blanketed pile of wood. Kent opened the stove door. Then he extinguished one of the smoking candles, and after that, the other. The flaming birch illumined the little cabin with a mellower light. It gave a subdued flush to the girl's face. Her eyes seemed to Kent wonderfully soft and beautiful in that changed light. And when he had finished, she reached out a hand, and for an instant it touched his face and his wet hair so lightly that he sensed the thrilling caress of it without feeling its weight. "You are so good to me, Jeems," she said, and he thought there was a little choking note in her throat. He had seated himself on the floor, close to her chair, with his back to the wall. "It is because I love you, Gray Goose," he replied quietly, looking straight into the fire. She was silent. She, too, was looking into the fire. Close over their heads they heard the beating of the rain, like a thousand soft little fists pounding the top of the cabin. Under them they could feel the slow swinging of the scow as it responded to the twists and vagaries of the current that was carrying them on. And Kent, unseen by the girl who was looking away from him, raised his eyes. The birch light was glowing in her hair; it trembled on her white throat; her long lashes were caught in the shimmer of it. And, looking at her, Kent thought of Kedsty lying back in his bungalow room, choked to death by a tress of that glorious hair, so near to him now that, by leaning a little forward, he might have touched it with his lips. The thought brought him no horror. For even as he looked, one of her hands crept up to her cheek--the small, soft hand that had touched his face and hair as lightly as a bit of thistle-down--and he knew that two hands like that could not have killed a man who was fighting for life when he died. And Kent reached up, and took the hand, and held it close in his own, as he said, "Little Gray Goose, please tell me now--what happened in Kedsty's room?" His voice thrilled with an immeasurable faith. He wanted her to know, no matter what had happened, that this faith and his love for her could not be shaken. He believed in her, and would always believe in her. Already he was sure that he knew how Kedsty had died. The picture of the tragedy had pieced itself together in his mind, bit by bit. While he slept, Marette and a man were down in the big room with the Inspector of Police. The climax had come, and Kedsty was struck a blow--in some unaccountable way--with his own gun. Then, just as Kedsty was recovering sufficiently from the shock of the blow to fight, Marette's companion had killed him. Horrified, dazed by what had already happened, perhaps unconscious, she had been powerless to prevent the use of a tress of her hair in the murderer's final work. Kent, in this picture, eliminated the boot-laces and the curtain cords. He knew that the unusual and the least expected happened frequently in crime. And Marette's long hair was flowing loose about her. To use it had simply been the first inspiration of the murderer. And Kent believed, as he waited for her answer now, that Marette would tell him this. And as he waited, he felt her fingers tighten in his hand. "Tell me, Gray Goose--what happened?" "I--don't--know--Jeems--" His eyes went to her suddenly from the fire, as if he was not quite sure he had heard what she had said. She did not move her head, but continued to gaze unseeingly into the flames. Inside his palm her fingers worked to his thumb and held it tightly again, as they had clung to it when she was frightened by the thunder and lightning. "I don't know what happened, Jeems." This time he did not feel the clinging thrill of her little fingers and soft palm. Deep within him he experienced something that was like a sudden and unexpected blow. He was ready to fight for her until his last breath was gone. He was ready to believe anything she told him--anything except this impossible thing which she had just spoken. For she did know what had happened in Kedsty's room. She knew--unless-- Suddenly his heart leaped with joyous hope. "You mean--you were unconscious?" he cried in a low voice that trembled with his eagerness. "You fainted--and it happened then?" She shook her head. "No. I was asleep in my room. I didn't intend to sleep, but--I did. Something awakened me. I thought I had been dreaming. But something kept pulling me, pulling me downstairs. And when I went, I found Kedsty like that. He was dead. I was paralyzed, standing there, when you came." She drew her, hand away from him, gently, but significantly. "I know you can't believe me, Jeems. It is impossible for you to believe me." "And you don't want me to believe you, Marette." "Yes--I do. You must believe me." "But the tress of hair--your hair--round Kedsty's neck--" He stopped. His words, spoken gently as they were, seemed brutal to him. Yet he could not see that they affected her. She did not flinch. He saw no tremor of horror. Steadily she continued to look into the fire. And his brain grew confused. Never in all his experience had he seen such absolute and unaffected self-control. And somehow, it chilled him. It chilled him even as he wanted to reach out and gather her close in his arms, and pour his love into her ears, entreating her to tell him everything, to keep nothing back from him that might help in the fight he was going to make. And then she said, "Jeems, if we should be caught by the Police--it would probably be quite soon, wouldn't it?" "They won't catch us." "But our greatest danger of being caught is right now, isn't it?" she insisted. Kent took out his watch and leaned over to look at it in the fireglow. "It is three o'clock," he said. "Give me another day and night, Gray Goose, and the Police will never find us." For a moment or two more she was silent. Then her hand reached out, and her fingers twined softly round his thumb again. "Jeems--when we are safe--when we are sure the Police won't find us--I will tell you all that I know--about what happened in Kedsty's room. And I will tell you--about--the hair. I will tell you--everything." Her fingers tightened almost fiercely. "Everything," she repeated. "I will tell you about that in Kedsty's room--and I will tell you about myself--and after that--I am afraid--you won't like me." "I love you," he said, making no movement to touch her. "No matter what you tell me, Gray Goose, I shall love you." She gave a little cry, scarcely more than a broken note in her throat, and Kent--had her face been turned toward him then--would have seen the glory that came into it, and into her eyes, like a swift flash of light--and passed as swiftly away. What he did see, when she turned her head, were eyes caught suddenly by something at the cabin door. He looked. Water was trickling in slowly over the sill. "I expected that," he said cheerfully. "Our scow is turning into a rain-barrel, Marette. Unless I bail out, we'll soon be flooded." He reached for his slicker and put it on. "It won't take me long to throw the water overboard," he added. "And while I'm doing that I want you to take _off_ your wet things and tuck yourself into bed. Will you, Gray Goose?" "I'm not tired, but if you think it is best--" Her hand touched his arm. "It is best," he said, and for a moment he bent over her until his lips touched her hair. Then he seized a pail, and went out into the rain. CHAPTER XX It was that hour when, with clear skies, the gray northern dawn would have been breaking faintly over the eastern forests. Kent found the darkness more fog-like; about him was a grayer, ghostlier sort of gloom. But he could not see the water under his feet. Nor could he see the rail of the scow, or the river. From the stern, ten feet from the cabin door, the cabin itself was swallowed up and invisible. With the steady, swinging motion of the riverman he began bailing. So regular became his movements that they ran in a sort of rhythmic accompaniment to his thoughts. The monotonous _splash, splash, splash_ of the outflung pails of water assumed, after a few minutes, the character of a mechanical thing. He could smell the nearness of the shore. Even in the rain the tang of cedar and balsam came to him faintly. But it was the river that impressed itself most upon his senses. It seemed to him, as the minutes passed, like a living thing. He could hear it gurgling and playing under the end of the scow. And with that sound there was another and more indescribable thing, the tremble of it, the pulse of it, the thrill of it in the impenetrable gloom, the life of it as it swept on in a slow and mighty flood between its wilderness walls. Kent had always said, "You can hear the river's heart beat--if you know how to listen for it." And he heard it now. He felt it. The rain could not beat it out, nor could the splash of the water he was throwing overboard drown it, and the darkness could not hide it from the vision that was burning like a living coal within him. Always it was the river that had given him consolation in times of loneliness. For him it had grown into a thing with a soul, a thing that personified hope, courage, comradeship, everything that was big and great in final achievement. And tonight--for he still thought of the darkness as night--the soul of it seemed whispering to him a sort of paean. He could not lose. That was the thought that filled him. Never had his pulse beat with greater assurance, never had a more positive sense of the inevitable possessed him. It was inconceivable, he thought, even to fear the possibility of being taken by the Police. He was more than a man fighting for his freedom alone, more than an individual struggling for the right to exist. A thing vastly more priceless than either freedom or life, if they were to be accepted alone, waited for him in the little cabin, shut in by its sea of darkness. And ahead of them lay their world. He emphasized that. _Their_ world--the world which, in an illusive and unreal sort of way, had been a part of his dreams all his life. In that world they would shut themselves in. No one would ever find them. And the glory of the sun and the stars and God's open country would be with them always. Marette was the very heart of that reality which impinged itself upon him now. He did not worry about what it was she would tell him tomorrow, or day after tomorrow. He believed that it was then--when she had told him what there was to tell, and he still reached, out his arms to her--that she would come into those arms. And he knew that nothing that might have happened in Kedsty's room would keep his arms from reaching, to her. Such was his faith, potent as the mighty flood hidden in the gray-ghost gloom of approaching dawn. Yet he did not expect to win easily. As he worked, his mind swept up and down the Three Rivers from the Landing to Fort Simpson, and mentally he pictured the situations that might arise, and how he would triumph over them. He figured that the men at Barracks would not enter Kedsty's bungalow until noon at the earliest. The Police gasoline launch would probably set out on a river search soon after. By mid-afternoon the scow would have a fifty-mile start. Before darkness came again they would be through the Death Chute, where Follette and Ladouceur swam their mad race for the love of a girl. And not many miles below the Chute was a swampy country where he could hide the scow. Then they would start overland, west and north. Given until another sunset, and they would be safe. This was what he expected. But if it came to fighting--he would fight. The rain had slackened to a thin drizzle by the time he finished his bailing. The aroma of cedar and balsam came to him more clearly, and he heard more distinctly the murmuring surge of the river. He tapped again at the door of the cabin, and Marette answered him. The fire had burned down to a bed of glowing coals when he entered. Again he fell on his knees, and took off his dripping slicker. The girl greeted him from the berth. "You look like a great bear, Jeems." There was a glad, welcoming note in her voice. He laughed, and drew the stool beside her, and managed to sit on it, the roof compelling him to bend his head over a little. "I feel like an elephant in a birdcage," he replied. "Are you comfortable, little Gray Goose?" "Yes. But you, Jeems? You are wet!" "But so happy that I don't feel it, Gray Goose." He could make her out only dimly there in the darkness of the berth. Her face was a pale shadow, and she had loosened her damp hair so that the warmth and dry air might reach it more easily. Kent wondered if she could hear the beating of his heart. He forgot the fire, and the darkness grew thicker. He could no longer see the pale outline of her face, and he drew back a little, possessed by the thought that it was sacrilegious to bend nearer to her, like a thief, in that gloom. She sensed his movement, and her hand reached to him and lay lightly with its fingertips touching his arm. "Jeems," she said softly. "I'm not sorry--now--that I came up to Cardigan's place that day--when you thought you were dying. I wasn't wrong. You are different. And I made fun of you then, and laughed at you, because I knew that you were not going to die. Will you forgive me?" He laughed happily. "It's funny how little things work out, sometimes," he said. "Wasn't a kingdom lost once upon a time because some fellow didn't have a horseshoe? Anyway, I knew of a man whose life was saved because of a broken pipe-stem. And you came to me, and I'm here with you now, because--" "Of what?" she whispered. "Because of something that happened a long time ago," he said. "Something you wouldn't dream could have anything to do with you or with me. Shall I tell you about it, Marette?" Her fingers pressed slightly upon his arm. "Yes." "Of course, it's a story of the Police," he began. "And I won't mention this fellow's name. You may think of him as that red-headed O'Connor, if you want to. But I don't say that it was he. He was a constable in the Service and had been away North looking up some Indians who were brewing an intoxicating liquor from roots. That was six years ago. And he caught something. Le Mort Rouge, we sometimes call it--the Red Death--or smallpox. And he was alone when the fever knocked him down, three hundred miles from anywhere. His Indian ran away at the first sign of it, and he had just time to get up his tent before he was flat on his back. I won't try to tell you of the days he went through. It was a living death. And he would have died, there is no doubt of it, if it hadn't been for a stranger who came along. He was a white man. Marette, it doesn't take a great deal of nerve to go up against a man with a gun, when you've got a gun of your own; and it doesn't take such a lot of nerve to go into battle when a thousand others are going with you. But it does take nerve to face what that stranger faced. And the sick man was nothing to him. He went into that tent and nursed the other back to life. Then the sickness got him, and for ten weeks those two were together, each fighting to save the other's life, and they won out. But the glory of it was with the stranger. He was going west. The constable was going south. They shook hands and parted." Marette's fingers tightened on Kent's arm. And Kent went on. "And the constable never forgot, Gray Goose. He wanted the day to come when he might repay. And the time came. It was years later, and it worked out in a curious way. A man was murdered. And the constable, who had become a sergeant now, had talked with the dead man only a little while before he was killed. Returning for something he had forgotten, it was the sergeant who found him dead. Very shortly afterward a man was arrested. There was blood on his clothing. The evidence was convincing, deadly. And this man--" Kent paused, and in the darkness Marette's hand crept down his arm to his hand, and her fingers closed round it. "Was the man you lied to save," she whispered. "Yes. When the halfbreed's bullet got me, I thought it was a good chance to repay Sandy McTrigger for what he did for me in that tent years before. But it wasn't heroic. It wasn't even brave. I thought I was going to die and that I was risking nothing." And then there came a soft, joyous little laugh from where her head lay on the pillow. "And all the time you were lying so splendidly, Jeems--I KNEW," she cried. "I knew that you didn't kill Barkley, and I knew that you weren't going to die, and I knew what happened in that tent ten years ago. And--Jeems--Jeems--" She raised herself from the pillow. Her breath was coming a little excitedly. Both her hands, instead of one, were gripping his hand now. "I knew that you didn't kill John Barkley," she repeated. "And--_Sandy McTrigger didn't kill him_!" "But--" "He _didn't_," she interrupted him, almost fiercely. "He was innocent, as innocent as you were. Jeems--I Jeems--I know who killed Barkley. Oh, I _know_--I _know_!" A choking sob came into her throat, and then she added, in a voice which she was straining to make calm, "Don't think that I haven't faith in you because I can't tell you more now, Jeems," she said. "You will understand--quite soon. When we are safe from the Police, I shall tell you. I shall keep nothing from you then. I shall tell you about Barkley, and Kedsty--everything. But I can't now. It won't be long. When you tell me we are safe, I shall believe you. And then--" She withdrew her hands from his and dropped back on her pillow. "And then--what?" he asked, leaning far over. "You may not like me, Jeems." "I love you," he whispered. "Nothing in the world can stop my loving you." "Even if I tell you--soon--that I killed Barkley?" "No. You would be lying." "Or--if I told you--that I--killed--Kedsty?" "No matter what you said, or what proof there might be back there, I would not believe you." She was silent. And then, "Jeems--" "Yes, Niska, Little Goddess--?" "I'm going to tell you something--now!" He waited. "It is going to--shock you--Jeems." He felt her arms reaching up. Her two hands touched his shoulders. "Are you listening?" "Yes, I am listening." "Because I'm not going to say it very loud." And then she whispered, "Jeems--_I love you_!" CHAPTER XXI In the slowly breaking gloom of the cabin, with Marette's arms round his neck, her soft lips given him to kiss, Kent for many minutes was conscious of nothing but the thrill of his one great hope on earth come true. What he had prayed for was no longer a prayer, and what he had dreamed of was no longer a dream; yet for a space the reality of it seemed unreal. What he said in those first moments of his exaltation he would probably never remember. His own physical existence seemed a thing trivial and almost lost, a thing submerged and swallowed up by the warm beat and throb of that other life, a thousand times more precious than his own, which he held in his arms. Yet with the mad thrill that possessed him, in the embrace of his arms, there was an infinite tenderness, a gentleness, that drew from Marette's lips a low, glad whispering of his name. She drew his head down and kissed him, and Kent fell upon his knees at her side and crushed his face close down to her--while outside the patter of rain on the roof had ceased, and the fog-like darkness was breaking with gray dawn. In that dawn of the new day Kent came at last out of the cabin and looked upon a splendid world. In his breast was the glory of a thing new-born, and the world, like himself, was changed. Storm had passed. The gray river lay under his eyes. Shoreward he made out the dark outlines of the deep spruce and cedar and balsam forests. About him there was a great stillness, broken only by the murmur of the river and the ripple of water under the scow. Wind had gone with the black rainclouds, and Kent, as he looked about him, saw the swift dissolution of the last shadows of night, and the breaking in the East of a new paradise. In the East, as the minutes passed, there came a soft and luminous gray, and after that, swiftly, with the miracle of far Northern dawn, a vast, low-burning fire seemed to start far beyond the forests, tinting the sky with a delicate pink that crept higher and higher as Kent watched it. The river, all at once, came out of its last drifting haze of fog and night. The scow was about in the middle of the channel. Two hundred yards on either side were thick green walls of forest glistening fresh and cool with the wet of storm and breathing forth the perfume which Kent was drawing deep into his lungs. In the cabin he heard sound. Marette was up, and he was eager to have her come out and stand with him in this glory of their first day. He watched the smoke of the fire he had built, hardwood smoke that drifted up white and clean into the rain-washed air. The smell of it, like the smell of balsam and cedar, was to Kent the aroma of life. And then he began to clean out what was left of the water in the bottom of the scow, and as he worked he whistled. He wanted Marette to hear that whistle. He wanted her to know that day had brought with it no doubt for him. A great and glorious world was about them and ahead of them. And they were safe. As he worked, his mind became more than ever set upon the resolution to take no chances. He paused in his whistling for a moment to laugh softly and exultantly as he thought of the years of experience which were his surest safeguard now. He had become almost uncannily expert in all the finesse and trickery of his craft of hunting human game, and he knew what the man-hunters would do and what they would not do. He had them checkmated at the start. And, besides--with Kedsty, O'Connor, and himself gone--the Landing was short-handed just at present. There was an enormous satisfaction in that. But even with a score of men behind him Kent knew that he would beat them. His hazard, if there was peril at all, lay in this first day. Only the Police gasoline launch could possibly overtake them. And with the start they had, he was sure they would pass the Death Chute, conceal the scow, and take to the untracked forests north and west before the launch could menace them. After that he would keep always west and north, deeper and deeper into that wild and untraveled country which would be the last place in which the Law would seek for them. He straightened himself and looked at the smoke again, drifting like gray-white lace between him and the blue of the sky, and in that moment the sun capped the tall green tops of the highest cedars, and day broke gloriously over the earth. For a quarter of an hour longer Kent mopped at the floor of the scow, and then--with a suddenness that drew him up as if a whip-lash had snapped behind him--he caught another aroma in the clean, forest-scented air. It was bacon and coffee! He had believed that Marette was taking her time in putting on dry footwear and making some sort of morning toilet. Instead of that, she was getting breakfast. It was not an extraordinary thing to do. To fry bacon and make coffee was not, in any sense, a remarkable achievement. But at the present moment it was the crowning touch to Kent's paradise. She was getting HIS breakfast! And--coffee and bacon--To Kent those two things had always stood for home. They were intimate and companionable. Where there were coffee and bacon, he had known children who laughed, women who sang, and men with happy, welcoming faces. They were home-builders. "Whenever you smell coffee and bacon at a cabin," O'Connor had always said, "they'll ask you in to breakfast if you knock at the door." But Kent was not recalling his old trail mate's words. In the present moment all other thoughts were lost in the discovery that Marette was getting breakfast--for him. He went to the door and listened. Then he opened it and looked in. Marette was on her knees before the open door of the stove, toasting bread on two forks. Her face was flushed pink. She had not taken time to brush her hair, but had woven it carelessly into a thick braid that fell down her back. She gave a little exclamation of mock disappointment when she saw Kent. "Why didn't you wait?" she remonstrated. "I wanted to surprise you." "You have," he said. "And I couldn't wait. I had to come in and help." He was inside the door and on his knees beside her. As he reached for the two forks, his lips pressed against her hair. The pink deepened in Marette's face, and the soft little note that was like laughter came into her throat. Her hand caressed his cheek as she rose to her feet, and Kent laughed back. And after that, as she arranged things on the shelf table, her hand now and then touched his shoulder, or his hair, and two or three times he heard that wonderful little throat-note that sent through him a wild pulse of happiness. And then, he sitting in the low chair and she on the stool, they drew close together before the board that answered as a table, and ate their breakfast. Marette poured his coffee and stirred sugar and condensed milk in it, and so happy was Kent that he did not tell her he used neither milk nor sugar in his coffee. The morning sun burst through the little window, and through the open door Kent pointed to the glory of it on the river and in the shimmering green of the forests slipping away behind. When they had finished, Marette went outside with him. For a space she stood silent and without movement, looking upon the marvelous world that encompassed them. It seemed to Kent that for a few moments she did not breathe. With her head thrown back and her white throat bare to the soft, balsam-laden air she faced the forests. Her eyes became suddenly filled with the luminous glow of stars. Her face reflected the radiance of the rising sun, and Kent, looking at her, knew that he had never seen her so beautiful as in these wonderful moments. He held his own breath, for he also knew that Niska, his goddess, was looking upon her own world again after a long time away. Her world--and his. Different from all the other worlds God had ever made; different, even, from the world only a few miles behind them at the Landing. For here was no sound or whisper of destroying human life. They were in the embrace of the Great North, and it was drawing them closer, and with each minute nearer to the mighty, pulsing heart of it. The forests hung heavy and green and glistening with the wet of storm; out of them came the tremulous breath of life and the glory of living; they hugged the shores like watchful hosts guarding the river from civilization--and suddenly the girl held out her arms, and Kent heard the low, thrilling cry that came to her lips. She had forgotten him. She had forgotten everything but the river, the forests, and the untrod worlds beyond them, and he was glad. For this world that she was welcoming, that her soul was crying out to, was his world, for ever and ever. It held his dreams, his hopes, all the desires that he had in life. And when at last Marette turned toward him slowly, his arms were reaching out to her, and in his face she saw that same glory which filled her own. "I'm glad--glad," she cried softly. "Oh, Jeems--I'm glad!" She came into his arms without hesitation; her hands stroked his face; and then she stood with her head against his shoulder, looking ahead, breathing deeply now of the sweet, clear air filled with the elixir of the hovering forests. She did not speak, or move, and Kent remained quiet. The scow drifted around a bend. Shoreward a great moose splashed up out of the water, and they could hear him afterward, crashing through the forest. Her body tensed, but she did not speak. After a little he heard her whisper, "It has been a long time, Jeems. I have been away four years." "And now we are going home, little Gray Goose. You will not be lonely?" "No. I was lonely down there. There were so many people, and so many things, that I was homesick for the woods and mountains. I believe I would have died soon. There were only two things I loved, Jeems--" "What?" he asked. "Pretty dresses--and shoes." His arms closed about her a little more tightly. "I--I understand," he laughed softly. "That is why you came, that first time, with pretty high-heeled pumps." He bowed his head, and she turned her face to him. On her upturned mouth he kissed her. "More than any other man ever loved a woman I love you, Niska, little goddess," he cried. The minutes and the hours of that day stood out ever afterward in Kent's life as unforgettable memories. There were times when they seemed illusory and unreal, as though he lived and breathed in an insubstantial world made up of gossamer things which must be the fabric of dream. These were moments when the black shadow of the tragedy from which they were fleeing pressed upon him, when the thought came to him that they were criminals racing with the law; that they were not on enchanted ground, but in deadly peril; that it was all a fools' paradise from which some terrible shock would shortly awaken him. But these periods of apprehension were, in themselves, mere shadows thrown for a moment upon his happiness. Again and again the subconscious force within him pounded home to his physical brain the great truth, that it was all extraordinarily real. It was Marette who made him doubt himself at times. He could not, quite yet, comprehend the fulness of that love which she had given him. More than ever, in the glory of this love that had come to them she was like a child to him. It seemed to him in the first hours of the morning that she had forgotten yesterday, and the day before, and ill the days before that. She was going home. She whispered that to him so often that it became a little song in his brain. Yet she told him nothing of that home, and he waited, knowing that the fulfilment of her promise was not far away. And there was no embarrassment in the manner of her surrender when he held her in his arms, and she held her face up, so that he could kiss her mouth and look into her glowing, lovely eyes. What he saw was the flush of a great happiness, the almost childish confession of it along with the woman's joy of possession. And he thought of Kedsty, and of the Law that was rousing itself into life back at Athabasca Landing. And then she ran her fingers through his own and told him to wait, and ran into the cabin and came out a moment later with her brush; and after that she seated herself at the fulcrum of the big sweep and began to brush out her hair in the sun. "I'm glad you love it, Jeems," she said. She unbound the thick braid and let the silken strands of it run caressingly between her fingers. She smoothed it out, brushed it until it was more beautiful than he had ever seen it, in that glow of the sun. She held it up so that it rippled out in shimmering cascades about her--and then, suddenly, Kent saw the short tress from which had been clipped the rope of hair that he had taken from Kedsty's neck. And as his lips tightened, crushing fiercely the exclamation of his horror, there came a trembling happiness from Marette's lips, scarcely more than the whisper of a song, the low, thrilling melody of _Le Chaudière_. Her arms reached up, and she drew his head down to her, so that for a time his visions were blinded in that sweet smother of her hair. The intimacy of that day was in itself like a dream. Hour after hour they drifted deeper into the great North. The sun shone. The forest-walled shores of the river grew mightier in their stillness and their grandeur, and the vast silence of unpeopled places brooded over the world. To Kent it was as if they were drifting through Paradise. Occasionally he found it necessary to work the big sweep, for still water was gradually giving way to a swifter current. Beyond that there was no labor for him to perform. It seemed to him that with each of these wonderful hours danger was being left farther and still farther behind them. Watching the shores, looking ahead, listening for sound that might come from behind--at times possessed of the exquisite thrills of children in their happiness--Kent and Marette found the gulf of strangeness passing swiftly away from between them. They did not speak of Kedsty, or the tragedy, or again of the death of John Barkley. But Kent told of his days in the North, of his aloneness, of the wild, weird love in his soul for the deepest wildernesses. And from that he went away back into dim and distant yesterdays, alive with mellowed memories of boyhood days spent on a farm. To all these things Marette listened with glowing eyes, with low laughter, or with breath that rose or fell with his own emotions. She told of her own days down at school and of their appalling loneliness; of childhood spent in the forests; of the desire to live there always. But she did not speak intimately of herself or her life in its more vital aspects; she said nothing of the home in the Valley of Silent Men, nothing of father or mother, sisters or brothers. There was no embarrassment in her omissions. And Kent did not question. He knew that those were among the things she would tell him when that promised hour came, the hour when he would tell her they were safe. There began to possess him now a growing eagerness for this hour, when they should leave the river and take to the forests. He explained to Marette why they could not float on indefinitely. The river was the one great artery through which ran the blood of all traffic to the far North. It was patrolled. Sooner or later they would be discovered. In the forests, with a thousand untrod trails to choose, they would be safe. He had only one reason for keeping to the river until they passed through the Death Chute. It would carry them beyond a great swampy region to the westward through which it would be impossible for them to make their way at this season of the year. Otherwise he would have gone ashore now. He loved the river, had faith in it, but he knew that not until the deep forests swallowed them, as a vast ocean swallows a ship, would they be beyond the peril that threatened them from the Landing. Three or four times between sunrise and noon they saw life ashore and on the stream; once a scow tied to a tree, then an Indian camp, and twice trappers' shacks built in the edge of little clearings. With the beginning of afternoon Kent felt growing within him something that was not altogether eagerness. It was, at times, a disturbing emotion, a foreshadowing of evil, a warning for him to be on his guard. He used the sweep more, to help their progress in the current, and he began to measure time and distance with painstaking care. He recognized many landmarks. By four o'clock, or five at the latest, they would strike the head of the Chute. Ten minutes of its thrilling passage and he would work the scow into the concealment he had in mind ashore, and no longer would he fear the arm of the law that reached out from the Landing. As he planned, he listened. From noon on he never ceased to listen for that distant _putt, putt, putt_, that would give them a mile's warning of the approach of the patrol launch. He did not keep his plans to himself. Marette sensed his growing uneasiness, and he made her a partner of his thoughts. "If we hear the patrol before we reach the Chute, we'll still have time to run ashore," he assured her. "And they won't catch us. We'll be harder to find than two needles in a haystack. But it's best to be prepared." So he brought out his pack and Marette's smaller bundle, and laid his rifle and pistol holster across them. It was three o'clock when the character of the river began to change, and Kent smiled happily. They were entering upon swifter waters. There were places where the channel narrowed, and they sped through rapids. Only where unbroken straight waters stretched out ahead of them did Kent give his arms a rest at the sweep. And through most of the straight water he added to the speed of the scow. Marette helped him. In him the exquisite thrill of watching her slender, glorious body as it worked with his own never grew old. She laughed at him over the big oar between them. The wind and sun played riot in her hair. Her parted lips were rose-red, her cheeks flushed, her eyes like sun-warmed rock violets. More than once, in the thrill of that afternoon flight, as he looked at the marvelous beauty of her, he asked himself if it could be anything but a dream. And more than once he laughed joyously, and paused in his swinging of the sweep, and proved that it was real and true. And Kent thanked God, and worked harder. Once, a long time ago, Marette told him, she had been through the Chute. It had horrified her then. She remembered it as a sort of death monster, roaring for its victims. As they drew nearer to it, Kent told her more about it. Only now and then was a life lost there now, he said. At the mouth of the Chute there was a great, knife-like rock, like a dragon's tooth, that cut the Chute into two roaring channels. If a scow kept to the left-hand channel it was safe. There would be a mighty roaring and thundering as it swept on its passage, but that roaring of the Chute, he told her, was like the barking of a harmless dog. Only when a scow became unmanageable, or hit the Dragon's Tooth, or made the right-hand channel instead of the left, was there tragedy. There was that delightful little note of laughter in Marette's throat when Kent told her that. "You mean, Jeems, that if one of three possible things doesn't happen, we'll get through safely?" "None of them is possible--with us," he corrected himself quickly. "We've a tight little scow, we're not going to hit the rock, and we'll make the left-hand channel so smoothly you won't know when it happens." He smiled at her with splendid confidence. "I've been through it a hundred times," he said. He listened. Then, suddenly, he drew out his watch. It was a quarter of four. Marette's ears caught what he heard. In the air was a low, trembling murmur. It was growing slowly but steadily. He nodded when she looked at him, the question in her eyes. "The rapids at the head of the Chute!" he cried, his voice vibrant with joy. "We've beat them out. _We're safe_!" They swung around a bend, and the white spume of the rapids lay half a mile ahead of them. The current began to race with them now. Kent put his whole weight on the sweep to keep the scow in mid-channel. "We're safe," he repeated. "Do you understand, Marette? _We're safe_!" He was speaking the words for which she had waited, was telling her that at last the hour had come when she could keep her promise to him. The words, as he gave them voice, thrilled him. He felt like shouting them. And then all at once he saw the change that had come into her face. Her wide, startled eyes were not looking at him, but beyond. She was looking back in the direction from which they had come, and even as he stared her face grew white. "_Listen_!" She was tense, rigid. He turned his head. And in that moment it came to him above the growing murmur of the river--the _putt, putt, putt_ of the Police patrol boat from Athabasca Landing! A deep breath came from between his lips. When Marette took her eyes from the river and looked at him, his face was like carven rock. He was staring dead ahead. "We can't make the Chute," he said, his voice sounding hard and unreal to her. "If we do, they'll be up with us before we can land at the other end. We must let this current drive us ashore--_now_." As he made his decision, he put the strength of his body into action. He knew there was not the hundredth part of a second to lose. The outreaching suction of the rapids was already gripping the scow, and with mighty strokes he fought to work the head of his craft toward the westward shore. With swift understanding Marette saw the priceless value of a few seconds of time. If they were caught in the stronger swirl of the rapids before the shore was reached, they would be forced to run the Chute, and in that event the launch would be upon them before they could make a landing farther on. She sprang to Kent's side and added her own strength in the working of the sweep. Foot by foot and yard by yard the scow made precious westing, and Kent's face lighted up with triumph as he nodded ahead to a timbered point that thrust itself out like a stubby thumb into the river. Beyond that point the rapids were frothing white, and they could see the first black walls of rock that marked the beginning of the Chute. "We'll make it," he smiled confidently. "We'll hit that timbered point close inshore. I don't see where the launch can make a landing anywhere within a mile of the Chute. And once ashore we'll make trail about five times as fast they can follow it." Marette's face was no longer pale, but flushed with excitement. He caught the white gleam of teeth between her parted lips. Her eyes shone gloriously, and he laughed. "You beautiful little fighter," he cried exultantly. "You--you--" His words were cut short by a snap that was like the report of a pistol close to his ears. He pitched forward and crashed to the bottom of the scow, Marette's slim body clutched in his arms as he fell. In a flash they were up, and mutely they stared where the sweep had been. The blade of it was gone. Kent was conscious of hearing a little cry from the girl at his side, and then her fingers were gripping tightly again about his thumb. No longer possessed of the power of guidance, the scow swung sideways. It swept past the wooded point. The white maelstrom of the lower rapids seized upon it. And Kent, looking ahead to the black maw of the death-trap that was waiting for them, drew Marette close in his arms and held her tight. CHAPTER XXII For a brief space after the breaking of the scow-sweep Kent did not move. He felt Marette's arms closing tighter and tighter around his neck. He caught a flash of her upturned face, the flush of a few moments before replaced by a deathly pallor, and he knew that without explanation on his part she understood the almost hopeless situation they were in. He was glad of that. It gave him a sense of relief to know that she would not go into a panic, no matter what happened. He bowed his face to hers, so that he felt the velvety smoothness of her cheek. She turned her mouth to him, and they kissed. His embrace was crushing for a moment, fierce with his love for her, desperate with his determination to keep her from harm. His brain was working swiftly. There was possibly one chance in ten that the scow--rudderless and without human guidance--would sweep safely between the black walls and jagged teeth of the Chute. Even if the scow made this passage, they would be in the power of the Police, unless some splendid whimsicality of Fate sent it ashore before the launch came through. On the other hand, if it was carried far enough through the lower rapids, they might swim. And--there was the rifle laying across the pack. That, after all, was his greatest hope--if the scow made the passage of the Chute. The bulwarks of the scow would give them greater protection than the thinner walls of the launch would give to their pursuers. In his heart there raged suddenly a hatred for that Law of which he had been a part. It was running them to destruction, and he would fight. There would not be more than three men in the launch, and he would kill them, if killing became a necessity. They were speeding like an unbridled race-horse through the boiling rapids now. The clumsy craft under their feet twisted and turned. The dripping tops of great rocks shot past a little out of their channel. And Marette, with one arm still about his neck, was facing the peril ahead with him. They could see the Dragon's Tooth, black and grim, waiting squarely in their path. In another hundred and twenty seconds they would be upon it--or past it. There was no time for Kent to explain. He sprang to his pack, whipped a knife from his pocket, and cut the stout babiche rope that reenforced its straps. In another instant he was back at Marette's side, fastening the babiche about her waist. The other end he gave to her, and she tied it about his wrist. She smiled as she finished the knot. It was a strange, tense little smile, but it told him that she was not afraid, that she had great faith in him, and knew what the babiche meant. "I can swim, Jeems," she cried. "If we strike the rock." She did not finish because of the sudden cry that came to his lips. He had almost forgotten the most vital of all things. There was not time to unlace his boots. With his knife he cut the laces in a single downward thrust. Swiftly he freed his own feet, and Marette's. Even in this hour of their peril it thrilled him to see how quickly Marette responded to the thoughts that moved him. She tore at her outer garments and slipped them off as he wriggled out of his heavy shirt. A slim, white-underskirted little thing, her glorious hair flying in the wind that came through the Chute, her throat and arms bare, her eyes shining at Kent, she came again close within his arms, and her lips framed softly his name. And a moment later she turned her face up, and cried quickly, "Kiss me, Jeems--kiss me--" Her warm lips clung to his, and her bare arms encircled his neck with the choking grip of a child's. He looked ahead and braced himself on his feet, and after that he buried one of his hands in the soft mass of her hair and pressed her face against his naked breast. Ten seconds later the crash came. Squarely amidships the scow struck the Dragon's Tooth. Kent was prepared for the shock, but his attempt to hold his feet, with Marette in his arms, was futile. The bulwark saved them from crashing against the slippery face of the rock itself. Amid the roar of water that filled his ears he was conscious of the rending of timbers. The scow bulged up with the mighty force beneath, and for a second or two it seemed as though that force was going to overturn and submerge it. Then slowly it began to slip off the nose of the rock. Holding to the rail with one hand and clinging to Marette with his other arm, Kent was gripped in the horror of what was happening. The scow was slipping _into the right hand channel_! In that channel there as no hope--only death. Marette was squarely facing the thing ahead. In this hour when each second held a lifetime of suspense Kent saw that she understood. Yet she did not cry out. Her face was dead white. Her hair and arms and shoulders were dripping with the splash of water. But she was not terrified as he had seen terror. When she turned her eyes to him, he was amazed by the quiet, calm look that was in them. Her lips trembled. His soul expressed itself in a wordless cry that was drowned in another crash of timber as a jutting snag of the Tooth crumpled up the little cabin as if it had been pasteboard. He felt overwhelming him the surge of a thing mightier than the menace of the Chute. He could not lose! It was inconceivable. Impossible! With _her_ to fight for--this slim, wonderful creature who smiled at him even as she saw death. And then, as his arm closed still more tightly about her, the monsters of power and death gave him their answer. The scow swung free of the Dragon's Tooth, half-filled with water. Its cracked and broken carcass was caught in the rock jaws of the eastern channel. It ceased to be a floating thing. It was inundation, dissolution, utter obliteration almost without shock. And Kent found himself in the thundering rush of waters, holding to Marette. For a space they were under. Black water and white froth fumed and exploded over them. It seemed an age before fresh air filled Kent's nostrils. He thrust Marette upward and cried out to her. He heard her answer. "I'm all right--Jeems!" His swimming prowess was of little avail now. He was like a chip. All his effort was to make of himself a barrier between Marette's soft body and the rocks. It was not the water itself that he feared, but the rocks. There were scores and hundreds of them, like the teeth of a mighty grinding machine. And the jaw was a quarter of a mile in length. He felt the first shock, the second, the third. He was not thinking of time or distance, but was fighting solely to keep himself between Marette and death. The first time he failed, a blind sort of rage burned in his brain. He saw her white body strained over a slippery, deluge-worn rock. Her head was flung back, and he saw the long masses of her hair streaming out in the white froth, and he thought for an instant that her fragile body had been broken. He fought still more fiercely after that. And she knew for what he was fighting. Only in an unreal sort of way was he conscious of shock and hurt. It gave him no physical pain. Yet he sensed the growing dizziness in his head, an increasing lack of strength in his arms and body. They were halfway through the Chute when he shot against a rock with terrific force. The contact tore Marette from him. He plunged for her, missed his grip, and then saw her opposite him, clinging to the same rock. The babiche rope had saved her. Fastened about her waist and tied to his wrist, it still held them together--with the five feet of rock between them. Panting, their life half beaten out of them, their eyes met over that rock. Now that he was out of the water, the blood began streaming from Kent's arms and shoulders and face, but he smiled at her as a few moments before she had smiled at him. Her eyes were filled with the pain of his hurts. He nodded back in the direction from which they had come. "We're out of the worst of it," he tried to shout. "As soon as we've got our wind, I will climb over the rock to you. It won't take us longer than a couple of minutes, perhaps less, to make the quiet water at the end of the channel." She heard him and nodded her reply. He wanted to give her confidence. And he had no intention of resting, for her position filled him with a terror which he fought to hide. The babiche rope, not half as large around as his little finger, had swung her to the downstream side of the rock. It was the slender thread of buckskin and his own weight that were holding her. If the buckskin should break-- He thanked God that it was the tough babiche that had been around his pack. An inch at a time he began to draw himself up on the rock. The undertow behind the rock had flung a mass of Marette's long hair toward him, so that it was a foot or two nearer to him than her clinging hands. He worked himself toward that, for he saw that he could reach it more quickly than he could reach her. At the same time he had to keep his end of the babiche taut. It was, from the beginning, an almost superhuman task. The rock was slippery as oil. Twice his eyes shot down-stream, with the thought that it might be better to cast himself bodily into the water, and after that draw Marette to him by means of the babiche. What he saw convinced him that such action would be fatal. He must have Marette in his arms. If he lost her--even for a few seconds--the life would be beaten from her body in that rock-strewn maelstrom below. And then, suddenly, the babiche cord about his wrist grew loose. The reaction almost threw him back. With the loosening of it a cry came from Marette. It all happened in an instant, in almost less time than his brain could seize upon the significance of it--the slipping of her hands from the rock, the shooting of her white body away from him in the still whiter spume of the rapids, The rock had cut the babiche, and she was gone! With a cry that was like the cry of a madman he plunged after her. The water engulfed him. He twisted himself up, freeing himself from the undertow. Twenty feet ahead of him--thirty--he caught a glimpse of a white arm and then of Marette's face, before she disappeared in a wall of froth. Into that froth he shot after her. He came out of it blinded, groping wildly for her, crying out her name. His fingers caught the end of the babiche that was fastened about his own wrist, and he clutched it savagely, believing for a moment that he had found her. Thicker and more deadly the rocks of the lower passage rose in his way. They seemed like living things, like devils filled with the desire to torture and destroy. They struck and beat at him. Their laughter was the roar of a Niagara. He no longer cried out. His brain grew heavy, and clubs were beating him--beating and breaking him into a formless thing. The rock-drifts of spume, lather-white, like the frosting of a monster cake, turned gray and then black. He did not know when he ceased fighting. The day went out. Night came. The world was oblivion. And for a space he ceased to live. CHAPTER XXIII An hour later the fighting forces in his body dragged Kent back into existence. He opened his eyes. The shock of what had happened did not at once fall upon him. His first sensation was of awakening from a sleep that had been filled with pain and horror. Then he saw a black rock wall opposite him; he heard the sullen roar of the stream; his eyes fell upon a vivid patch of light reflected from the setting sun. He dragged himself up until he was on his knees, and all at once a thing that was like an iron hoop--choking his senses--seemed to break in his head, and he staggered to his feet, crying out Marette's name. Understanding inundated him with its horror, deadening his tongue after that first cry, filling his throat with a moaning, sobbing agony. Marette was gone. She was lost. She was dead. Swiftly, as reason came, his eyes took in his environment. For a quarter of a mile above him he could see the white spume between the chasm walls, darkening with the approach of night. He could hear more clearly the roar of the death-floods. But close to him was smooth water, and he stood now on a shelving tongue of rock and shale, upon which the current had flung him. In front of him was a rock wall. Behind him was another. There was no footing except where he stood. And Marette was not with him. Only the truth could batter at his brain as he stood there. But his physical self refused to accept that truth. If he had lived, she must live! She was there--somewhere--along the shore--among the rocks-- The moaning in his throat gave way to the voicing of her name. He shouted, and listened. He swayed back along the tongue of rock to the boulder-strewn edge of the chasm wall. A hundred yards farther on was the opening of the Chute. He came out of this, his clothes torn from him, his body bleeding, unrecognizable, half a madman,--shouting her name more and more loudly. The glow of the setting sun struck him at last. He was out from between the chasm walls, and it lighted up the green world for him. Ahead of him the river widened and swept on in tranquil quiet. And now it was no longer fear that possessed him. It was the horrible, overwhelming certainty of the thing. The years fell from him, and he sobbed--sobbed like a boy stricken by some great childish grief, as he searched along the edge of the shore. Over and over again he cried and whispered Marette's name. But he did not shout it again, for he knew that she was dead. She was gone from him forever. Yet he did not cease to search. The last of the sun went out. Twilight came, and then darkness. Even in that darkness he continued to search for a mile below the Chute, calling her name more loudly now, and listening always for the answer which he knew would never come. The moon came out after a time, and hour after hour he kept up his hopeless quest. He did not know how badly the rocks had battered and hurt him, and he scarcely knew when it was that exhaustion dropped him like a dead man in his tracks. When dawn came, it found him wandering away from the river, and toward noon of that day, he was found by André Boileau, the old white-haired half-breed who trapped on Burntwood Creek. André was shocked at the sight of his wounds and half dragged and half carried him to his shack hidden away in the forest. For six days thereafter Kent remained at old André's place, simply because he had neither the strength nor the reason to move. André wondered that there were no broken bones in him. But his head was terribly hurt, and it was that hurt that for three days and three nights made Kent hover with nerve-racking indecision between life and death. The fourth day reason came back to him, and Boileau fed him venison broth. The fifth day he stood up. The sixth he thanked André, and said that he was ready to go. André outfitted him with old clothes, gave him a supply of food and God's blessing. And Kent returned to the Chute, giving André to understand that his destination was Athabasca Landing. Kent knew that it was not wise for him to return to the river. He knew that it would have been better for him both in mind and body had he gone in the opposite direction. But he no longer had in him the desire to fight, even for himself. He followed the lines of least resistance, and these led him back to the scene of the tragedy. His grief, when he returned, was no longer the heartbreaking agony of that first night. It was a deep-seated, consuming fire that had already burned him out, heart and soul. Even caution was dead in him. He feared nothing, avoided nothing. Had the police boat been at the Chute, he would have revealed himself without any thought of self-preservation. A ray of hope would have been precious medicine to him. But there was no hope. Marette was dead. Her tender body was destroyed. And he was alone, unfathomably and hopelessly alone. And now, after he had reached the river again, something held him there. From the head of the Chute to a bend in the river two miles below, his feet wore a beaten trail. Three or four times a day he would make the trip, and along the path he set a few snares in which he caught rabbits for food. Each night he made his bed in a crevice among the rocks at the foot of the Chute. At the end of a week the old Jim Kent was dead. Even O'Connor would not have recognized him with his shaggy growth of beard, his hollow eyes, and the sunken cheeks which the beard failed to hide. And the fighting spirit in him also was dead. Once or twice there leaped up in him a sudden passion demanding vengeance upon the accursed Law that was accountable for the death of Marette, but even this flame snuffed itself out quickly. And then, on the eighth day, he saw the edge of a thing that was almost hidden under an overhanging bank. He fished it out. It was Marette's little pack, and for many minutes before he opened it Kent crushed the sodden treasure to his breast, staring with half-mad eyes down where he had found it, as if Marette must be there, too. Then he ran with it to an open space, where the sun fell warmly on a great, flat rock that was level with the ground, and with sobbing breath he opened it. It was filled with the things she had picked up quickly in her room the night of their flight from Kedsty's bungalow, and as he drew them out one by one and placed them in the sun on the rock, a new and sudden rush of life swept through his veins, and he sprang to his feet and faced the river again, as if at last a hope had come to him. Then he looked down again upon what she had treasured, and reaching out his arms to them, he whispered, "Marette--my little goddess--" Even in his grief the overwhelming mastery of his love for the one who was dead brought a smile to his haggard and bearded face. For Marette, in filling her little pack on that night of hurried flight, had chosen strange things. On the sunlit rock, where he had placed them, were a pair of the little pumps which he had fallen on his knees to worship in her room, and with these she had crowded into the pack one of the billowing, sweet-smelling dresses which had made his heart stand still for a moment when he first looked into their hiding-place. It was no longer soft and cobwebby as it had been then, like down fluttering against his cheeks, but sodden and discolored, as it lay on the rock with little rivulets of water running from it. With the shoes and the dress were the intimate necessities which Marette had taken with her. But it was one of the pumps that Kent picked up and crushed close to his ragged breast--one of the two she had worn that first wonderful day she had come to see him at Cardigan's place. This hour was the beginning of another change in Kent. It seemed to him that a message had come to him from Marette herself, that the spirit of her had returned to him and was with him now, stirring strange things in his soul and warming his blood with a new heat. She was gone forever, and yet she had come back to him, and the truth grew upon him that this spirit of her would never leave him again as long as he lived. He felt her nearness. Unconsciously he reached out his arms, and a strange happiness entered Into him to battle with grief and loneliness. His eyes shone with a new glow as they looked at her little belongings on the sunlit rock. It was as if they were flesh and blood of her, a part of her heart and soul. They were the voice of her faith in him, her promise that she would be with him always. For the first time in many days Kent felt a new force within him, and he knew that she was not quite gone, that he had something of her left to fight for. That night he made his bed for a last time in the crevice between the rocks, and his treasure was gathered within the protecting circle of his arms as he slept. The next day he struck out north and east. On the fifth day after he left the country of André Boileau he traded his watch to a half-breed for a cheap gun, ammunition, a blanket, flour, and a cooking outfit. After that he had no hesitation in burying himself still deeper into the forests. A month later no one would have recognized Kent as the one-time crack man of N Division. Bearded, ragged, long-haired, he wandered with no other purpose than to be alone and to get still farther away from the river. Occasionally he talked with an Indian or a half-breed. Each night, though the weather was very warm, he made himself a small camp-fire, for it was always in these hours, with the fire-light about him, that he felt Marette was very near. It was then that he took out one by one the precious things that were in Marette's little pack. He worshipped these things. The dress and each of the little shoes he had wrapped in the velvety inner bark of the birch tree. He protected them from wet and storm. Had emergency called for it, he would have fought for them. They became, after a time, more precious than his own life, and in a vague sort of way at first he began to thank God that the river had not robbed him of everything. Kent's inclination was not to fight himself into forgetfulness. He wanted to remember every act, every word, every treasured caress that chained him for all time to the love he had lost. Marette became more a part of him every day. Dead in the flesh, she was always at his side, nestling close in the shelter of his arms at night, walking with her hand in his during the day. And in this belief his grief was softened by the sweet and merciful comfort of a possession of which neither man nor fate could rob him--a beloved Presence always with him. It was this Presence that rebuilt Kent. It urged him to throw up his head again, to square his shoulders, to look life once more straight in the face. It was both inspiration and courage to him and grew nearer and dearer to him as time passed. Early Autumn found him in the Fond du Lac country, two hundred miles east of Fort Chippewyan. That Winter he joined a Frenchman, and until February they trapped along the edges of the lower fingers of the Barrens. He came to think a great deal of Picard, his comrade. But he revealed nothing of his secret to him, or of the new desire that was growing in him. And as the Winter lengthened this desire became a deep and abiding yearning. It was with him night and day. He dreamed of it when he slept, and it was never out of his thoughts when awake. He wanted to go HOME. And when he thought of home, it was not of the Landing, and not of the country south. For him home meant only one place in the world now--the place where Marette had lived. Somewhere, hidden in the mountains far north and west, was that mysterious Valley of Silent Men where they had been going when her body died. And the spirit of her wanted him to go to it now. It was like a voice pleading with him, urging him to go, to live there always where she had lived. He began to plan, and in this planning he found new joy and new life. He would find her home, her people, the valley that was to have been their paradise. So late in February, with his share of the Winter catch in his pack, he said good-by to Picard and faced the River again. CHAPTER XXIV Kent had not forgotten that he was an outlaw, but he was not afraid. Now that he had something new and thrilling to fight for, he fell back again upon what he called "the finesse of the game." He approached Chippewyan cautiously, although he was sure that even his old friends at the Landing would fail to recognize him now. His beard was four or five inches long, and his hair was shaggy and uncut. Picard had made him a coat, that winter, of young caribou skin, and it was fringed like an Indian's. Kent chose his time and entered Chippewyan just before dusk. Oil lamps were burning in the Hudson's Bay Company's store when he went in with his furs. The place was empty, except for the factor's clerk, and for an hour he bartered. He bought a new outfit, a Winchester rifle, and all the supplies he could carry. He did not forget a razor and a pair of shears, and when he was done he still had the value of two silver fox skins in cash. He left Chippewyan that same night, and by the light of a Winter moon made his camp half a dozen miles northward toward Smith Landing. He was on the Slave River now and for weeks traveled slowly but steadily northward on snowshoes. He avoided Fort Smith and Smith Landing and struck westward before he came to Fort Resolution. It was in April that he struck Hay River Post, where the Hay River empties into Great Slave Lake. Until the ice broke up, Kent worked at Hay River. When it was safe, he started down the Mackenzie in a canoe. It was late in June when he turned up the Liard to the South Nahani. "You go straight through between the sources of the North and the South Nahani," Marette had told him. "It is there you find the Sulphur Country, and beyond the Sulphur Country is the Valley of Silent Men." At last he came to the edge of this country. He camped with the stink of it in his nostrils. The moon rose, and he saw that desolate world as through the fumes of a yellow smoke. With dawn he went on. He passed through broad, low morasses out of which rose sulphurous fogs. Mile after mile he buried himself deeper in it, and it became more and more a dead country, a lost hell. There were berry bushes on which there grew no berries. There were forests and swamps, but without a living creature to inhabit them. It was a country of water in which there were no fish, of air in which there were no birds, of plants without flowers--a reeking, stinking country still with the stillness of death. He began to turn yellow. His clothing, his canoe, his hands, face--everything turned yellow. He could not get the filthy taste of sulphur out of his mouth. Yet he kept on, straight west by the compass Gowen had given him at Hay River. Even this compass became yellow in his pocket. It was impossible for him to eat. Only twice that day did he drink from his flask of water. And Marette had made this journey! He kept telling himself that. It was the secret way in and out of their hidden world, a region accursed by devils, a forbidden country to both Indian and white man. It was hard for him to believe that she had come this way, that she had drunk in the air that was filling his own lungs, nauseating him a dozen times to the point of sickness. He worked desperately. He felt neither fatigue nor the heat of the warm water about him. Night came, and the moon rose, lighting up with a sickly glow the diseased world that had swallowed him. He lay in the bottom of his canoe, covering his face with his caribou coat, and tried to sleep. But sleep would not come. Before dawn he struck on, watching his compass by the light of matches. All that day he made no effort to swallow food. But with the coming of the second night he found the air easier to breathe. He fought his way on by the light of the moon which was clearer now. And at last, in a resting spell, he heard far ahead of him the howl of a wolf. In his joy he cried out. A western breeze brought him air that he drank in as a desert-stricken man drinks water. He did not look at his compass again, but worked steadily in the face of that fresh air. An hour later he found that he was paddling again a slow current, and when he tasted the water it was only slightly tainted with sulphur. By midnight the water was cool and clean. He landed on a shore of sand and pebbles, stripped to the skin, and gave himself such a scouring as he had never before experienced. He had worn his old trapping shirt and trousers, and after his bath he changed to the outfit which he had kept clean in his pack. Then he built a fire and ate his first meal in two days. The next morning he climbed a tall spruce and surveyed the country about him. Westward there was a broad low country shut in fifteen or twenty miles away by the foothills. Beyond these foothills rose the snow-capped peaks of the Rockies. He shaved himself, cut his hair, and went on. That night he camped only when he could drive his canoe no farther. The waterway had narrowed to a creek, and he was among the first green shoulders of the hills when he stopped. With another dawn he concealed his canoe in a sheltered place and went on with his pack. For a week he picked his way slowly westward. It was a splendid country into which he had come, and yet he found no sign of human life. The foothills changed to mountains, and he believed he was in the Campbell Range. Also he knew that he had followed the logical trail from the sulphur country. Yet it was the eighth day before he came upon a sign which told him that another living being had at some time passed that way. What he found were the charred remnants of an old camp-fire. It had been a white man's fire. He knew that by the size of it. It had been an all-night fire of green logs cut with an axe. On the tenth day he came to the westward slope of the first range and looked down upon one of the most wonderful valleys his eyes had ever beheld. It was more than a valley. It was a broad plain. Fifty miles across it rose the towering majesty of the mightiest of all the Yukon mountains. And now, though he saw a paradise about him, his heart began to sink within him. It seemed to him inconceivable that in a country so vast he could find the spot for which he was seeking. His one hope lay in finding white men or Indians, some one who might guide him. He traveled slowly over the fifty-mile plain rich with a verdure of green, covered with flowers, a game paradise. Few hunters had come so far out of the Yukon mountains, he told himself. And none had come from out of the sulphur country. It was a new and undiscovered world. On his map it was a blank space. And there were no signs of people. Ahead of him the Yukon mountains rose in an impenetrable wall, peak after peak, crested with snow, towering like mighty watchdogs above the clouds. He knew what lay beyond them--the great rivers of the Western slope, Dawson City, the gold country and its civilization. But those things were on the other side of the mountains. On his side there was only the vast and undisputed silence of a paradise as yet unclaimed by man. As he went on into this valley there grew upon him a strange and comforting peace. Yet with it there was a steadily increasing belief that he would not find that for which he had come in search. He did not attempt to analyze this belief. It became a part of him, just as his mental tranquillity had grown upon him. His one hope of success was that nearer the mountains he might find white men or Indians. He no longer used his compass, but guided himself by a cluster of three gigantic peaks. One of these was taller than the other two. As he journeyed, his eyes were always returning to it. It fascinated him, impinged itself upon him as the watcher of a million years, guarding the valley. He began to think of it as the Watcher. Each hour of his progress seemed to bring it a little more intimately to his vision. From his first night's camp in the valley he saw the moon sink behind it. Within him a voice that never died kept whispering to him that this mountain, greater than all the others, had been Marette's guardian. Ten thousand times she must have looked at it, as he had looked at it that day--if her home was anywhere this side of the Campbell Range. A hundred miles away she could have seen the Watcher on a clear day. On the second day the mountain continued to grow upon Kent. By mid-afternoon it began to take on a new character. The peak of it was in the form of a mighty castle that changed as he advanced. And the two lesser peaks were forming into definite contours. Before the haze of twilight dimmed his vision, he knew that what he had seen was not a whimsical invention of his imagination. The Watcher had grown into the shape of a mighty human head facing south. A restless excitement possessed him, and he traveled on long after dusk. At dawn he was on the trail again. Westward the sky cleared, and suddenly he stopped, and a cry came from him. The Watcher's head was there, as if chiseled by the hands of giants. The two smaller peaks had unveiled their mystery. Startling and weird, their crests had taken on the form of human heads. One of them was looking north. The other faced the valley. And Kent, his heart pounding, cried to himself, "The Silent Men!" He did not hear himself, but the thought itself was a tumultuous thing within him. It came upon him like an inundation, a sudden and thrilling inspiration backed by the forces of a visual truth. _The Valley of Silent Men_. He repeated the words, staring at the three colossal heads in the sky. Somewhere near them, under them,--one side or the other--was Marette's hidden valley! He went on. A strange joy consumed him. In it, at times, his grief was obliterated, and it seemed to him in these moments that Marette must surely be at the valley to greet him when he came to it. But always the tragedy of the Death Chute came back to him, and with it the thought that the three giant heads were watching--and would always watch--for a beloved lost one who would never return. As the sun went down that day, the face bowed to the valley seemed alive with the fire of a living question sent directly to Kent. "Where is she?" it asked. "Where is she? Where is she?" That night Kent did not sleep. The next day there lay ahead of him a low and broken range, the first of the deeper mountains. He climbed this steadily, and at noon had reached the crest. And he knew that at last he was looking down into the Valley of Silent Men. It was not a wide valley, like the other. On the far side of it, three or four miles away, rose the huge mountain whose face was looking down upon the green meadows at its foot. Southward Kent could see for a long distance, and in the vivid sunlight he saw the shimmer of creeks and little lakes, and the rich glow of thick patches of cedar and spruce and balsam, scattered like great rugs of velvety luster amid the flowering green of the valley. Northward, three or four miles away the range which he had climbed made a sharp twist to the east, and that part of the valley--following the swing of the range--was lost to him. He turned in this direction after he had rested. It was four o'clock when he came to the elbow in the valley, and could look down into the hidden part of it. What he saw at first was a giant cup hollowed out of the surrounding mountains, a cup two miles from brim to brim, the end of the valley itself. It took him a few moments to focus his vision so that it would pick up the smaller and more intimate things half a mile under him, and yet, before he had done this, a sound came up to him that set aquiver every nerve in his body. It was the far-down, hollow-sounding barking of a dog. The warm, golden haze that precedes sunset in the mountains, was gathering between him and the valley, but through this he made out after a time evidences of human habitation almost straight under him. There was a small lake out of which ran a shimmering creek, and close to this lake, yet equally near to the base of the mountain on which he was standing, were a number of buildings and a stockade which looked like a toy. He could see no animals, no movement of any kind. Without seeking for a downward trail he began to descend. Again he did not question himself. An overwhelming certainty possessed him. Of all places in the world this must be the Valley of Silent Men. And below him, flooded and half-hidden in the illusive sun-mist, was Marette's old home. It seemed to him now that it belonged to him, that he was a part of it, that in going to it he was achieving his last great resting place, his final refuge, his own home. And the thought became strangely a part of him that a welcome must be waiting for him there. He hurried until his breath came pantingly between his lips and he was forced to rest. And at last he found himself where his progress was made a foot at a time, and again and again he was forced to climb back and detour around treacherous slides and precipitous breaks which left sheer falls at his feet. The mist thickened in the valley. The sun sank behind the western peaks, and swiftly after that the gloom of twilight deepened. It was seven o'clock when he came to the edge of the plain, at least a mile below the elbow which shut out the cup in the valley. He was exhausted. His hands were bruised and bleeding. Darkness shut him in when he went on. When he rounded the elbow of the mountain, he did not try to keep back the joyous cry that came to his lips. Ahead of him there were lights. A few of them were scattered, but nearest to him he saw a cluster of them, like the glow that comes from a number of illumined windows. He quickened his pace as he drew nearer to them, and at last he wanted to run. And then something stopped him, and it seemed to him that his heart had risen into his throat and was choking him until he could not breathe. It was a man's voice he heard, calling through the twilight gloom a name. "Marette--Marette--Marette--" Kent tried to cry out, but his breath came only in a gasp. He felt himself trembling. He reached out his arms, and a strange madness rushed like fire into his brain. Again the voice called, "Marette--Marette--Marette--" The cup in the valley echoed the name. It rolled softly up the mountainside. The air trembled with it, whispered it, passed it on--and suddenly the madness in Kent found voice, and he shouted, "Marette--Marette--" He ran on. His knees felt weak. He shouted the name again, and the other voice was silent. Things loomed up out of the mist ahead of him, between him and the glowing windows. Some one--two people--were advancing to meet him, doubtfully, wonderingly. Kent was staggering, but he cried the name again, and this time it was a woman's cry that answered, and one of the two came toward him swift as a flash of light. Three paces apart they stood, and in that gloom of the after-twilight their burning eyes looked at each other, while for a space their bodies remained stricken in the face of this miracle of a great and merciful God. The dead had risen. By a mighty effort Kent reached out his arms, and Marette swayed to him. When the other man came up, he found them crumpled to their knees on the earth, clasped like children in each other's arms. And as Kent raised his face, he saw that it was Sandy McTrigger who was looking down at him, the man whose life he had saved at Athabasca Landing. CHAPTER XXV How long it was before his brain cleared, Kent never could have told. It might have been a minute or an hour. Every vital force that was in him had concentrated into a single consciousness--that the dead had come to life, that it was Marette Radisson, the flesh and blood and living warmth of her, he held in his arms. Like the flash of a picture on a screen he had seen McTrigger's face close to him, and then his own head was crushed down again, and if the valley had been filled with the roar of cannon, he would have heard only one sound, a sobbing voice crying over and over again, "Jeems--Jeems--Jeems--" It was McTrigger, in the beginning of the starlight, who alone looked with clear vision upon the wonder of the thing that was happening. After a little Kent realized that McTrigger was talking, that a hand was on his shoulder, that the voice was both joyous and insistent. He rose to his feet, still holding Marette, her arms clinging to him. Her breath was sobbing and broken. And it was impossible for Kent to speak. He seemed to stumble over the distance between them and the lights, with McTrigger on the other side of Marette. It was McTrigger who opened a door, and they came into a glow of lamplight. It was a great, strange-looking room they entered. And over the threshold Marette's hands dropped from Kent, and Kent stepped back, so that in the light they faced each other, and in that moment came the marvelous readjustment from shock and disbelief to a glorious certainty. Again Kent's brain was as clear as the day he faced death at the head of the Chute. And swift as a hot barb a fear leaped into him as his eyes met the eyes of the girl. She was terribly changed. Her face was white with a whiteness that startled him. It was thin. Her eyes were great, slumbering pools of violet, almost black in the lamp glow, and her hair--piled high on her head as he had seen it that first day at Cardigan's--added to the telltale pallor in her cheeks. A hand trembled at her throat, and its thinness frightened him. For a space--a flash of seconds--she looked at him as if possessed of the subconscious fear that he was not Jim Kent, and then slowly her arms opened, and she reached them out to him. She did not smile, she did not cry out, she did not speak his name now; but her arms went round his neck as he took her to him, and her face dropped on his breast. He looked at McTrigger. A woman was standing beside him, a dark-haired, dark-eyed woman, and she had laid a hand on McTrigger's arm, Kent, looking at them, understood. The woman came to him. "I had better take her now, m'sieu," she said. "Malcolm--will tell you. And a little later,--you may see her again." Her voice was low and soft. At the sound of it Marette raised her head, and her two hands stole to Kent's cheeks in their old sweet way, and she whispered, "Kiss me, Jeems--my Jeems--kiss me--" CHAPTER XXVI A little later, clasping hands in the lamp glow, Kent and Sandy McTrigger stood alone in the big room. In their handclasp was the warm thrill of strong men met in an immutable brotherhood. Each had faced death for the other. Yet this thought, subconsciously and forever a part of them, expressed itself only in the grip of their fingers and in the understanding that lay deep in their eyes. In Kent's face the great question was of Marette. McTrigger saw the fear of it, and slowly he smiled, a glad and yet an anxious smile, as he looked toward the door through which Marette and the older woman had gone. "Thank God you have come in time!" he said, still holding Kent's hand. "She thought you were dead. And I know, Kent, that it was killing her. We had to watch her at night. Sometimes she would wander out into the valley. She said she was looking for you. It was that way tonight." Kent gulped hard. "I understand now," he said. "It was the living soul of her that was pulling me here. I--" He took his pack with its precious contents from his shoulders, listening to McTrigger. They sat down. What McTrigger was saying seemed of trifling consequence beside the fact that Marette was somewhere beyond the other door, alive, and that he would see her again very soon. He did not see why McTrigger should tell him that the older woman was his wife. Even the fact that a splendid chance had thrown Marette upon a log wedged between two rocks in the Chute, and that this log, breaking away, had carried her to the opposite side of the river miles below, was trivial with the thought that only a door separated them now. But he listened. He heard McTrigger tell how Marette had searched for him those days when he was lost in fever at André Boileau's cabin, how she had given him up for dead, and how in those same days Laselle's brigade had floated down, and she had come north with it. Later he would marvel over these things, but now he listened, and his eyes turned toward the door. It was then that McTrigger drove something home. It was like a shot piercing Kent's brain. McTrigger was speaking quietly of O'Connor. He said: "But you probably came by way of Fort Simpson, Kent, and O'Connor has told you all this. It was he who brought Marette back home through the Sulphur Country." "O'Connor!" Kent sprang to his feet. It took McTrigger but a moment to read the truth in his face. "Good God, do you mean to tell me you don't know, Kent?" he whispered tensely, rising in front of the other. "Haven't you seen O'Connor? Haven't you come in touch with the Police anywhere within the last year? Don't you know--?" "I know nothing," breathed Kent. For a space McTrigger stared at him in amazement "I have been in hiding," said Kent. "All this time I have been keeping away from the Police." McTrigger drew a deep breath. Again his hands gripped Kent's, and his voice was incredulous, filled with a great wonder. "And you have come to her, to her old home, believing that Marette killed Kedsty! It is hard to believe. And yet--" Into his face came suddenly a look of grief, almost of pain, and Kent, following his eyes, saw that he was looking at a big stone fireplace in the end of the room. "It was O'Connor who worked the thing out last Winter," he said, speaking with, an effort. "I must tell you before you see her again. You must understand everything. It will not do to have her tell you. See--" Kent followed him to the fireplace. From the shelf over the stonework McTrigger took a picture and gave it to him. It was a snapshot, the picture of a bare-headed man standing in the open with the sun shining on him. A low cry broke from Kent's lips. It was the great, gray ghost of a man he had seen in the lightning flare that night from the window of his hiding-place in Kedsty's bungalow. "My brother," said McTrigger chokingly. "I loved him. For forty years we were comrades. And Marette belonged to us, half and half. It was he--who killed--John Barkley." And then, after a moment in which McTrigger fought to speak steadily, he added, "And it was he--my brother--who also killed Inspector Kedsty." For a matter of seconds there was a dead silence between them. McTrigger looked into the fireplace instead of at Kent. Then he said: "He killed those men, but he didn't murder them, Kent. It couldn't be called that. It was justice, single-man justice, without going to law. If it wasn't for Marette, I wouldn't tell you about it--not the horrible part of it. I don't like to bring it up in my memory. ... It happened years ago. I was not married then, but my brother was ten years older than I and had a wife. I think that Marette loves you as Marie loved Donald. And Donald's love was more than that. It was worship. We came into the new mountain country, the three of us, even before the big strikes at Dawson and Bonanza. It was a wild country, a savage country, and there were few women in it, but Marie came with Donald. She was beautiful, with hair and eyes like Marette's. That was the tragedy of it. "I won't tell you the details. They were terrible. It happened while Donald and I were out on a hunt. Three men--white men--remember that, Kent; WHITE MEN--came out of the North and stopped at the cabin. When we returned, what we found there drove us mad. Marie died in Donald's arms. And leaving her there, alone, we set out after the white-skinned brutes who had destroyed her. Only a blizzard saved them, Kent. Their trail was fresh when the storm came. Had it held off another two hours, I, too, would have killed. "From that day Donald and I became man-hunters. We traced the back trail of the three fiends and discovered who they were. Two years later Donald found one of the three on the Yukon, and before he killed him he made him verify the names of the other two. It was a long search after that, Kent. It has covered thirty years. Donald grew old faster than I, and I knew, after a time, that he was strangely mad. He would be gone for months at a time, always searching for the two men. Ten years passed, and then, one day, in the deep of Winter, we came on a cabin home that had been stricken with the plague--the smallpox. It was the home of Pierre Radisson and his wife Andrea. Both were dead. But there was a little child still living, almost a babe in arms. We took her, Donald and I. The child was--Marette." McTrigger had spoken almost in a monotone. He had not raised his eyes from the ash of the fireplace. But now he looked up suddenly at Kent. "We worshipped her from the beginning," he said, his voice a bit husky. "I hoped that love for her would save Donald. It did, in a way. But it did not cure his madness, his desire for vengeance. We came farther east. We found this marvelous valley, and gold in the mountains, untouched by other men. We built here, and I hoped even more that the glory of this new world we had discovered would help Donald to forget. I married, and my wife loved Marette. We had a child, and then another, and both died. We loved Marette more than ever after that. Anne, my wife, was the daughter of a missioner and capable of educating Marette up to a certain point. You will find this place filled with all kinds of books, and reading, and music. But the time came when we thought we must send Marette to Montreal. It broke her heart. And then--a long time after--" McTrigger paused a moment, looking into Kent's eyes. "And then--one day Donald came in from Dawson City, terrible in his madness, and told us that he had found his men. One of them was John Barkley, the rich timber man, and the other was Kedsty, Inspector of Police at Athabasca Landing." Kent made no effort to speak. His amazement, as McTrigger had gone on, was beyond the expression of words. The night held for him a cumulative shock--the discovery that Marette was not dead, but alive, and now the discovery that he, Jim Kent, was no longer a hunted man, and that it was O'Connor, his old comrade, who had run the truth down. With dry lips he simply nodded, urging McTrigger to continue. "I knew what would happen if Donald went after Barkley and Kedsty," said the older man. "And it was impossible to hold him back. He was mad, clean mad. There was just one thing for me to do. I left here first, with the intention of warning the two brutes who had killed Donald's wife. I knew, with the evidence in our hands, they could do nothing but make a getaway. No matter how rich or powerful they were, our evidence was complete, and through many years we had kept track of the movements of our witnesses. I tried to explain to Donald that we could send them to prison, but there was but one thought in his poor sick mind--to kill. I was younger and beat him south. And after that I made my fatal mistake. I thought I was far enough ahead of him to get down to the line of rail and back before he arrived. You see, I figured his love for Marette would take him to Montreal first, and I had made up my mind to tell her everything so that she might understand the necessity of holding him if he went to her. I wrote everything to her and told her to remain in Montreal. How she did that, you know. She set out for the North as soon as she received my letter." McTrigger's shoulders hunched lower. "Well, you know what happened, Kent. Donald got ahead of me, after all. I came the day after Barkley was killed. I took it as a kind fate that the day preceding the killing I shot a grouse for my dinner, and as the bird was only wounded when I picked it up, I got blood on the sleeves of my coat. I was arrested. Kedsty, every one, was sure they had the real man. And I kept quiet, except to maintain my innocence. I could say nothing that would turn the law on Donald's trail. "After that, things happened quickly. You, my friend, made your false confession to save one who had done you a poor service years ago. Almost simultaneously with that, Marette had come. She came quietly, in the night, and went straight to Kedsty. She told him everything, showed him the written evidence, telling him this evidence was in the hands of others and would be used if anything happened to her. Her power over him was complete. As the price of her secrecy she demanded my release, and in that black hour your confession gave Kedsty his opportunity. "He knew you were lying. He knew it was Donald who had killed Barkley. Yet he was willing to sacrifice you to save himself. And Marette remained in his house, waiting and watching for Donald, while I searched for him on the trails. That is why she secretly lived in Kedsty's house. She knew that Donald would come there sooner or later, if I did not find him and get him away. And she was plotting how to save you. "She loved you, Kent--from that first hour she came to you in the hospital. And she tried to exact your freedom also as an added price for her secrecy. But Kedsty had become like a cornered tiger. If he freed you, he saw his whole world crumbling under his feet. He, too, went a little mad, I think. He told Marette that he would not free you, that he would go to the hangman first. Then, Kent, came the night of your freedom, and a little later--Donald came to Kedsty's home. It was he whom you saw that night out in the storm. He entered and killed Kedsty. "Something dragged Marette down to the room that night. She found Kedsty in his chair--dead. Donald was gone. It was then that you found her there. Kent, she loved you--and you will never know how her heart bled when she let you think she had killed Kedsty. She has told me everything. It was her fear for Donald, her desire to keep all possible suspicion from him until he was safe, that compelled her not to confide even in you. Later, when she knew that Donald must be safe, she was going to tell you. And then--you were separated at the Chute." McTrigger paused, and Kent saw him choke back a grief that was still like the fresh cut of a knife in his heart. "And O'Connor found out all this?" McTrigger nodded. "Yes. He defied Kedsty's command to go to Fort Simpson and was on his way back to Athabasca Landing when he found my brother. It is strange how all things happened, Kent. But I guess God must have meant it that way. Donald was dying. And in dying, for a space, his old reason returned to him. It was from him, before he died, that O'Connor learned everything. The story is known everywhere now. It is marvelous that you did not hear--" There came an interruption, the opening of a door. Anne McTrigger stood looking at them where a little time before she had disappeared with Marette. There was a glad smile in her face. Her dark eyes were glowing with a new happiness. First they rested on McTrigger's face, and then on Kent's. "Marette is much better," she said in her soft voice. "She is waiting to see you, M'sieu Kent. Will you come now?" Like one in a dream Kent went toward her. He picked up his pack, for with its precious contents it had become to him like his own flesh and blood. And as the woman led the way and Kent followed her, McTrigger did not move from the fireplace. In a little while Anne McTrigger came back into the room. Her beautiful eyes were aglow. She was smiling softly, and putting her arms about the shoulders of the man at the fireplace, she whispered: "I have looked at the night through the window, Malcolm. I think that the stars are bigger and brighter than they have been in a long time. And the Watcher seems like a living god up in the sky. Come, please." She took his hand, and Malcolm went with her. Over their heads burned a glory of stars. The wind came gently up the valley, cool with the freshness of the mountain-tops, sweet with the smell of meadow and flowers. And when the woman pointed through the glow, Malcolm McTrigger looked up at the Watcher, and for an instant he fancied that he saw what she had seen--something that was life instead of death, a glow of understanding and of triumph in the mighty face of stone above the lace mists of the clouds. For a long time they walked on, and deep in the heart of the woman a voice cried out again and again that the Watcher knew, and that it was a living joy she saw up there, for up to that unmoving and voiceless god of the mountains she had cried and laughed and sung--and even prayed; and with her Marette had also done these things, until at last the pulse and beat of women's souls had given a spirit to a form of rock. Back in the chateau which Malcolm McTrigger and his brother Donald had built of logs, in a room whose windows faced the Watcher himself, Marette was unveiling the last of mystery for Jim Kent. And this, too, was her hour of triumph. Her lips were red and warm with the flush brought there by Kent's love. Her face was like the wild roses he had crushed under his feet all that day. For in this hour the world had come to her, and had prostrated itself at her feet. The sacred contents of the pack were in her lap as she leaned back in the great blanketed and pillowed chair that had been her invalid's nest for many days. But it was an invalid's nest no longer. The floods of life were pounding through her body again, and in that hour when Malcolm McTrigger and his wife were gone, Kent looked upon the miracle of its change. And now Marette gave to him a little packet, and while Kent opened it she raised both hands to her head and unbound her hair so that it fell about her in shining and glorious confusion. Kent, unwrapping a last bit of tissue-paper, found in his hands a long tress of hair. "See, Jeems, it has grown fast since I cut it that night." She leaned a little toward him, parting her hair with slim, white fingers so that he saw again where the hair had been clipped the night of Kedsty's death. And then she said: "You may keep it always if you want to, Jeems, for I cut it from my head when I left you in the room below, and when you--almost--believed I had killed Kedsty. It was this--" She gave him another packet, and her lips tightened a little as Kent unwrapped it, and another tress of hair shimmered in the lamp glow. "That was father Donald's," she whispered. "It--it was all he had left of Marie, his wife. And that night--when Kedsty died--" "I understand," cried Kent, stopping her. "He choked Kedsty with it until he was dead. And when I found it around Kedsty's neck--you--you let me think it was yours--to save father Donald!" She nodded. "Yes, Jeems. If the police had come, they would have thought I was guilty. I planned to let them think so until father Donald was safe. But all the time I had here in my breast this other tress, which would prove that I was innocent--when the time came. And now, Jeems--" She smiled at him again and reached out her hands. "Oh, I feel so strong! And I want to take you out now--and show you my valley--Jeems--our valley--yours and mine--in the starlight. Not tomorrow, Jeems. But tonight. Now." A little later the Watcher looked down on them, even as it had looked down on another man and another woman who had preceded them. But the stars were bigger and brighter, and the white cap of snow that rested on the Watcher's head like a crown caught the faint gleam of a far-away light; and after that, slowly and wonderfully, other snow-crested mountain-tops caught that greeting radiance of the moon. But it was the Watcher who stood out like a mighty god among them all, and when they came to the elbow in the plain, Marette drew Kent down beside her on a great flat rock and laughed softly as she held his hand tightly in her lap. "Always, from a little child, I have sat and played on this rock, with the Watcher looking, like that," she said in a low voice. "I have grown to love him, Jeems. And I have always believed that he was gazing off there, night and day, into the east, watching for something that was coming to me. Now I know. It was you, Jeems. And, Jeems, when I was away--down there in the big city--" Her fingers gripped his thumb in their old way, and Kent waited. "It was the Watcher that made me want to come home most of all," she went on, a bit of tremble in her voice. "Oh, I grew lonely for him, and I could see him in my dreams at night, watching, watching, watching, and sometimes even calling me. Jeems, do you see that hump on his left shoulder, like a great epaulet?" "Yes, I see," said Kent. "Beyond that, on a straight line from here--hundreds of miles away--are Dawson City, the Yukon, the big gold country, men, women, civilization. Father Malcolm and father Donald have never found but one trail to this side of the mountains, and I have been over it three times--to Dawson. But the Watcher's back is on those things. Sometimes I imagine it was he who built those great ramparts through which few men come. He wants this valley alone. And so do I. Alone--with you, and with my people." Kent drew her close in his arms. "When you are stronger," he whispered, "we will go over that hidden trail together, past the Watcher, toward Dawson. For it must be that over there--we will find--a missioner--" He paused. "Please go on, Jeems." "And you will be--my wife." "Yes, yes, Jeems--forever and ever. But, Jeems"--her arms crept up about his neck--"very soon it will be the first of August." "Yes--?" "And in that month there come through the mountains, each year, a man and a woman to visit us--mother Anne's father and mother. And mother Anne's father--" "Yes--?" "Is a missioner, Jeems." And Kent, looking up in this hour of his triumph and joy, believed that in the Watcher's face he caught for an instant the passing radiance of a smile. THE END 
4747	----	THE RIVER'S END James Oliver Curwood JTABLE 10 25 1 THE RIVER'S END I Between Conniston, of His Majesty's Royal Northwest Mounted Police, and Keith, the outlaw, there was a striking physical and facial resemblance. Both had observed it, of course. It gave them a sort of confidence in each other. Between them it hovered in a subtle and unanalyzed presence that was constantly suggesting to Conniston a line of action that would have made him a traitor to his oath of duty. For nearly a month he had crushed down the whispered temptings of this thing between them. He represented the law. He was the law. For twenty-seven months he had followed Keith, and always there had been in his mind that parting injunction of the splendid service of which he was a part--"Don't come back until you get your man, dead or alive." Otherwise-- A racking cough split in upon his thoughts. He sat up on the edge of the cot, and at the gasping cry of pain that came with the red stain of blood on his lips Keith went to him and with a strong arm supported his shoulders. He said nothing, and after a moment Conniston wiped the stain away and laughed softly, even before the shadow of pain had faded from his eyes. One of his hands rested on a wrist that still bore the ring-mark of a handcuff. The sight of it brought him back to grim reality. After all, fate was playing whimsically as well as tragically with their destinies. "Thanks, old top," he said. "Thanks." His fingers closed over the manacle-marked wrist. Over their heads the arctic storm was crashing in a mighty fury, as if striving to beat down the little cabin that had dared to rear itself in the dun-gray emptiness at the top of the world, eight hundred miles from civilization. There were curious waitings, strange screeching sounds, and heart-breaking meanings in its strife, and when at last its passion died away and there followed a strange quiet, the two men could feel the frozen earth under their feet shiver with the rumbling reverberations of the crashing and breaking fields of ice out in Hudson's Bay. With it came a dull and steady roar, like the incessant rumble of a far battle, broken now and then--when an ice mountain split asunder--with a report like that of a sixteen-inch gun. Down through the Roes Welcome into Hudson's Bay countless billions of tons of ice were rending their way like Hunnish armies in the break-up. "You'd better lie down," suggested Keith. Conniston, instead, rose slowly to his feet and went to a table on which a seal-oil lamp was burning. He swayed a little as he walked. He sat down, and Keith seated himself opposite him. Between them lay a worn deck of cards. As Conniston fumbled them in his fingers, he looked straight across at Keith and grinned. "It's queer, devilish queer," he said. "Don't you think so, Keith?" He was an Englishman, and his blue eyes shone with a grim, cold humor. "And funny," he added. "Queer, but not funny," partly agreed Keith. "Yes, it is funny," maintained Conniston. "Just twenty-seven months ago, lacking three days, I was sent out to get you, Keith. I was told to bring you in dead or alive--and at the end of the twenty-sixth month I got you, alive. And as a sporting proposition you deserve a hundred years of life instead of the noose, Keith, for you led me a chase that took me through seven different kinds of hell before I landed you. I froze, and I starved, and I drowned. I haven't seen a white woman's face in eighteen months. It was terrible. But I beat you at last. That's the jolly good part of it, Keith--I beat you and GOT you, and there's the proof of it on your wrists this minute. I won. Do you concede that? You must be fair, old top, because this is the last big game I'll ever play." There was a break, a yearning that was almost plaintive, in his voice. Keith nodded. "You won," he said. "You won so square that when the frost got your lung--" "You didn't take advantage of me," interrupted Conniston. "That's the funny part of it, Keith. That's where the humor comes in. I had you all tied up and scheduled for the hangman when--bing!--along comes a cold snap that bites a corner of my lung, and the tables are turned. And instead of doing to me as I was going to do to you, instead of killing me or making your getaway while I was helpless--Keith--old pal--YOU'VE TRIED TO NURSE ME BACK TO LIFE! Isn't that funny? Could anything be funnier?" He reached a hand across the table and gripped Keith's. And then, for a few moments, he bowed his head while his body was convulsed by another racking cough. Keith sensed the pain of it in the convulsive clutching of Conniston's fingers about his own. When Conniston raised his face, the red stain was on his lips again. "You see, I've got it figured out to the day," he went on, wiping away the stain with a cloth already dyed red. "This is Thursday. I won't see another Sunday. It'll come Friday night or some time Saturday. I've seen this frosted lung business a dozen times. Understand? I've got two sure days ahead of me, possibly a third. Then you'll have to dig a hole and bury me. After that you will no longer be held by the word of honor you gave me when I slipped off your manacles. And I'm asking you--WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO?" In Keith's face were written deeply the lines of suffering and of tragedy. Yesterday they had compared ages. He was thirty-eight, only a little younger than the man who had run him down and who in the hour of his achievement was dying. They had not put the fact plainly before. It had been a matter of some little embarrassment for Keith, who at another time had found it easier to kill a man than to tell this man that he was going to die. Now that Conniston had measured his own span definitely and with most amazing coolness, a load was lifted from Keith's shoulders. Over the table they looked into each other's eyes, and this time it was Keith's fingers that tightened about Conniston's. They looked like brothers in the sickly glow of the seal-oil lamp. "What are you going to do?" repeated Conniston. Keith's face aged even as the dying Englishman stared at him. "I suppose--I'll go back," he said heavily. "You mean to Coronation Gulf? You'll return to that stinking mess of Eskimo igloos? If you do, you'll go mad!" "I expect to," said Keith. "But it's the only thing left. You know that. You of all men must know how they've hunted me. If I went south--" It was Conniston's turn to nod his head, slowly and thoughtfully. "Yes, of course," he agreed. "They're hunting you hard, and you're giving 'em a bully chase. But they'll get you, even up there. And I'm--sorry." Their hands unclasped. Conniston filled his pipe and lighted it. Keith noticed that he held the lighted taper without a tremor. The nerve of the man was magnificent. "I'm sorry," he said again. "I--like you. Do you know, Keith, I wish we'd been born brothers and you hadn't killed a man. That night I slipped the ring-dogs on you I felt almost like a devil. I wouldn't say it if it wasn't for this bally lung. But what's the use of keeping it back now? It doesn't seem fair to keep a man up in that place for three years, running from hole to hole like a rat, and then take him down for a hanging. I know it isn't fair in your case. I feel it. I don't mean to be inquisitive, old chap, but I'm not believing Departmental 'facts' any more. I'd make a topping good wager you're not the sort they make you out. And so I'd like to know--just why--you killed Judge Kirkstone?" Keith's two fists knotted in the center of the table. Conniston saw his blue eyes darken for an instant with a savage fire. In that moment there came a strange silence over the cabin, and in that silence the incessant and maddening yapping of the little white foxes rose shrilly over the distant booming and rumbling of the ice. II "Why did I kill Judge Kirkstone?" Keith repeated the words slowly. His clenched hands relaxed, but his eyes held the steady glow of fire. "What do the Departmental 'facts' tell you, Conniston?" "That you murdered him in cold blood, and that the honor of the Service is at stake until you are hung." "There's a lot in the view-point, isn't there? What if I said I didn't kill Judge Kirkstone?" Conniston leaned forward a little too eagerly. The deadly paroxysm shook his frame again, and when it was over his breath came pantingly, as if hissing through a sieve. "My God, not Sunday--or Saturday," he breathed. "Keith, it's coming TOMORROW!" "No, no, not then," said Keith, choking back something that rose in his throat. "You'd better lie down again." Conniston gathered new strength. "And die like a rabbit? No, thank you, old chap! I'm after facts, and you can't lie to a dying man. Did you kill Judge Kirkstone?" "I--don't--know," replied Keith slowly, looking steadily into the other's eyes. "I think so, and yet I am not positive. I went to his home that night with the determination to wring justice from him or kill him. I wish you could look at it all with my eyes, Conniston. You could if you had known my father. You see, my mother died when I was a little chap, and my father and I grew up together, chums. I don't believe I ever thought of him as just simply a father. Fathers are common. He was more than that. From the time I was ten years old we were inseparable. I guess I was twenty before he told me of the deadly feud that existed between him and Kirkstone, and it never troubled me much--because I didn't think anything would ever come of it--until Kirkstone got him. Then I realized that all through the years the old rattlesnake had been watching for his chance. It was a frame-up from beginning to end, and my father stepped into the trap. Even then he thought that his political enemies, and not Kirkstone, were at the bottom of it. We soon discovered the truth. My father got ten years. He was innocent. And the only man on earth who could prove his innocence was Kirkstone, the man who was gloating like a Shylock over his pound of flesh. Conniston, if you had known these things and had been in my shoes, what would you have done?" Conniston, lighting another taper over the oil flame, hesitated and answered: "I don't know yet, old chap. What did you do?" "I fairly got down on my knees to the scoundrel," resumed Keith. "If ever a man begged for another man's life, I begged for my father's--for the few words from Kirkstone that would set him free. I offered everything I had in the world, even my body and soul. God, I'll never forget that night! He sat there, fat and oily, two big rings on his stubby fingers--a monstrous toad in human form--and he chuckled and laughed at me in his joy, as though I were a mountebank playing amusing tricks for him--and there my soul was bleeding itself out before his eyes! And his son came in, fat and oily and accursed like his father, and HE laughed at me. I didn't know that such hatred could exist in the world, or that vengeance could bring such hellish joy. I could still hear their gloating laughter when I stumbled out into the night. It haunted me. I heard it in the trees. It came in the wind. My brain was filled with it--and suddenly I turned back, and I went into that house again without knocking, and I faced the two of them alone once more in that room. And this time, Conniston, I went back to get justice--or to kill. Thus far it was premeditated, but I went with my naked hands. There was a key in the door, and I locked it. Then I made my demand. I wasted no words--" Keith rose from the table and began to pace back and forth. The wind had died again. They could hear the yapping of the foxes and the low thunder of the ice. "The son began it," said Keith. "He sprang at me. I struck him. We grappled, and then the beast himself leaped at me with some sort of weapon in his hand. I couldn't see what it was, but it was heavy. The first blow almost broke my shoulder. In the scuffle I wrenched it from his hand, and then I found it was a long, rectangular bar of copper made for a paper-weight. In that same instant I saw the son snatch up a similar object from the table, and in the act he smashed the table light. In darkness we fought. I did not feel that I was fighting men. They were monsters and gave me the horrible sensation of being in darkness with crawling serpents. Yes, I struck hard. And the son was striking, and neither of us could see. I felt my weapon hit, and it was then that Kirkstone crumpled down with a blubbery wheeze. You know what happened after that. The next morning only one copper weight was found in that room. The son had done away with the other. And the one that was left was covered with Kirkstone's blood and hair. There was no chance for me. So I got away. Six months later my father died in prison, and for three years I've been hunted as a fox is hunted by the hounds. That's all, Conniston. Did I kill Judge Kirkstone? And, if I killed him, do you think I'm sorry for it, even though I hang?" "Sit down!" The Englishman's voice was commanding. Keith dropped back to his seat, breathing hard. He saw a strange light in the steely blue eyes of Conniston. "Keith, when a man knows he's going to live, he is blind to a lot of things. But when he knows he's going to die, it's different. If you had told me that story a month ago, I'd have taken you down to the hangman just the same. It would have been my duty, you know, and I might have argued you were lying. But you can't lie to me--now. Kirkstone deserved to die. And so I've made up my mind what you're going to do. You're not going back to Coronation Gulf. You're going south. You're going back into God's country again. And you're not going as John Keith, the murderer, but as Derwent Conniston of His Majesty's Royal Northwest Mounted Police! Do you get me, Keith? Do you understand?" Keith simply stared. The Englishman twisted a mustache, a half-humorous gleam in his eyes. He had been thinking of this plan of his for some time, and he had foreseen just how it would take Keith off his feet. "Quite a scheme, don't you think, old chap? I like you. I don't mind saying I think a lot of you, and there isn't any reason on earth why you shouldn't go on living in my shoes. There's no moral objection. No one will miss me. I was the black sheep back in England--younger brother and all that--and when I had to choose between Africa and Canada, I chose Canada. An Englishman's pride is the biggest fool thing on earth, Keith, and I suppose all of them over there think I'm dead. They haven't heard from me in six or seven years. I'm forgotten. And the beautiful thing about this scheme is that we look so deucedly alike, you know. Trim that mustache and beard of yours a little, add a bit of a scar over your right eye, and you can walk in on old McDowell himself, and I'll wager he'll jump up and say, 'Bless my heart, if it isn't Conniston!' That's all I've got to leave you, Keith, a dead man's clothes and name. But you're welcome. They'll be of no more use to me after tomorrow." "Impossible!" gasped Keith. "Conniston, do you know what you are saying?" "Positively, old chap. I count every word, because it hurts when I talk. So you won't argue with me, please. It's the biggest sporting thing that's ever come my way. I'll be dead. You can bury me under this floor, where the foxes can't get at me. But my name will go on living and you'll wear my clothes back to civilization and tell McDowell how you got your man and how he died up here with a frosted lung. As proof of it you'll lug your own clothes down in a bundle along with any other little identifying things you may have, and there's a sergeancy waiting. McDowell promised it to you--if you got your man. Understand? And McDowell hasn't seen me for two years and three months, so if I MIGHT look a bit different to him, it would be natural, for you and I have been on the rough edge of the world all that time. The jolly good part of it all is that we look so much alike. I say the idea is splendid!" Conniston rose above the presence of death in the thrill of the great gamble he was projecting. And Keith, whose heart was pounding like an excited fist, saw in a flash the amazing audacity of the thing that was in Conniston's mind, and felt the responsive thrill of its possibilities. No one down there would recognize in him the John Keith of four years ago. Then he was smooth-faced, with shoulders that stooped a little and a body that was not too strong. Now he was an animal! A four years' fight with the raw things of life had made him that, and inch for inch he measured up with Conniston. And Conniston, sitting opposite him, looked enough like him to be a twin brother. He seemed to read the thought in Keith's mind. There was an amused glitter in his eyes. "I suppose it's largely because of the hair on our faces," he said. "You know a beard can cover a multitude of physical sins--and differences, old chap. I wore mine two years before I started out after you, vandyked rather carefully, you understand, so you'd better not use a razor. Physically you won't run a ghost of a chance of being caught. You'll look the part. The real fun is coming in other ways. In the next twenty-four hours you've got to learn by heart the history of Derwent Conniston from the day he joined the Royal Mounted. We won't go back further than that, for it wouldn't interest you, and ancient history won't turn up to trouble you. Your biggest danger will be with McDowell, commanding F Division at Prince Albert. He's a human fox of the old military school, mustaches and all, and he can see through boiler-plate. But he's got a big heart. He has been a good friend of mine, so along with Derwent Conniston's story you've got to load up with a lot about McDowell, too. There are many things--OH, GOD--" He flung a hand to his chest. Grim horror settled in the little cabin as the cough convulsed him. And over it the wind shrieked again, swallowing up the yapping of the foxes and the rumble of the ice. That night, in the yellow sputter of the seal-oil lamp, the fight began. Grim-faced--one realizing the nearness of death and struggling to hold it back, the other praying for time--two men went through the amazing process of trading their identities. From the beginning it was Conniston's fight. And Keith, looking at him, knew that in this last mighty effort to die game the Englishman was narrowing the slight margin of hours ahead of him. Keith had loved but one man, his father. In this fight he learned to love another, Conniston. And once he cried out bitterly that it was unfair, that Conniston should live and he should die. The dying Englishman smiled and laid a hand on his, and Keith felt that the hand was damp with a cold sweat. Through the terrible hours that followed Keith felt the strength and courage of the dying man becoming slowly a part of himself. The thing was epic. Conniston, throttling his own agony, was magnificent. And Keith felt his warped and despairing soul swelling with a new life and a new hope, and he was thrilled by the thought of what he must do to live up to the mark of the Englishman. Conniston's story was of the important things first. It began with his acquaintance with McDowell. And then, between the paroxysms that stained his lips red, he filled in with incident and smiled wanly as he told how McDowell had sworn him to secrecy once in the matter of an incident which the chief did not want the barracks to know--and laugh over. A very sensitive man in some ways was McDowell! At the end of the first hour Keith stood up in the middle of the floor, and with his arms resting on the table and his shoulders sagging Conniston put him through the drill. After that he gave Keith his worn Service Manual and commanded him to study while he rested. Keith helped him to his bunk, and for a time after that tried to read the Service book. But his eyes blurred, and his brain refused to obey. The agony in the Englishman's low breathing oppressed him with a physical pain. Keith felt himself choking and rose at last from the table and went out into the gray, ghostly twilight of the night. His lungs drank in the ice-tanged air. But it was not cold. Kwaske-hoo--the change--had come. The air was filled with the tumult of the last fight of winter against the invasion of spring, and the forces of winter were crumbling. The earth under Keith's feet trembled in the mighty throes of their dissolution. He could hear more clearly the roar and snarl and rending thunder of the great fields of ice as they swept down with the arctic current into Hudson's Bay. Over him hovered a strange night. It was not black but a weird and wraith-like gray, and out of this sepulchral chaos came strange sounds and the moaning of a wind high up. A little while longer, Keith thought, and the thing would have driven him mad. Even now he fancied he heard the screaming and wailing of voices far up under the hidden stars. More than once in the past months he had listened to the sobbing of little children, the agony of weeping women, and the taunting of wind voices that were either tormenting or crying out in a ghoulish triumph; and more than once in those months he had seen Eskimos--born in that hell but driven mad in the torture of its long night--rend the clothes from their bodies and plunge naked out into the pitiless gloom and cold to die. Conniston would never know how near the final breakdown his brain had been in that hour when he made him a prisoner. And Keith had not told him. The man-hunter had saved him from going mad. But Keith had kept that secret to himself. Even now he shrank down as a blast of wind shot out of the chaos above and smote the cabin with a shriek that had in it a peculiarly penetrating note. And then he squared his shoulders and laughed, and the yapping of the foxes no longer filled him with a shuddering torment. Beyond them he was seeing home. God's country! Green forests and waters spattered with golden sun--things he had almost forgotten; once more the faces of women who were white. And with those faces he heard the voice of his people and the song of birds and felt under his feet the velvety touch of earth that was bathed in the aroma of flowers. Yes, he had almost forgotten those things. Yesterday they had been with him only as moldering skeletons--phantasmal dream-things--because he was going mad, but now they were real, they were just off there to the south, and he was going to them. He stretched up his arms, and a cry rose out of his throat. It was of triumph, of final exaltation. Three years of THAT--and he had lived through it! Three years of dodging from burrow to burrow, just as Conniston had said, like a hunted fox; three years of starvation, of freezing, of loneliness so great that his soul had broken--and now he was going home! He turned again to the cabin, and when he entered the pale face of the dying Englishman greeted him from the dim glow of the yellow light at the table. And Conniston was smiling in a quizzical, distressed sort of way, with a hand at his chest. His open watch on the table pointed to the hour of midnight when the lesson went on. Still later he heated the muzzle of his revolver in the flame of the seal-oil. "It will hurt, old chap--putting this scar over your eye. But it's got to be done. I say, won't it be a ripping joke on McDowell?" Softly he repeated it, smiling into Keith's eyes. "A ripping joke--on McDowell!" III Dawn--the dusk of another night--and Keith raised his haggard face from Conniston's bedside with a woman's sob on his lips. The Englishman had died as he knew that he would die, game to the last threadbare breath that came out of his body. For with this last breath he whispered the words which he had repeated a dozen times before, "Remember, old chap, you win or lose the moment McDowell first sets his eyes on you!" And then, with a strange kind of sob in his chest, he was gone, and Keith's eyes were blinded by the miracle of a hot flood of tears, and there rose in him a mighty pride in the name of Derwent Conniston. It was his name now. John Keith was dead. It was Derwent Conniston who was living. And as he looked down into the cold, still face of the heroic Englishman, the thing did not seem so strange to him after all. It would not be difficult to bear Conniston's name; the difficulty would be in living up to the Conniston code. That night the rumble of the ice fields was clearer because there was no wind to deaden their tumult. The sky was cloudless, and the stars were like glaring, yellow eyes peering through holes in a vast, overhanging curtain of jet black. Keith, out to fill his lungs with air, looked up at the phenomenon of the polar night and shuddered. The stars were like living things, and they were looking at him. Under their sinister glow the foxes were holding high carnival. It seemed to Keith that they had drawn a closer circle about the cabin and that there was a different note in their yapping now, a note that was more persistent, more horrible. Conniston had foreseen that closing-in of the little white beasts of the night, and Keith, reentering the cabin, set about the fulfillment of his promise. Ghostly dawn found his task completed. Half an hour later he stood in the edge of the scrub timber that rimmed in the arctic plain, and looked for the last time upon the little cabin under the floor of which the Englishman was buried. It stood there splendidly unafraid in its terrible loneliness, a proud monument to a dead man's courage and a dead man's soul. Within its four walls it treasured a thing which gave to it at last a reason for being, a reason for fighting against dissolution as long as one log could hold upon another. Conniston's spirit had become a living part of it, and the foxes might yap everlastingly, and the winds howl, and winter follow winter, and long night follow long night--and it would stand there in its pride fighting to the last, a memorial to Derwent Conniston, the Englishman. Looking back at it, Keith bared his head in the raw dawn. "God bless you, Conniston," he whispered, and turned slowly away and into the south. Ahead of him was eight hundred miles of wilderness--eight hundred miles between him and the little town on the Saskatchewan where McDowell commanded Division of the Royal Mounted. The thought of distance did not appall him. Four years at the top of the earth had accustomed him to the illimitable and had inured him to the lack of things. That winter Conniston had followed him with the tenacity of a ferret for a thousand miles along the rim of the Arctic, and it had been a miracle that he had not killed the Englishman. A score of times he might have ended the exciting chase without staining his own hands. His Eskimo friends would have performed the deed at a word. But he had let the Englishman live, and Conniston, dead, was sending him back home. Eight hundred miles was but the step between. He had no dogs or sledge. His own team had given up the ghost long ago, and a treacherous Kogmollock from the Roes Welcome had stolen the Englishman's outfit in the last lap of their race down from Fullerton's Point. What he carried was Conniston's, with the exception of his rifle and his own parka and hood. He even wore Conniston's watch. His pack was light. The chief articles it contained were a little flour, a three-pound tent, a sleeping-bag, and certain articles of identification to prove the death of John Keith, the outlaw. Hour after hour of that first day the zip, zip, zip of his snowshoes beat with deadly monotony upon his brain. He could not think. Time and again it seemed to him that something was pulling him back, and always he was hearing Conniston's voice and seeing Conniston's face in the gray gloom of the day about him. He passed through the slim finger of scrub timber that a strange freak of nature had flung across the plain, and once more was a moving speck in a wide and wind-swept barren. In the afternoon he made out a dark rim on the southern horizon and knew it was timber, real timber, the first he had seen since that day, a year and a half ago, when the last of the Mackenzie River forest had faded away behind him! It gave him, at last, something tangible to grip. It was a thing beckoning to him, a sentient, living wall beyond which was his other world. The eight hundred miles meant less to him than the space between himself and that growing, black rim on the horizon. He reached it as the twilight of the day was dissolving into the deeper dusk of the night, and put up his tent in the shelter of a clump of gnarled and storm-beaten spruce. Then he gathered wood and built himself a fire. He did not count the sticks as he had counted them for eighteen months. He was wasteful, prodigal. He had traveled forty miles since morning but he felt no exhaustion. He gathered wood until he had a great pile of it, and the flames of his fire leaped higher and higher until the spruce needles crackled and hissed over his head. He boiled a pot of weak tea and made a supper of caribou meat and a bit of bannock. Then he sat with his back to a tree and stared into the flames. The fire leaping and crackling before his eyes was like a powerful medicine. It stirred things that had lain dormant within him. It consumed the heavy dross of four years of stupefying torture and brought back to him vividly the happenings of a yesterday that had dragged itself on like a century. All at once he seemed unburdened of shackles that had weighted him down to the point of madness. Every fiber in his body responded to that glorious roar of the fire; a thing seemed to snap in his head, freeing it of an oppressive bondage, and in the heart of the flames he saw home, and hope, and life--the things familiar and precious long ago, which the scourge of the north had almost beaten dead in his memory. He saw the broad Saskatchewan shimmering its way through the yellow plains, banked in by the foothills and the golden mists of morning dawn; he saw his home town clinging to its shore on one side and with its back against the purple wilderness on the other; he heard the rhythmic chug, chug, chug of the old gold dredge and the rattle of its chains as it devoured its tons of sand for a few grains of treasure; over him there were lacy clouds in a blue heaven again, he heard the sound of voices, the tread of feet, laughter--life. His soul reborn, he rose to his feet and stretched his arms until the muscles snapped. No, they would not know him back there--now! He laughed softly as he thought of the old John Keith--"Johnny" they used to call him up and down the few balsam-scented streets--his father's right-hand man mentally but a little off feed, as his chum, Reddy McTabb, used to say, when it came to the matter of muscle and brawn. He could look back on things without excitement now. Even hatred had burned itself out, and he found himself wondering if old Judge Kirkstone's house looked the same on the top of the hill, and if Miriam Kirkstone had come back to live there after that terrible night when he had returned to avenge his father. Four years! It was not so very long, though the years had seemed like a lifetime to him. There would not be many changes. Everything would be the same--everything--except--the old home. That home he and his father had planned, and they had overseen the building of it, a chateau of logs a little distance from the town, with the Saskatchewan sweeping below it and the forest at its doors. Masterless, it must have seen changes in those four years. Fumbling in his pocket, his fingers touched Conniston's watch. He drew it out and let the firelight play on the open dial. It was ten o'clock. In the back of the premier half of the case Conniston had at some time or another pasted a picture. It must have been a long time ago, for the face was faded and indistinct. The eyes alone were undimmed, and in the flash of the fire they took on a living glow as they looked at Keith. It was the face of a young girl--a schoolgirl, Keith thought, of ten or twelve. Yet the eyes seemed older; they seemed pleading with someone, speaking a message that had come spontaneously out of the soul of the child. Keith closed the watch. Its tick, tick, tick rose louder to his ears. He dropped it in his pocket. He could still hear it. A pitch-filled spruce knot exploded with the startling vividness of a star bomb, and with it came a dull sort of mental shock to Keith. He was sure that for an instant he had seen Conniston's face and that the Englishman's eyes were looking at him as the eyes had looked at him out of the face in the watch. The deception was so real that it sent him back a step, staring, and then, his eyes striving to catch the illusion again, there fell upon him a realization of the tremendous strain he had been under for many hours. It had been days since he had slept soundly. Yet he was not sleepy now; he scarcely felt fatigue. The instinct of self-preservation made him arrange his sleeping-bag on a carpet of spruce boughs in the tent and go to bed. Even then, for a long time, he lay in the grip of a harrowing wakefulness. He closed his eyes, but it was impossible for him to hold them closed. The sounds of the night came to him with painful distinctness--the crackling of the fire, the serpent-like hiss of the flaming pitch, the whispering of the tree tops, and the steady tick, tick, tick of Conniston's watch. And out on the barren, through the rim of sheltering trees, the wind was beginning to moan its everlasting whimper and sob of loneliness. In spite of his clenched hands and his fighting determination to hold it off, Keith fancied that he heard again--riding strangely in that wind--the sound of Conniston's voice. And suddenly he asked himself: What did it mean? What was it that Conniston had forgotten? What was it that Conniston had been trying to tell him all that day, when he had felt the presence of him in the gloom of the Barrens? Was it that Conniston wanted him to come back? He tried to rid himself of the depressing insistence of that thought. And yet he was certain that in the last half-hour before death entered the cabin the Englishman had wanted to tell him something and had crucified the desire. There was the triumph of an iron courage in those last words, "Remember, old chap, you win or lose the moment McDowell first sets his eyes on you!"--but in the next instant, as death sent home its thrust, Keith had caught a glimpse of Conniston's naked soul, and in that final moment when speech was gone forever, he knew that Conniston was fighting to make his lips utter words which he had left unspoken until too late. And Keith, listening to the moaning of the wind and the crackling of the fire, found himself repeating over and over again, "What was it he wanted to say?" In a lull in the wind Conniston's watch seemed to beat like a heart in its case, and swiftly its tick, tick, ticked to his ears an answer, "Come back, come back, come back!" With a cry at his own pitiable weakness, Keith thrust the thing far under his sleeping-bag, and there its sound was smothered. At last sleep overcame him like a restless anesthesia. With the break of another day he came out of his tent and stirred the fire. There were still bits of burning ember, and these he fanned into life and added to their flame fresh fuel. He could not easily forget last night's torture, but its significance was gone. He laughed at his own folly and wondered what Conniston himself would have thought of his nervousness. For the first time in years he thought of the old days down at college where, among other things, he had made a mark for himself in psychology. He had considered himself an expert in the discussion and understanding of phenomena of the mind. Afterward he had lived up to the mark and had profited by his beliefs, and the fact that a simple relaxation of his mental machinery had so disturbed him last night amused him now. The solution was easy. It was his mind struggling to equilibrium after four years of brain-fag. And he felt better. His brain was clearer. He listened to the watch and found its ticking natural. He braced himself to another effort and whistled as he prepared his breakfast. After that he packed his dunnage and continued south. He wondered if Conniston ever knew his Manual as he learned it now. At the end of the sixth day he could repeat it from cover to cover. Every hour he made it a practice to stop short and salute the trees about him. McDowell would not catch him there. "I am Derwent Conniston," he kept telling himself. "John Keith is dead--dead. I buried him back there under the cabin, the cabin built by Sergeant Trossy and his patrol in nineteen hundred and eight. My name is Conniston--Derwent Conniston." In his years of aloneness he had grown into the habit of talking to himself--or with himself--to keep up his courage and sanity. "Keith, old boy, we've got to fight it out," he would say. Now it was, "Conniston, old chap, we'll win or die." After the third day, he never spoke of John Keith except as a man who was dead. And over the dead John Keith he spread Conniston's mantle. "John Keith died game, sir," he said to McDowell, who was a tree. "He was the finest chap I ever knew." On this sixth day came the miracle. For the first time in many months John Keith saw the sun. He had seen the murky glow of it before this, fighting to break through the pall of fog and haze that hung over the Barrens, but this sixth day it was the sun, the real sun, bursting in all its glory for a short space over the northern world. Each day after this the sun was nearer and warmer, as the arctic vapor clouds and frost smoke were left farther behind, and not until he had passed beyond the ice fogs entirely did Keith swing westward. He did not hurry, for now that he was out of his prison, he wanted time in which to feel the first exhilarating thrill of his freedom. And more than all else he knew that he must measure and test himself for the tremendous fight ahead of him. Now that the sun and the blue sky had cleared his brain, he saw the hundred pit-falls in his way, the hundred little slips that might be made, the hundred traps waiting for any chance blunder on his part. Deliberately he was on his way to the hangman. Down there--every day of his life--he would rub elbows with him as he passed his fellow men in the street. He would never completely feel himself out of the presence of death. Day and night he must watch himself and guard himself, his tongue, his feet, his thoughts, never knowing in what hour the eyes of the law would pierce the veneer of his disguise and deliver his life as the forfeit. There were times when the contemplation of these things appalled him, and his mind turned to other channels of escape. And then--always--he heard Conniston's cool, fighting voice, and the red blood fired up in his veins, and he faced home. He was Derwent Conniston. And never for an hour could he put out of his mind the one great mystifying question in this adventure of life and death, who was Derwent Conniston? Shred by shred he pieced together what little he knew, and always he arrived at the same futile end. An Englishman, dead to his family if he had one, an outcast or an expatriate--and the finest, bravest gentleman he had ever known. It was the WHYFORE of these things that stirred within him an emotion which he had never experienced before. The Englishman had grimly and determinedly taken his secret to the grave with him. To him, John Keith--who was now Derwent Conniston--he had left an heritage of deep mystery and the mission, if he so chose, of discovering who he was, whence he had come--and why. Often he looked at the young girl's picture in the watch, and always he saw in her eyes something which made him think of Conniston as he lay in the last hour of his life. Undoubtedly the girl had grown into a woman now. Days grew into weeks, and under Keith's feet the wet, sweet-smelling earth rose up through the last of the slush snow. Three hundred miles below the Barrens, he was in the Reindeer Lake country early in May. For a week he rested at a trapper's cabin on the Burntwood, and after that set out for Cumberland House. Ten days later he arrived at the post, and in the sunlit glow of the second evening afterward he built his camp-fire on the shore of the yellow Saskatchewan. The mighty river, beloved from the days of his boyhood, sang to him again, that night, the wonderful things that time and grief had dimmed in his heart. The moon rose over it, a warm wind drifted out of the south, and Keith, smoking his pipe, sat for a long time listening to the soft murmur of it as it rolled past at his feet. For him it had always been more than the river. He had grown up with it, and it had become a part of him; it had mothered his earliest dreams and ambitions; on it he had sought his first adventures; it had been his chum, his friend, and his comrade, and the fancy struck him that in the murmuring voice of it tonight there was a gladness, a welcome, an exultation in his return. He looked out on its silvery bars shimmering in the moonlight, and a flood of memories swept upon him. Thirty years was not so long ago that he could not remember the beautiful mother who had told him stories as the sun went down and bedtime drew near. And vividly there stood out the wonderful tales of Kistachiwun, the river; how it was born away over in the mystery of the western mountains, away from the eyes and feet of men; how it came down from the mountains into the hills, and through the hills into the plains, broadening and deepening and growing mightier with every mile, until at last it swept past their door, bearing with it the golden grains of sand that made men rich. His father had pointed out the deep-beaten trails of buffalo to him and had told him stories of the Indians and of the land before white men came, so that between father and mother the river became his book of fables, his wonderland, the never-ending source of his treasured tales of childhood. And tonight the river was the one thing left to him. It was the one friend he could claim again, the one comrade he could open his arms to without fear of betrayal. And with the grief for things that once had lived and were now dead, there came over him a strange sort of happiness, the spirit of the great river itself giving him consolation. Stretching out his arms, he cried: "My old river--it's me--Johnny Keith! I've come back!" And the river, whispering, seemed to answer him: "It's Johnny Keith! And he's come back! He's come back!" IV For a week John Keith followed up the shores of the Saskatchewan. It was a hundred and forty miles from the Hudson's Bay Company's post of Cumberland House to Prince Albert as the crow would fly, but Keith did not travel a homing line. Only now and then did he take advantage of a portage trail. Clinging to the river, his journey was lengthened by some sixty miles. Now that the hour for which Conniston had prepared him was so close at hand, he felt the need of this mighty, tongueless friend that had played such an intimate part in his life. It gave to him both courage and confidence, and in its company he could think more clearly. Nights he camped on its golden-yellow bars with the open stars over his head when he slept; his ears drank in the familiar sounds of long ago, for which he had yearned to the point of madness in his exile--the soft cries of the birds that hunted and mated in the glow of the moon, the friendly twit, twit, twit of the low-flying sand-pipers, the hoot of the owls, and the splash and sleepy voice of wildfowl already on their way up from the south. Out of that south, where in places the plains swept the forest back almost to the river's edge, he heard now and then the doglike barking of his little yellow friends of many an exciting horseback chase, the coyotes, and on the wilderness side, deep in the forest, the sinister howling of wolves. He was traveling, literally, the narrow pathway between two worlds. The river was that pathway. On the one hand, not so very far away, were the rolling prairies, green fields of grain, settlements and towns and the homes of men; on the other the wilderness lay to the water's edge with its doors still open to him. The seventh day a new sound came to his ears at dawn. It was the whistle of a train at Prince Albert. There was no change in that whistle, and every nerve-string in his body responded to it with crying thrill. It was the first voice to greet his home-coming, and the sound of it rolled the yesterdays back upon him in a deluge. He knew where he was now; he recalled exactly what he would find at the next turn in the river. A few minutes later he heard the wheezy chug, chug, chug of the old gold dredge at McCoffin's Bend. It would be the Betty M., of course, with old Andy Duggan at the windlass, his black pipe in mouth, still scooping up the shifting sands as he had scooped them up for more than twenty years. He could see Andy sitting at his post, clouded in a halo of tobacco smoke, a red-bearded, shaggy-headed giant of a man whom the town affectionately called the River Pirate. All his life Andy had spent in digging gold out of the mountains or the river, and like grim death he had hung to the bars above and below McCoffin's Bend. Keith smiled as he remembered old Andy's passion for bacon. One could always find the perfume of bacon about the Betty M., and when Duggan went to town, there were those who swore they could smell it in his whiskers. Keith left the river trail now for the old logging road. In spite of his long fight to steel himself for what Conniston had called the "psychological moment," he felt himself in the grip of an uncomfortable mental excitement. At last he was face to face with the great gamble. In a few hours he would play his one card. If he won, there was life ahead of him again, if he lost--death. The old question which he had struggled to down surged upon him. Was it worth the chance? Was it in an hour of madness that he and Conniston had pledged themselves to this amazing adventure? The forest was still with him. He could turn back. The game had not yet gone so far that he could not withdraw his hand--and for a space a powerful impulse moved him. And then, coming suddenly to the edge of the clearing at McCoffin's Bend, he saw the dredge close inshore, and striding up from the beach Andy Duggan himself! In another moment Keith had stepped forth and was holding up a hand in greeting. He felt his heart thumping in an unfamiliar way as Duggan came on. Was it conceivable that the riverman would not recognize him? He forgot his beard, forgot the great change that four years had wrought in him. He remembered only that Duggan had been his friend, that a hundred times they had sat together in the quiet glow of long evenings, telling tales of the great river they both loved. And always Duggan's stories had been of that mystic paradise hidden away in the western mountains--the river's end, the paradise of golden lure, where the Saskatchewan was born amid towering peaks, and where Duggan--a long time ago--had quested for the treasure which he knew was hidden somewhere there. Four years had not changed Duggan. If anything his beard was redder and thicker and his hair shaggier than when Keith had last seen him. And then, following him from the Betsy M., Keith caught the everlasting scent of bacon. He devoured it in deep breaths. His soul cried out for it. Once he had grown tired of Duggan's bacon, but now he felt that he could go on eating it forever. As Duggan advanced, he was moved by a tremendous desire to stretch out his hand and say: "I'm John Keith. Don't you know me, Duggan?" Instead, he choked back his desire and said, "Fine morning!" Duggan nodded uncertainly. He was evidently puzzled at not being able to place his man. "It's always fine on the river, rain 'r shine. Anybody who says it ain't is a God A'mighty liar!" He was still the old Duggan, ready to fight for his river at the drop of a hat! Keith wanted to hug him. He shifted his pack and said: "I've slept with it for a week--just to have it for company--on the way down from Cumberland House. Seems good to get back!" He took off his hat and met the riverman's eyes squarely. "Do you happen to know if McDowell is at barracks?" he asked. "He is," said Duggan. That was all. He was looking at Keith with a curious directness. Keith held his breath. He would have given a good deal to have seen behind Duggan's beard. There was a hard note in the riverman's voice, too. It puzzled him. And there was a flash of sullen fire in his eyes at the mention of McDowell's name. "The Inspector's there--sittin' tight," he added, and to Keith's amazement brushed past him without another word and disappeared into the bush. This, at least, was not like the good-humored Duggan of four years ago. Keith replaced his hat and went on. At the farther side of the clearing he turned and looked back. Duggan stood in the open roadway, his hands thrust deep in his pockets, staring after him. Keith waved his hand, but Duggan did not respond. He stood like a sphinx, his big red beard glowing in the early sun, and watched Keith until he was gone. To Keith this first experiment in the matter of testing an identity was a disappointment. It was not only disappointing but filled him with apprehension. It was true that Duggan had not recognized him as John Keith, BUT NEITHER HAD HE RECOGNIZED HIM AS DERWENT CONNISTON! And Duggan was not a man to forget in three or four years--or half a lifetime, for that matter. He saw himself facing a new and unexpected situation. What if McDowell, like Duggan, saw in him nothing more than a stranger? The Englishman's last words pounded in his head again like little fists beating home a truth, "You win or lose the moment McDowell first sets his eyes on you." They pressed upon him now with a deadly significance. For the first time he understood all that Conniston had meant. His danger was not alone in the possibility of being recognized as John Keith; it lay also in the hazard of NOT being recognized as Derwent Conniston. If the thought had come to him to turn back, if the voice of fear and a premonition of impending evil had urged him to seek freedom in another direction, their whispered cautions were futile in the thrill of the greater excitement that possessed him now. That there was a third hand playing in this game of chance in which Conniston had already lost his life, and in which he was now staking his own, was something which gave to Keith a new and entirely unlooked-for desire to see the end of the adventure. The mental vision of his own certain fate, should he lose, dissolved into a nebulous presence that no longer oppressed nor appalled him. Physical instinct to fight against odds, the inspiration that presages the uncertainty of battle, fired his blood with an exhilarating eagerness. He was anxious to stand face to face with McDowell. Not until then would the real fight begin. For the first time the fact seized upon him that the Englishman was wrong--he would NOT win or lose in the first moment of the Inspector's scrutiny. In that moment he could lose--McDowell's cleverly trained eyes might detect the fraud; but to win, if the game was not lost at the first shot, meant an exciting struggle. Today might be his Armageddon, but it could not possess the hour of his final triumph. He felt himself now like a warrior held in leash within sound of the enemy's guns and the smell of his powder. He held his old world to be his enemy, for civilization meant people, and the people were the law--and the law wanted his life. Never had he possessed a deeper hatred for the old code of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth than in this hour when he saw up the valley a gray mist of smoke rising over the roofs of his home town. He had never conceded within himself that he was a criminal. He believed that in killing Kirkstone he had killed a serpent who had deserved to die, and a hundred times he had told himself that the job would have been much more satisfactory from the view-point of human sanitation if he had sent the son in the father's footsteps. He had rid the people of a man not fit to live--and the people wanted to kill him for it. Therefore the men and women in that town he had once loved, and still loved, were his enemies, and to find friends among them again he was compelled to perpetrate a clever fraud. He remembered an unboarded path from this side of the town, which entered an inconspicuous little street at the end of which was a barber shop. It was the barber shop which he must reach first He was glad that it was early in the day when he came to the street an hour later, for he would meet few people. The street had changed considerably. Long, open spaces had filled in with houses, and he wondered if the anticipated boom of four years ago had come. He smiled grimly as the humor of the situation struck him. His father and he had staked their future in accumulating a lot of "outside" property. If the boom had materialized, that property was "inside" now--and worth a great deal. Before he reached the barber shop he realized that the dream of the Prince Albertites had come true. Prosperity had advanced upon them in mighty leaps. The population of the place had trebled. He was a rich man! And also, it occurred to him, he was a dead one--or would be when he reported officially to McDowell. What a merry scrap there would be among the heirs of John Keith, deceased! The old shop still clung to its corner, which was valuable as "business footage" now. But it possessed a new barber. He was alone. Keith gave his instructions in definite detail and showed him Conniston's photograph in his identification book. The beard and mustache must be just so, very smart, decidedly English, and of military neatness, his hair cut not too short and brushed smoothly back. When the operation was over, he congratulated the barber and himself. Bronzed to the color of an Indian by wind and smoke, straight as an arrow, his muscles swelling with the brute strength of the wilderness, he smiled at himself in the mirror when he compared the old John Keith with this new Derwent Conniston! Before he went out he tightened his belt a notch. Then he headed straight for the barracks of His Majesty's Royal Northwest Mounted Police. His way took him up the main street, past the rows of shops that had been there four years ago, past the Saskatchewan Hotel and the little Board of Trade building which, like the old barber shop, still hung to its original perch at the edge of the high bank which ran precipitously down to the river. And there, as sure as fate, was Percival Clary, the little English Secretary! But what a different Percy! He had broadened out and straightened up. He had grown a mustache, which was immaculately waxed. His trousers were immaculately creased, his shoes were shining, and he stood before the door of his now important office resting lightly on a cane. Keith grinned as he witnessed how prosperity had bolstered up Percival along with the town. His eyes quested for familiar faces as he went along. Here and there he saw one, but for the most part he encountered strangers, lively looking men who were hustling as if they had a mission in hand. Glaring real estate signs greeted him from every place of prominence, and automobiles began to hum up and down the main street that stretched along the river--twenty where there had been one not so long ago. Keith found himself fighting to keep his eyes straight ahead when he met a girl or a woman. Never had he believed fully and utterly in the angelhood of the feminine until now. He passed perhaps a dozen on the way to barracks, and he was overwhelmed with the desire to stop and feast his eyes upon each one of them. He had never been a lover of women; he admired them, he believed them to be the better part of man, he had worshiped his mother, but his heart had been neither glorified nor broken by a passion for the opposite sex. Now, to the bottom of his soul, he worshiped that dozen! Some of them were homely, some of them were plain, two or three of them were pretty, but to Keith their present physical qualifications made no difference. They were white women, and they were glorious, every one of them! The plainest of them was lovely. He wanted to throw up his hat and shout in sheer joy. Four years--and now he was back in angel land! For a space he forgot McDowell. His head was in a whirl when he came to barracks. Life was good, after all. It was worth fighting for, and he was bound fight. He went straight to McDowell's office. A moment after his knock on the door the Inspector's secretary appeared. "The Inspector is busy, sir," he said in response to Keith's inquiry. "I'll tell him--" "That I am here on a very important matter," advised Keith. "He will admit me when you tell him that I bring information regarding a certain John Keith." The secretary disappeared through an inner door. It seemed not more than ten seconds before he was back. "The Inspector will see you, sir." Keith drew a deep breath to quiet the violent beating of his heart. In spite of all his courage he felt upon him the clutch of a cold and foreboding hand, a hand that seemed struggling to drag him back. And again he heard Conniston's dying voice whispering to him, "REMEMBER, OLD CHAP, YOU WIN OR LOSE THE MOMENT MCDOWELL FIRST SETS HIS EYES ON YOU!" Was Conniston right? Win or lose, he would play the game as the Englishman would have played it. Squaring his shoulders he entered to face McDowell, the cleverest man-hunter in the Northwest. V Keith's first vision, as he entered the office of the Inspector of Police, was not of McDowell, but of a girl. She sat directly facing him as he advanced through the door, the light from a window throwing into strong relief her face and hair. The effect was unusual. She was strikingly handsome. The sun, giving to the room a soft radiance, lit up her hair with shimmering gold; her eyes, Keith saw, were a clear and wonderful gray--and they stared at him as he entered, while the poise of her body and the tenseness of her face gave evidence of sudden and unusual emotion. These things Keith observed in a flash; then he turned toward McDowell. The Inspector sat behind a table covered with maps and papers, and instantly Keith was conscious of the penetrating inquisition of his gaze. He felt, for an instant, the disquieting tremor of the criminal. Then he met McDowell's eyes squarely. They were, as Conniston had warned him, eyes that could see through boiler-plate. Of an indefinable color and deep set behind shaggy, gray eyebrows, they pierced him through at the first glance. Keith took in the carefully waxed gray mustaches, the close-cropped gray hair, the rigidly set muscles of the man's face, and saluted. He felt creeping over him a slow chill. There was no greeting in that iron-like countenance, for full a quarter-minute no sign of recognition. And then, as the sun had played in the girl's hair, a new emotion passed over McDowell's face, and Keith saw for the first time the man whom Derwent Conniston had known as a friend as well as a superior. He rose from his chair, and leaning over the table said in a voice in which were mingled both amazement and pleasure: "We were just talking about the devil--and here you are, sir! Conniston, how are you?" For a few moments Keith did not see. HE HAD WON! The blood pounded through his heart so violently that it confused his vision and his senses. He felt the grip of McDowell's hand; he heard his voice; a vision swam before his eyes--and it was the vision of Derwent Conniston's triumphant face. He was standing erect, his head was up, he was meeting McDowell shoulder to shoulder, even smiling, but in that swift surge of exultation he did not know. McDowell, still gripping his hand and with his other hand on his arm, was wheeling him about, and he found the girl on her feet, staring at him as if he had newly risen from the dead. McDowell's military voice was snapping vibrantly, "Conniston, meet Miss Miriam Kirkstone, daughter of Judge Kirkstone!" He bowed and held for a moment in his own the hand of the girl whose father he had killed. It was lifeless and cold. Her lips moved, merely speaking his name. His own were mute. McDowell was saying something about the glory of the service and the sovereignty of the law. And then, breaking in like the beat of a drum on the introduction, his voice demanded, "Conniston--DID YOU GET YOUR MAN?" The question brought Keith to his senses. He inclined his head slightly and said, "I beg to report that John Keith is dead, sir." He saw Miriam Kirkstone give a visible start, as if his words had carried a stab. She was apparently making a strong effort to hide her agitation as she turned swiftly away from him, speaking to McDowell. "You have been very kind, Inspector McDowell. I hope very soon to have the pleasure of talking with Mr. Conniston--about--John Keith." She left them, nodding slightly to Keith. When she was gone, a puzzled look filled the Inspector's eyes. "She has been like that for the last six months," he explained. "Tremendously interested in this man Keith and his fate. I don't believe that I have watched for your return more anxiously than she has, Conniston. And the curious part of it is she seemed to have no interest in the matter at all until six months ago. Sometimes I am afraid that brooding over her father's death has unsettled her a little. A mighty pretty girl, Conniston. A mighty pretty girl, indeed! And her brother is a skunk. Pst! You haven't forgotten him?" He drew a chair up close to his own and motioned Keith to be seated. "You're changed, Conniston!" The words came out of him like a shot. So unexpected were they that Keith felt the effect of them in every nerve of his body. He sensed instantly what McDowell meant. He was NOT like the Englishman; he lacked his mannerisms, his cool and superior suavity, the inimitable quality of his nerve and sportsmanship. Even as he met the disquieting directness of the Inspector's eyes, he could see Conniston sitting in his place, rolling his mustache between his forefinger and thumb, and smiling as though he had gone into the north but yesterday and had returned today. That was what McDowell was missing in him, the soul of Conniston himself--Conniston, the ne plus ultra of presence and amiable condescension, the man who could look the Inspector or the High Commissioner himself between the eyes, and, serenely indifferent to Service regulations, say, "Fine morning, old top!" Keith was not without his own sense of humor. How the Englishman's ghost must be raging if it was in the room at the present moment! He grinned and shrugged his shoulders. "Were you ever up there--through the Long Night--alone?" he asked. "Ever been through six months of living torture with the stars leering at you and the foxes barking at you all the time, fighting to keep yourself from going mad? I went through that twice to get John Keith, and I guess you're right. I'm changed. I don't think I'll ever be the same again. Something--has gone. I can't tell what it is, but I feel it. I guess only half of me pulled through. It killed John Keith. Rotten, isn't it?" He felt that he had made a lucky stroke. McDowell pulled out a drawer from under the table and thrust a box of fat cigars under his nose. "Light up, Derry--light up and tell us what happened. Bless my soul, you're not half dead! A week in the old town will straighten you out." He struck a match and held it to the tip of Keith's cigar. For an hour thereafter Keith told the story of the man-hunt. It was his Iliad. He could feel the presence of Conniston as words fell from his lips; he forgot the presence of the stern-faced man who was watching him and listening to him; he could see once more only the long months and years of that epic drama of one against one, of pursuit and flight, of hunger and cold, of the Long Nights filled with the desolation of madness and despair. He triumphed over himself, and it was Conniston who spoke from within him. It was the Englishman who told how terribly John Keith had been punished, and when he came to the final days in the lonely little cabin in the edge of the Barrens, Keith finished with a choking in his throat, and the words, "And that was how John Keith died--a gentleman and a MAN!" He was thinking of the Englishman, of the calm and fearless smile in his eyes as he died, of his last words, the last friendly grip of his hand, and McDowell saw the thing as though he had faced it himself. He brushed a hand over his face as if to wipe away a film. For some moments after Keith had finished, he stood with his back to the man who he thought was Conniston, and his mind was swiftly adding twos and twos and fours and fours as he looked away into the green valley of the Saskatchewan. He was the iron man when he turned to Keith again, the law itself, merciless and potent, by some miracle turned into the form of human flesh. "After two and a half years of THAT even a murderer must have seemed like a saint to you, Conniston. You have done your work splendidly. The whole story shall go to the Department, and if it doesn't bring you a commission, I'll resign. But we must continue to regret that John Keith did not live to be hanged." "He has paid the price," said Keith dully. "No, he has not paid the price, not in full. He merely died. It could have been paid only at the end of a rope. His crime was atrociously brutal, the culmination of a fiend's desire for revenge. We will wipe off his name. But I can not wipe away the regret. I would sacrifice a year of my life if he were in this room with you now. It would be worth it. God, what a thing for the Service--to have brought John Keith back to justice after four years!" He was rubbing his hands and smiling at Keith even as he spoke. His eyes had taken on a filmy glitter. The law! It stood there, without heart or soul, coveting the life that had escaped it. A feeling of revulsion swept over Keith. A knock came at the door. McDowell's voice gave permission, and the door slowly opened. Cruze, the young secretary, thrust in his head. "Shan Tung is waiting, sir," he said. An invisible hand reached up suddenly and gripped at Keith's throat. He turned aside to conceal what his face might have betrayed. Shan Tung! He knew what it was now that had pulled him back, he knew why Conniston's troubled face had traveled with him over the Barrens, and there surged over him with a sickening foreboding, a realization of what it was that Conniston had remembered and wanted to tell him--when it was too late. THEY HAD FORGOTTEN SHAN TUNG, THE CHINAMAN! VI In the hall beyond the secretary's room Shan Tung waited. As McDowell was the iron and steel embodiment of the law, so Shan Tung was the flesh and blood spirit of the mysticism and immutability of his race. His face was the face of an image made of an unemotional living tissue in place of wood or stone, dispassionate, tolerant, patient. What passed in the brain behind his yellow-tinged eyes only Shan Tung knew. It was his secret. And McDowell had ceased to analyze or attempt to understand him. The law, baffled in its curiosity, had come to accept him as a weird and wonderful mechanism--a thing more than a man--possessed of an unholy power. This power was the oriental's marvelous ability to remember faces. Once Shan Tung looked at a face, it was photographed in his memory for years. Time and change could not make him forget--and the law made use of him. Briefly McDowell had classified him at Headquarters. "Either an exiled prime minister of China or the devil in a yellow skin," he had written to the Commissioner. "Correct age unknown and past history a mystery. Dropped into Prince Albert in 1908 wearing diamonds and patent leather shoes. A stranger then and a stranger now. Proprietor and owner of the Shan Tung Cafe. Educated, soft-spoken, womanish, but the one man on earth I'd hate to be in a dark room with, knives drawn. I use him, mistrust him, watch him, and would fear him under certain conditions. As far as we can discover, he is harmless and law-abiding. But such a ferret must surely have played his game somewhere, at some time." This was the man whom Conniston had forgotten and Keith now dreaded to meet. For many minutes Shan Tung had stood at a window looking out upon the sunlit drillground and the broad sweep of green beyond. He was toying with his slim hands caressingly. Half a smile was on his lips. No man had ever seen more than that half smile illuminate Shan Tung's face. His black hair was sleek and carefully trimmed. His dress was immaculate. His slimness, as McDowell had noted, was the slimness of a young girl. When Cruze came to announce that McDowell would see him, Shan Tung was still visioning the golden-headed figure of Miriam Kirkstone as he had seen her passing through the sunshine. There was something like a purr in his breath as he stood interlacing his tapering fingers. The instant he heard the secretary's footsteps the finger play stopped, the purr died, the half smile was gone. He turned softly. Cruze did not speak. He simply made a movement of his head, and Shan Tung's feet fell noiselessly. Only the slight sound made by the opening and closing of a door gave evidence of his entrance into the Inspector's room. Shan Tung and no other could open and close a door like that. Cruze shivered. He always shivered when Shan Tung passed him, and always he swore that he could smell something in the air, like a poison left behind. Keith, facing the window, was waiting. The moment the door was opened, he felt Shan Tung's presence. Every nerve in his body was keyed to an uncomfortable tension. The thought that his grip on himself was weakening, and because of a Chinaman, maddened him. And he must turn. Not to face Shan Tung now would be but a postponement of the ordeal and a confession of cowardice. Forcing his hand into Conniston's little trick of twisting a mustache, he turned slowly, leveling his eyes squarely to meet Shan Tung's. To his surprise Shan Tung seemed utterly oblivious of his presence. He had not, apparently, taken more than a casual glance in his direction. In a voice which one beyond the door might have mistaken for a woman's, he was saying to McDowell: "I have seen the man you sent me to see, Mr. McDowell. It is Larsen. He has changed much in eight years. He has grown a beard. He has lost an eye. His hair has whitened. But it is Larsen." The faultlessness of his speech and the unemotional but perfect inflection of his words made Keith, like the young secretary, shiver where he stood. In McDowell's face he saw a flash of exultation. "He had no suspicion of you, Shan Tung?" "He did not see me to suspect. He will be there--when--" Slowly he faced Keith. "--When Mr. Conniston goes to arrest him," he finished. He inclined his head as he backed noiselessly toward the door. His yellow eyes did not leave Keith's face. In them Keith fancied that he caught a sinister gleam. There was the faintest inflection of a new note in his voice, and his fingers were playing again, but not as when he had looked out through the window at Miriam Kirkstone. And then--in a flash, it seemed to Keith--the Chinaman's eyes closed to narrow slits, and the pupils became points of flame no larger than the sharpened ends of a pair of pencils. The last that Keith was conscious of seeing of Shan Tung was the oriental's eyes. They had seemed to drag his soul half out of his body. "A queer devil," said McDowell. "After he is gone, I always feel as if a snake had been in the room. He still hates you, Conniston. Three years have made no difference. He hates you like poison. I believe he would kill you, if he had a chance to do it and get away with the Business. And you--you blooming idiot--simply twiddle your mustache and laugh at him! I'd feel differently if I were in your boots." Inwardly Keith was asking himself why it was that Shan Tung had hated Conniston. McDowell added nothing to enlighten him. He was gathering up a number of papers scattered on his desk, smiling with a grim satisfaction. "It's Larsen all right if Shan Tung says so," he told Keith. And then, as if he had only thought of the matter, he said, "You're going to reenlist, aren't you, Conniston?" "I still owe the Service a month or so before my term expires, don't I? After that--yes--I believe I shall reenlist." "Good!" approved the Inspector. "I'll have you a sergeancy within a month. Meanwhile you're off duty and may do anything you please. You know Brady, the Company agent? He's up the Mackenzie on a trip, and here's the key to his shack. I know you'll appreciate getting under a real roof again, and Brady won't object as long as I collect his thirty dollars a month rent. Of course Barracks is open to you, but it just occurred to me you might prefer this place while on furlough. Everything is there from a bathtub to nutcrackers, and I know a little Jap in town who is hunting a job as a cook. What do you say?" "Splendid!" cried Keith. "I'll go up at once, and if you'll hustle the Jap along, I'll appreciate it. You might tell him to bring up stuff for dinner," he added. McDowell gave him a key. Ten minutes later he was out of sight of barracks and climbing a green slope that led to Brady's bungalow. In spite of the fact that he had not played his part brilliantly, he believed that he had scored a triumph. Andy Duggan had not recognized him, and the riverman had been one of his most intimate friends. McDowell had accepted him apparently without a suspicion. And Shan Tung-- It was Shan Tung who weighed heavily upon his mind, even as his nerves tingled with the thrill of success. He could not get away from the vision of the Chinaman as he had backed through the Inspector's door, the flaming needle-points of his eyes piercing him as he went. It was not hatred he had seen in Shan Tung's face. He was sure of that. It was no emotion that he could describe. It was as if a pair of mechanical eyes fixed in the head of an amazingly efficient mechanical monster had focused themselves on him in those few instants. It made him think of an X-ray machine. But Shan Tung was human. And he was clever. Given another skin, one would not have taken him for what he was. The immaculateness of his speech and manners was more than unusual; it was positively irritating, something which no Chinaman should rightfully possess. So argued Keith as he went up to Brady's bungalow. He tried to throw off the oppression of the thing that was creeping over him, the growing suspicion that he had not passed safely under the battery of Shan Tung's eyes. With physical things he endeavored to thrust his mental uneasiness into the background. He lighted one of the half-dozen cigars McDowell had dropped into his pocket. It was good to feel a cigar between his teeth again and taste its flavor. At the crest of the slope on which Brady's bungalow stood, he stopped and looked about him. Instinctively his eyes turned first to the west. In that direction half of the town lay under him, and beyond its edge swept the timbered slopes, the river, and the green pathways of the plains. His heart beat a little faster as he looked. Half a mile away was a tiny, parklike patch of timber, and sheltered there, with the river running under it, was the old home. The building was hidden, but through a break in the trees he could see the top of the old red brick chimney glowing in the sun, as if beckoning a welcome to him over the tree tops. He forgot Shan Tung; he forgot McDowell; he forgot that he was John Keith, the murderer, in the overwhelming sea of loneliness that swept over him. He looked out into the world that had once been his, and all that he saw was that red brick chimney glowing in the sun, and the chimney changed until at last it seemed to him like a tombstone rising over the graves of the dead. He turned to the door of the bungalow with a thickening in his throat and his eyes filmed by a mist through which for a few moments it was difficult for him to see. The bungalow was darkened by drawn curtains when he entered. One after another he let them up, and the sun poured in. Brady had left his place in order, and Keith felt about him an atmosphere of cheer that was a mighty urge to his flagging spirits. Brady was a home man without a wife. The Company's agent had called his place "The Shack" because it was built entirely of logs, and a woman could not have made it more comfortable. Keith stood in the big living-room. At one end was a strong fireplace in which kindlings and birch were already laid, waiting the touch of a match. Brady's reading table and his easy chair were drawn up close; his lounging moccasins were on a footstool; pipes, tobacco, books and magazines littered the table; and out of this cheering disorder rose triumphantly the amber shoulder of a half-filled bottle of Old Rye. Keith found himself chuckling. His grin met the lifeless stare of a pair of glass eyes in the huge head of an old bull moose over the mantel, and after that his gaze rambled over the walls ornamented with mounted heads, pictures, snowshoes, gun-racks and the things which went to make up the comradeship and business of Brady's picturesque life. Keith could look through into the little dining-room, and beyond that was the kitchen. He made an inventory of both and found that McDowell was right. There were nutcrackers in Brady's establishment. And he found the bathroom. It was not much larger than a piano box, but the tub was man's size, and Keith raised a window and poked his head out to find that it was connected with a rainwater tank built by a genius, just high enough to give weight sufficient for a water system and low enough to gather the rain as it fell from the eaves. He laughed outright, the sort of laugh that comes out of a man's soul not when he is amused but when he is pleased. By the time he had investigated the two bedrooms, he felt a real affection for Brady. He selected the agent's room for his own. Here, too, were pipes and tobacco and books and magazines, and a reading lamp on a table close to the bedside. Not until he had made a closer inspection of the living-room did he discover that the Shack also had a telephone. By that time he noted that the sun had gone out. Driving up from the west was a mass of storm clouds. He unlocked a door from which he could look up the river, and the wind that was riding softly in advance of the storm ruffled his hair and cooled his face. In it he caught again the old fancy--the smells of the vast reaches of unpeopled prairie beyond the rim of the forest, and the luring chill of the distant mountain tops. Always storm that came down with the river brought to him voice from the river's end. It came to him from the great mountains that were a passion with him; it seemed to thunder to him the old stories of the mightiest fastnesses of the Rockies and stirred in him the child-bred yearning to follow up his beloved river until he came at last to the mystery of its birthplace in the cradle of the western ranges. And now, as he faced the storm, the grip of that desire held him like a strong hand. The sky blackened swiftly, and with the rumbling of far-away thunder he saw the lightning slitting the dark heaven like bayonets, and the fire of the electrical charges galloped to him and filled his veins. His heart all at once cried out words that his lips did not utter. Why should he not answer the call that had come to him through all the years? Now was the time--and why should he not go? Why tempt fate in the hazard of a great adventure where home and friends and even hope were dead to him, when off there beyond the storm was the place of his dreams? He threw out his arms. His voice broke at last in a cry of strange ecstasy. Not everything was gone! Not everything was dead! Over the graveyard of his past there was sweeping a mighty force that called him, something that was no longer merely an urge and a demand but a thing that was irresistible. He would go! Tomorrow--today--tonight--he would begin making plans! He watched the deluge as it came on with a roar of wind, a beating, hissing wall under which the tree tops down in the edge of the plain bent their heads like a multitude of people in prayer. He saw it sweeping up the slope in a mass of gray dragoons. It caught him before he had closed the door, and his face dripped with wet as he forced the last inch of it against the wind with his shoulder. It was the sort of storm Keith liked. The thunder was the rumble of a million giant cartwheels rolling overhead. Inside the bungalow it was growing dark as though evening had come. He dropped on his knees before the pile of dry fuel in the fireplace and struck a match. For a space the blaze smoldered; then the birch fired up like oil-soaked tinder, and a yellow flame crackled and roared up the flue. Keith was sensitive in the matter of smoking other people's pipes, so he drew out his own and filled it with Brady's tobacco. It was an English mixture, rich and aromatic, and as the fire burned brighter and the scent of the tobacco filled the room, he dropped into Brady's big lounging chair and stretched out his legs with a deep breath of satisfaction. His thoughts wandered to the clash of the storm. He would have a place like this out there in the mystery of the trackless mountains, where the Saskatchewan was born. He would build it like Brady's place, even to the rain-water tank midway between the roof and the ground. And after a few years no one would remember that a man named John Keith had ever lived. Something brought him suddenly to his feet. It was the ringing of the telephone. After four years the sound was one that roused with an uncomfortable jump every nerve in his body. Probably it was McDowell calling up about the Jap or to ask how he liked the place. Probably--it was that. He repeated the thought aloud as he laid his pipe on the table. And yet as his hand came in contact with the telephone, he felt an inclination to draw back. A subtle voice whispered him not to answer, to leave while the storm was dark, to go back into the wilderness, to fight his way to the western mountains. With a jerk he unhooked the receiver and put it to his ear. It was not McDowell who answered him. It was not Shan Tung. To his amazement, coming to him through the tumult of the storm, he recognized the voice of Miriam Kirkstone! VII Why should Miriam Kirkstone call him up in an hour when the sky was livid with the flash of lightning and the earth trembled with the roll of thunder? This was the question that filled Keith's mind as he listened to the voice at the other end of the wire. It was pitched to a high treble as if unconsciously the speaker feared that the storm might break in upon her words. She was telling him that she had telephoned McDowell but had been too late to catch him before he left for Brady's bungalow; she was asking him to pardon her for intruding upon his time so soon after his return, but she was sure that he would understand her. She wanted him to come up to see her that evening at eight o'clock. It was important--to her. Would he come? Before Keith had taken a moment to consult with himself he had replied that he would. He heard her "thank you," her "good-by," and hung up the receiver, stunned. So far as he could remember, he had spoken no more than seven words. The beautiful young woman up at the Kirkstone mansion had clearly betrayed her fear of the lightning by winding up her business with him at the earliest possible moment. Why, then, had she not waited until the storm was over? A pounding at the door interrupted his thought. He went to it and admitted an individual who, in spite of his water-soaked condition, was smiling all over. It was Wallie, the Jap. He was no larger than a boy of sixteen, and from eyes, ears, nose, and hair he was dripping streams, while his coat bulged with packages which he had struggled to protect, from the torrent through which he had forced his way up the hill. Keith liked him on the instant. He found himself powerless to resist the infection of Wallie's grin, and as Wallie hustled into the kitchen like a wet spaniel, he followed and helped him unload. By the time the little Jap had disgorged his last package, he had assured Keith that the rain was nice, that his name was Wallie, that he expected five dollars a week and could cook "like heaven." Keith laughed outright, and Wallie was so delighted with the general outlook that he fairly kicked his heels together. Thereafter for an hour or so he was left alone in possession of the kitchen, and shortly Keith began to hear certain sounds and catch occasional odoriferous whiffs which assured him that Wallie was losing no time in demonstrating his divine efficiency in the matter of cooking. Wallie's coming gave him an excuse to call up McDowell. He confessed to a disquieting desire to hear the inspector's voice again. In the back of his head was the fear of Shan Tung, and the hope that McDowell might throw some light on Miriam Kirkstone's unusual request to see her that night. The storm had settled down into a steady drizzle when he got in touch with him, and he was relieved to find there was no change in the friendliness of the voice that came over the telephone. If Shan Tung had a suspicion, he had kept it to himself. To Keith's surprise it was McDowell who spoke first of Miss Kirkstone. "She seemed unusually anxious to get in touch with you," he said. "I am frankly disturbed over a certain matter, Conniston, and I should like to talk with you before you go up tonight." Keith sniffed the air. "Wallie is going to ring the dinner bell within half an hour. Why not slip on a raincoat and join me up here? I think it's going to be pretty good." "I'll come," said McDowell. "Expect me any moment." Fifteen minutes later Keith was helping him off with his wet slicker. He had expected McDowell to make some observation on the cheerfulness of the birch fire and the agreeable aromas that were leaking from Wallie's kitchen, but the inspector disappointed him. He stood for a few moments with his back to the fire, thumbing down the tobacco in his pipe, and he made no effort to conceal the fact that there was something in his mind more important than dinner and the cheer of a grate. His eyes fell on the telephone, and he nodded toward it. "Seemed very anxious to see you, didn't she, Conniston? I mean Miss Kirkstone." "Rather." McDowell seated himself and lighted a match. "Seemed--a little--nervous--perhaps," he suggested between puffs. "As though something had happened--or was going to happen. Don't mind my questioning you, do you, Derry?" "Not a bit," said Keith. "You see, I thought perhaps you might explain--" There was a disquieting gleam in McDowell's eyes. "It was odd that she should call you up so soon--and in the storm--wasn't it? She expected to find you at my office. I could fairly hear the lightning hissing along the wires. She must have been under some unusual impulse." "Perhaps." McDowell was silent for a space, looking steadily at Keith, as if measuring him up to something. "I don't mind telling you that I am very deeply interested in Miss Kirkstone," he said. "You didn't see her when the Judge was killed. She was away at school, and you were on John Keith's trail when she returned. I have never been much of a woman's man, Conniston, but I tell you frankly that up until six or eight months ago Miriam was one of the most beautiful girls I have ever seen. I would give a good deal to know the exact hour and date when the change in her began. I might be able to trace some event to that date. It was six months ago that she began to take an interest in the fate of John Keith. Since then the change in her has alarmed me, Conniston. I don't understand. She has betrayed nothing. But I have seen her dying by inches under my eyes. She is only a pale and drooping flower compared with what she was. I am positive it is not a sickness--unless it is mental. I have a suspicion. It is almost too terrible to put into words. You will be going up there tonight--you will be alone with her, will talk with her, may learn a great deal if you understand what it is that is eating like a canker in my mind. Will you help me to discover her secret?" He leaned toward Keith. He was no longer the man of iron. There was something intensely human in his face. "There is no other man on earth I would confide this matter to," he went on slowly. "It will take--a gentleman--to handle it, someone who is big enough to forget if my suspicion is untrue, and who will understand fully what sacrilege means should it prove true. It is extremely delicate. I hesitate. And yet--I am waiting, Conniston. Is it necessary to ask you to pledge secrecy in the matter?" Keith held out a hand. McDowell gripped it tight. "It is--Shan Tung," he said, a peculiar hiss in his voice. "Shan Tung--and Miriam Kirkstone! Do you understand, Conniston? Does the horror of it get hold of you? Can you make yourself believe that it is possible? Am I mad to allow such a suspicion to creep into my brain? Shan Tung--Miriam Kirkstone! And she sees herself standing now at the very edge of the pit of hell, and it is killing her." Keith felt his blood running cold as he saw in the inspector's face the thing which he did not put more plainly in word. He was shocked. He drew his hand from McDowell's grip almost fiercely. "Impossible!" he cried. "Yes, you are mad. Such a thing would be inconceivable!" "And yet I have told myself that it is possible," said McDowell. His face was returning into its iron-like mask. His two hands gripped the arms of his chair, and he stared at Keith again as if he were looking through him at something else, and to that something else he seemed to speak, slowly, weighing and measuring each word before it passed his lips. "I am not superstitious. It has always been a law with me to have conviction forced upon me. I do not believe unusual things until investigation proves them. I am making an exception in the case of Shan Tung. I have never regarded him as a man, like you and me, but as a sort of superphysical human machine possessed of a certain psychological power that is at times almost deadly. Do you begin to understand me? I believe that he has exerted the whole force of that influence upon Miriam Kirkstone--and she has surrendered to it. I believe--and yet I am not positive." "And you have watched them for six months?" "No. The suspicion came less than a month ago. No one that I know has ever had the opportunity of looking into Shan Tung's private life. The quarters behind his cafe are a mystery. I suppose they can be entered from the cafe and also from a little stairway at the rear. One night--very late--I saw Miriam Kirkstone come down that stairway. Twice in the last month she has visited Shan Tung at a late hour. Twice that I know of, you understand. And that is not all--quite." Keith saw the distended veins in McDowell's clenched hands, and he knew that he was speaking under a tremendous strain. "I watched the Kirkstone home--personally. Three times in that same month Shan Tung visited her there. The third time I entered boldly with a fraud message for the girl. I remained with her for an hour. In that time I saw nothing and heard nothing of Shan Tung. He was hiding--or got out as I came in." Keith was visioning Miriam Kirkstone as he had seen her in the inspector's office. He recalled vividly the slim, golden beauty of her, the wonderful gray of her eyes, and the shimmer of her hair as she stood in the light of the window--and then he saw Shan Tung, effeminate, with his sly, creeping hands and his narrowed eyes, and the thing which McDowell had suggested rose up before him a monstrous impossibility. "Why don't you demand an explanation of Miss Kirkstone?" he asked. "I have, and she denies it all absolutely, except that Shan Tung came to her house once to see her brother. She says that she was never on the little stairway back of Shan Tung's place." "And you do not believe her?" "Assuredly not. I saw her. To speak the cold truth, Conniston, she is lying magnificently to cover up something which she does not want any other person on earth to know." Keith leaned forward suddenly. "And why is it that John Keith, dead and buried, should have anything to do with this?" he demanded. "Why did this 'intense interest' you speak of in John Keith begin at about the same time your suspicions began to include Shan Tung?" McDowell shook his head. "It may be that her interest was not so much in John Keith as in you, Conniston. That is for you to discover--tonight. It is an interesting situation. It has tragic possibilities. The instant you substantiate my suspicions we'll deal directly with Shan Tung. Just now--there's Wallie behind you grinning like a Cheshire cat. His dinner must be a success." The diminutive Jap had noiselessly opened the door of the little dining-room in which the table was set for two. Keith smiled as he sat down opposite the man who would have sent him to the executioner had he known the truth. After all, it was but a step from comedy to tragedy. And just now he was conscious of a bit of grisly humor in the situation. VIII The storm had settled into a steady drizzle when McDowell left the Shack at two o'clock. Keith watched the iron man, as his tall, gray figure faded away into the mist down the slope, with a curious undercurrent of emotion. Before the inspector had come up as his guest he had, he thought, definitely decided his future action. He would go west on his furlough, write McDowell that he had decided not to reenlist, and bury himself in the British Columbia mountains before an answer could get back to him, leaving the impression that he was going on to Australia or Japan. He was not so sure of himself now. He found himself looking ahead to the night, when he would see Miriam Kirkstone, and he no longer feared Shan Tung as he had feared him a few hours before. McDowell himself had given him new weapons. He was unofficially on Shan Tung's trail. McDowell had frankly placed the affair of Miriam Kirkstone in his hands. That it all had in some mysterious way something to do with himself--John Keith--urged him on to the adventure. He waited impatiently for the evening. Wallie, smothered in a great raincoat, he sent forth on a general foraging expedition and to bring up some of Conniston's clothes. It was a quarter of eight when he left for Miriam Kirkstone's home. Even at that early hour the night lay about him heavy and dark and saturated with a heavy mist. From the summit of the hill he could no longer make out the valley of the Saskatchewan. He walked down into a pit in which the scattered lights of the town burned dully like distant stars. It was a little after eight when he came to the Kirkstone house. It was set well back in an iron-fenced area thick with trees and shrubbery, and he saw that the porch light was burning to show him the way. Curtains were drawn, but a glow of warm light lay behind them. He was sure that Miriam Kirkstone must have heard the crunch of his feet on the gravel walk, for he had scarcely touched the old-fashioned knocker on the door when the door itself was opened. It was Miriam who greeted him. Again he held her hand for a moment in his own. It was not cold, as it had been in McDowell's office. It was almost feverishly hot, and the pupils of the girl's eyes were big, and dark, and filled with a luminous fire. Keith might have thought that coming in out of the dark night he had startled her. But it was not that. She was repressing something that had preceded him. He thought that he heard the almost noiseless closing of a door at the end of the long hall, and his nostrils caught the faint aroma of a strange perfume. Between him and the light hung a filmy veil of smoke. He knew that it had come from a cigarette. There was an uneasy note in Miss Kirkstone's voice as she invited him to hang his coat and hat on an old-fashioned rack near the door. He took his time, trying to recall where he had detected that perfume before. He remembered, with a sort of shock. It was after Shan Tung had left McDowell's office. She was smiling when he turned, and apologizing again for making her unusual request that day. "It was--quite unconventional. But I felt that you would understand, Mr. Conniston. I guess I didn't stop to think. And I am afraid of lightning, too. But I wanted to see you. I didn't want to wait until tomorrow to hear about what happened up there. Is it--so strange?" Afterward he could not remember just what sort of answer he made. She turned, and he followed her through the big, square-cut door leading out of the hall. It was the same door with the great, sliding panel he had locked on that fateful night, years ago, when he had fought with her father and brother. In it, for a moment, her slim figure was profiled in a frame of vivid light. Her mother must have been beautiful. That was the thought that flashed upon him as the room and its tragic memory lay before him. Everything came back to him vividly, and he was astonished at the few changes in it. There was the big chair with its leather arms, in which the overfatted creature who had been her father was sitting when he came in. It was the same table, too, and it seemed to him that the same odds and ends were on the mantel over the cobblestone fireplace. And there was somebody's picture of the Madonna still hanging between two windows. The Madonna, like the master of the house, had been too fat to be beautiful. The son, an ogreish pattern of his father, had stood with his back to the Madonna, whose overfat arms had seemed to rest on his shoulders. He remembered that. The girl was watching him closely when he turned toward her. He had frankly looked the room over, without concealing his intention. She was breathing a little unsteadily, and her hair was shimmering gloriously in the light of an overhead chandelier. She sat down with that light over her, motioning him to be seated opposite her--across the same table from which he had snatched the copper weight that had killed Kirkstone. He had never seen anything quite so steady, quite so beautiful as her eyes when they looked across at him. He thought of McDowell's suspicion and of Shan Tung and gripped himself hard. The same strange perfume hung subtly on the air he was breathing. On a small silver tray at his elbow lay the ends of three freshly burned cigarettes. "Of course you remember this room?" He nodded. "Yes. It was night when I came, like this. The next day I went after John Keith." She leaned toward him, her hands clasped in front of her on the table. "You will tell me the truth about John Keith?" she asked in a low, tense voice. "You swear that it will be the truth?" "I will keep nothing back from you that I have told Inspector McDowell," he answered, fighting to meet her eyes steadily. "I almost believe I may tell you more." "Then--did you speak the truth when you reported to Inspector McDowell? IS JOHN KEITH DEAD?" Could Shan Tung meet those wonderful eyes as he was meeting them now, he wondered? Could he face them and master them, as McDowell had hinted? To McDowell the lie had come easily to his tongue. It stuck in his throat now. Without giving him time to prepare himself the girl had shot straight for the bull's-eye, straight to the heart of the thing that meant life or death to him, and for a moment he found no answer. Clearly he was facing suspicion. She could not have driven the shaft intuitively. The unexpectedness of the thing astonished him and then thrilled him, and in the thrill of it he found himself more than ever master of himself. "Would you like to hear how utterly John Keith is dead and how he died?" he asked. "Yes. That is what I must know." He noticed that her hands had closed. Her slender fingers were clenched tight. "I hesitate, because I have almost promised to tell you even more than I told McDowell," he went on. "And that will not be pleasant for you to hear. He killed your father. There can be no sympathy in your heart for John Keith. It will not be pleasant for you to hear that I liked the man, and that I am sorry he is dead." "Go on--please." Her hands unclasped. Her fingers lay limp. Something faded slowly out of her face. It was as if she had hoped for something, and that hope was dying. Could it be possible that she had hoped he would say that John Keith was alive? "Did you know this man?" he asked. "This John Keith?" She shook her head. "No. I was away at school for many years. I don't remember him." "But he knew you--that is, he had seen you," said Keith. "He used to talk to me about you in those days when he was helpless and dying. He said that he was sorry for you, and that only because of you did he ever regret the justice he brought upon your father. You see I speak his words. He called it justice. He never weakened on that point. You have probably never heard his part of the story." "No." The one word forced itself from her lips. She was expecting him to go on, and waited, her eyes never for an instant leaving his face. He did not repeat the story exactly as he had told it to McDowell. The facts were the same, but the living fire of his own sympathy and his own conviction were in them now. He told it purely from Keith's point of view, and Miriam Kirkstone's face grew whiter, and her hands grew tense again, as she listened for the first time to Keith's own version of the tragedy of the room in which they were sitting. And then he followed Keith up into that land of ice and snow and gibbering Eskimos, and from that moment he was no longer Keith but spoke with the lips of Conniston. He described the sunless weeks and months of madness until the girl's eyes seemed to catch fire, and when at last he came to the little cabin in which Conniston had died, he was again John Keith. He could not have talked about himself as he did about the Englishman. And when he came to the point where he buried Conniston under the floor, a dry, broken sob broke in upon him from across the table. But there were no tears in the girl's eyes. Tears, perhaps, would have hidden from him the desolation he saw there. But she did not give in. Her white throat twitched. She tried to draw her breath steadily. And then she said: "And that--was John Keith!" He bowed his head in confirmation of the lie, and, thinking of Conniston, he said: "He was the finest gentleman I ever knew. And I am sorry he is dead." "And I, too, am sorry." She was reaching a hand across the table to him, slowly, hesitatingly. He stared at her. "You mean that?" "Yes, I am sorry." He took her hand. For a moment her fingers tightened about his own. Then they relaxed and drew gently away from him. In that moment he saw a sudden change come into her face. She was looking beyond him, over his right shoulder. Her eyes widened, her pupils dilated under his gaze, and she held her breath. With the swift caution of the man-hunted he turned. The room was empty behind him. There was nothing but a window at his back. The rain was drizzling against it, and he noticed that the curtain was not drawn, as they were drawn at the other windows. Even as he looked, the girl went to it and pulled down the shade. He knew that she had seen something, something that had startled her for a moment, but he did not question her. Instead, as if he had noticed nothing, he asked if he might light a cigar. "I see someone smokes," he excused himself, nodding at the cigarette butts. He was watching her closely and would have recalled the words in the next breath. He had caught her. Her brother was out of town. And there was a distinctly unAmerican perfume in the smoke that someone had left in the room. He saw the bit of red creeping up her throat into her cheeks, and his conscience shamed him. It was difficult for him not to believe McDowell now. Shan Tung had been there. It was Shan Tung who had left the hall as he entered. Probably it was Shan Tung whose face she had seen at the window. What she said amazed him. "Yes, it is a shocking habit of mine, Mr. Conniston. I learned to smoke in the East. Is it so very bad, do you think?" He fairly shook himself. He wanted to say, "You beautiful little liar, I'd like to call your bluff right now, but I won't, because I'm sorry for you!" Instead, he nipped off the end of his cigar, and said: "In England, you know, the ladies smoke a great deal. Personally I may be a little prejudiced. I don't know that it is sinful, especially when one uses such good judgment--in orientals." And then he was powerless to hold himself back. He smiled at her frankly, unafraid. "I don't believe you smoke," he added. He rose to his feet, still smiling across at her, like a big brother waiting for her confidence. She was not alarmed at the directness with which he had guessed the truth. She was no longer embarrassed. She seemed for a moment to be looking through him and into him, a strange and yearning desire glowing dully in her eyes. He saw her throat twitching again, and he was filled with an infinite compassion for this daughter of the man he had killed. But he kept it within himself. He had gone far enough. It was for her to speak. At the door she gave him her hand again, bidding him good-night. She looked pathetically helpless, and he thought that someone ought to be there with the right to take her in his arms and comfort her. "You will come again?" she whispered. "Yes, I am coming again," he said. "Good-night." He passed out into the drizzle. The door closed behind him, but not before there came to him once more that choking sob from the throat of Miriam Kirkstone. IX Keith's hand was on the butt of his revolver as he made his way through the black night. He could not see the gravel path under his feet but could only feel it. Something that was more than a guess made him feel that Shan Tung was not far away, and he wondered if it was a premonition, and what it meant. With the keen instinct of a hound he was scenting for a personal danger. He passed through the gate and began the downward slope toward town, and not until then did he begin adding things together and analyzing the situation as it had transformed itself since he had stood in the door of the Shack, welcoming the storm from the western mountains. He thought that he had definitely made up his mind then; now it was chaotic. He could not leave Prince Albert immediately, as the inspiration had moved him a few hours before. McDowell had practically given him an assignment. And Miss Kirkstone was holding him. Also Shan Tung. He felt within himself the sensation of one who was traveling on very thin ice, yet he could not tell just where or why it was thin. "Just a fool hunch," he assured himself. "Why the deuce should I let a confounded Chinaman and a pretty girl get on my nerves at this stage of the game? If it wasn't for McDowell--" And there he stopped. He had fought too long at the raw edge of things to allow himself to be persuaded by delusions, and he confessed that it was John Keith who was holding him, that in some inexplicable way John Keith, though officially dead and buried, was mixed up in a mysterious affair in which Miriam Kirkstone and Shan Tung were the moving factors. And inasmuch as he was now Derwent Conniston and no longer John Keith, he took the logical point of arguing that the affair was none of his business, and that he could go on to the mountains if he pleased. Only in that direction could he see ice of a sane and perfect thickness, to carry out the metaphor in his head. He could report indifferently to McDowell, forget Miss Kirkstone, and disappear from the menace of Shan Tung's eyes. John Keith, he repeated, would be officially dead, and being dead, the law would have no further interest in him. He prodded himself on with this thought as he fumbled his way through darkness down into town. Miriam Kirkstone in her golden way was alluring; the mystery that shadowed the big house on the hill was fascinating to his hunting instincts; he had the desire, growing fast, to come at grips with Shan Tung. But he had not foreseen these things, and neither had Conniston foreseen them. They had planned only for the salvation of John Keith's precious neck, and tonight he had almost forgotten the existence of that unpleasant reality, the hangman. Truth settled upon him with depressing effect, and an infinite loneliness turned his mind again to the mountains of his dreams. The town was empty of life. Lights glowed here and there through the mist; now and then a door opened; down near the river a dog howled forlornly. Everything was shut against him. There were no longer homes where he might call and be greeted with a cheery "Good evening, Keith. Glad to see you. Come in out of the wet." He could not even go to Duggan, his old river friend. He realized now that his old friends were the very ones he must avoid most carefully to escape self-betrayal. Friendship no longer existed for him; the town was a desert without an oasis where he might reclaim some of the things he had lost. Memories he had treasured gave place to bitter ones. His own townfolk, of all people, were his readiest enemies, and his loneliness clutched him tighter, until the air itself seemed thick and difficult to breathe. For the time Derwent Conniston was utterly submerged in the overwhelming yearnings of John Keith. He dropped into a dimly lighted shop to purchase a box of cigars. It was deserted except for the proprietor. His elbow bumped into a telephone. He would call up Wallie and tell him to have a good fire waiting for him, and in the company of that fire he would do a lot of thinking before getting into communication with McDowell. It was not Wallie who answered him, and he was about to apologize for getting the wrong number when the voice at the other end asked, "Is that you, Conniston?" It was McDowell. The discovery gave him a distinct shock. What could the Inspector be doing up at the Shack in his absence? Besides, there was an imperative demand in the question that shot at him over the wire. McDowell had half shouted it. "Yes, it's I," he said rather feebly. "I'm down-town, stocking up on some cigars. What's the excitement?" "Don't ask questions but hustle up here," McDowell fired back. "I've got the surprise of your life waiting for you!" Keith heard the receiver at the other end go up with a bang. Something had happened at the Shack, and McDowell was excited. He went out puzzled. For some reason he was in no great hurry to reach the top of the hill. He was beginning to expect things to happen--too many things--and in the stress of the moment he felt the incongruity of the friendly box of cigars tucked under his arm. The hardest luck he had ever run up against had never quite killed his sense of humor, and he chuckled. His fortunes were indeed at a low ebb when he found a bit of comfort in hugging a box of cigars still closer. He could see that every room in the Shack was lighted, when he came to the crest of the slope, but the shades were drawn. He wondered if Wallie had pulled down the curtains, or if it was a caution on McDowell's part against possible espionage. Suspicion made him transfer the box of cigars to his left arm so that his right was free. Somewhere in the darkness Conniston's voice was urging him, as it had urged him up in the cabin on the Barren: "Don't walk into a noose. If it comes to a fight, FIGHT!" And then something happened that brought his heart to a dead stop. He was close to the door. His ear was against it. And he was listening to a voice. It was not Wallie's, and it was not the iron man's. It was a woman's voice, or a girl's. He opened the door and entered, taking swiftly the two or three steps that carried him across the tiny vestibule to the big room. His entrance was so sudden that the tableau in front of him was unbroken for a moment. Birch logs were blazing in the fireplace. In the big chair sat McDowell, partly turned, a smoking cigar poised in his fingers, staring at him. Seated on a footstool, with her chin in the cup of her hands, was a girl. At first, blinded a little by the light, Keith thought she was a child, a remarkably pretty child with wide-open, half-startled eyes and a wonderful crown of glowing, brown hair in which he could still see the shimmer of wet. He took off his hat and brushed the water from his eyes. McDowell did not move. Slowly the girl rose to her feet. It was then that Keith saw she was not a child. Perhaps she was eighteen, a slim, tired-looking, little thing, wonderfully pretty, and either on the verge of laughing or crying. Perhaps it was halfway between. To his growing discomfiture she came slowly toward him with a strange and wonderful look in her face. And McDowell still sat there staring. His heart thumped with an emotion he had no time to question. In those wide-open, shining eyes of the girl he sensed unspeakable tragedy--for him. And then the girl's arms were reaching out to him, and she was crying in that voice that trembled and broke between sobs and laughter: "Derry, don't you know me? Don't you know me?" He stood like one upon whom had fallen the curse of the dumb. She was within arm's reach of him, her face white as a cameo, her eyes glowing like newly-fired stars, her slim throat quivering, and her arms reaching toward him. "Derry, don't you know me? DON'T YOU KNOW ME?" It was a sob, a cry. McDowell had risen. Overwhelmingly there swept upon Keith an impulse that rocked him to the depth of his soul. He opened his arms, and in an instant the girl was in them. Quivering, and sobbing, and laughing she was on his breast. He felt the crush of her soft hair against his face, her arms were about his neck, and she was pulling his head down and kissing him--not once or twice, but again and again, passionately and without shame. His own arms tightened. He heard McDowell's voice--a distant and non-essential voice it seemed to him now--saying that he would leave them alone and that he would see them again tomorrow. He heard the door open and close. McDowell was gone. And the soft little arms were still tight about his neck. The sweet crush of hair smothered his face, and on his breast she was crying now like a baby. He held her closer. A wild exultation seized upon him, and every fiber in his body responded to its thrill, as tautly-stretched wires respond to an electrical storm. It passed swiftly, burning itself out, and his heart was left dead. He heard a sound made by Wallie out in the kitchen. He saw the walls of the room again, the chair in which McDowell had sat, the blazing fire. His arms relaxed. The girl raised her head and put her two hands to his face, looking at him with eyes which Keith no longer failed to recognize. They were the eyes that had looked at him out of the faded picture in Conniston's watch. "Kiss me, Derry!" It was impossible not to obey. Her lips clung to him. There was love, adoration, in their caress. And then she was crying again, with her arms around him tight and her face hidden against him, and he picked her up as he would have lifted a child, and carried her to the big chair in front of the fire. He put her in it and stood before her, trying to smile. Her hair had loosened, and the shining mass of it had fallen about her face and to her shoulders. She was more than ever like a little girl as she looked up at him, her eyes worshiping him, her lips trying to smile, and one little hand dabbing her eyes with a tiny handkerchief that was already wet and crushed. "You--you don't seem very glad to see me, Derry." "I--I'm just stunned," he managed to say. "You see--" "It IS a shocking surprise, Derry. I meant it to be. I've been planning it for years and years and YEARS! Please take off your coat--it's dripping wet!--and sit down near me, on that stool!" Again he obeyed. He was big for the stool. "You are glad to see me, aren't you, Derry?" She was leaning over the edge of the big chair, and one of her hands went to his damp hair, brushing it back. It was a wonderful touch. He had never felt anything like it before in his life, and involuntarily he bent his head a little. In a moment she had hugged it up close to her. "You ARE glad, aren't you, Derry? Say 'yes.'" "Yes," he whispered. He could feel the swift, excited beating of her heart. "And I'm never going back again--to THEM," he heard her say, something suddenly low and fierce in her voice. "NEVER! I'm going to stay with you always, Derry. Always!" She put her lips close to his ear and whispered mysteriously. "They don't know where I am. Maybe they think I'm dead. But Colonel Reppington knows. I told him I was coming if I had to walk round the world to get here. He said he'd keep my secret, and gave me letters to some awfully nice people over here. I've been over six months. And when I saw your name in one of those dry-looking, blue-covered, paper books the Mounted Police get out, I just dropped down on my knees and thanked the good Lord, Derry. I knew I'd find you somewhere--sometime. I haven't slept two winks since leaving Montreal! And I guess I really frightened that big man with the terrible mustaches, for when I rushed in on him tonight, dripping wet, and said, 'I'm Miss Mary Josephine Conniston, and I want my brother,' his eyes grew bigger and bigger until I thought they were surely going to pop out at me. And then he swore. He said, 'My Gawd, I didn't know he had a sister!'" Keith's heart was choking him. So this wonderful little creature was Derwent Conniston's sister! And she was claiming him. She thought he was her brother! "--And I love him because he treated me so nicely," she was saying. "He really hugged me, Derry. I guess he didn't think I was away past eighteen. And he wrapped me up in a big oilskin, and we came up here. And--O Derry, Derry--why did you do it? Why didn't you let me know? Don't you--want me here?" He heard, but his mind had swept beyond her to the little cabin in the edge of the Great Barren where Derwent Conniston lay dead. He heard the wind moaning, as it had moaned that night the Englishman died, and he saw again that last and unspoken yearning in Conniston's eyes. And he knew now why Conniston's face had followed him through the gray gloom and why he had felt the mysterious presence of him long after he had gone. Something that was Conniston entered into him now. In the throbbing chaos of his brain a voice was whispering, "She is yours, she is yours." His arms tightened about her, and a voice that was not unlike John Keith's voice said: "Yes, I want you! I want you!" X For a space Keith did not raise his head. The girl's arms were about him close, and he could feel the warm pressure of her cheek against his hair. The realization of his crime was already weighing his soul like a piece of lead, yet out of that soul had come the cry, "I want you--I want you!" and it still beat with the voice of that immeasurable yearning even as his lips grew tight and he saw himself the monstrous fraud he was. This strange little, wonderful creature had come to him from out of a dead world, and her lips, and her arms, and the soft caress of her hands had sent his own world reeling about his head so swiftly that he had been drawn into a maelstrom to which he could find no bottom. Before McDowell she had claimed him. And before McDowell he had accepted her. He had lived the great lie as he had strengthened himself to live it, but success was no longer a triumph. There rushed into his brain like a consuming flame the desire to confess the truth, to tell this girl whose arms were about him that he was not Derwent Conniston, her brother, but John Keith, the murderer. Something drove it back, something that was still more potent, more demanding, the overwhelming urge of that fighting force in every man which calls for self-preservation. Slowly he drew himself away from her, knowing that for this night at least his back was to the wall. She was smiling at him from out of the big chair, and in spite of himself he smiled back at her. "I must send you to bed now, Mary Josephine, and tomorrow we will talk everything over," he said. "You're so tired you're ready to fall asleep in a minute." Tiny, puckery lines came into her pretty forehead. It was a trick he loved at first sight. "Do you know, Derry, I almost believe you've changed a lot. You used to call me 'Juddy.' But now that I'm grown up, I think I like Mary Josephine better, though you oughtn't to be quite so stiff about it. Derry, tell me honest--are you AFRAID of me?" "Afraid of you!" "Yes, because I'm grown up. Don't you like me as well as you did one, two, three, seven years ago? If you did, you wouldn't tell me to go to bed just a few minutes after you've seen me for the first time in all those--those--Derry, I'm going to cry! I AM!" "Don't," he pleaded. "Please don't!" He felt like a hundred-horned bull in a very small china shop. Mary Josephine herself saved the day for him by jumping suddenly from the big chair, forcing him into it, and snuggling herself on his knees. "There!" She looked at a tiny watch on her wrist. "We're going to bed in two hours. We've got a lot to talk about that won't wait until tomorrow, Derry. You understand what I mean. I couldn't sleep until you've told me. And you must tell me the truth. I'll love you just the same, no matter what it is. Derry, Derry, WHY DID YOU DO IT?" "Do what?" he asked stupidly. The delicious softness went out of the slim little body on his knees. It grew rigid. He looked hopelessly into the fire, but he could feel the burning inquiry in the girl's eyes. He sensed a swift change passing through her. She seemed scarcely to breathe, and he knew that his answer had been more than inadequate. It either confessed or feigned an ignorance of something which it would have been impossible for him to forget had he been Conniston. He looked up at her at last. The joyous flush had gone out of her face. It was a little drawn. Her hand, which had been snuggling his neck caressingly, slipped down from his shoulder. "I guess--you'd rather I hadn't come, Derry," she said, fighting to keep a break out of her voice. "And I'll go back, if you want to send me. But I've always dreamed of your promise, that some day you'd send for me or come and get me, and I'd like to know WHY before you tell me to go. Why have you hidden away from me all these years, leaving me among those who you knew hated me as they hated you? Was it because you didn't care? Or was it because--because--" She bent her head and whispered strangely, "Was it because you were afraid?" "Afraid?" he repeated slowly, staring again into the fire. "Afraid--" He was going to add "Of what?" but caught the words and held them back. The birch fire leaped up with a sudden roar into the chimney, and from the heart of the flame he caught again that strange and all-pervading thrill, the sensation of Derwent Conniston's presence very near to him. It seemed to him that for an instant he caught a flash of Conniston's face, and somewhere within him was a whispering which was Conniston's voice. He was possessed by a weird and masterful force that swept over him and conquered him, a thing that was more than intuition and greater than physical desire. It was inspiration. He knew that the Englishman would have him play the game as he was about to play it now. The girl was waiting for him to answer. Her lips had grown a little more tense. His hesitation, the restraint in his welcome of her, and his apparent desire to evade that mysterious something which seemed to mean so much to her had brought a shining pain into her eyes. He had seen such a look in the eyes of creatures physically hurt. He reached out with his hands and brushed back the thick, soft hair from about her face. His fingers buried themselves in the silken disarray, and he looked for a moment straight into her eyes before he spoke. "Little girl, will you tell me the truth?" he asked. "Do I look like the old Derwent Conniston, YOUR Derwent Conniston? Do I?" Her voice was small and troubled, yet the pain was slowly fading out of her eyes as she felt the passionate embrace of his fingers in her hair. "No. You are changed." "Yes, I am changed. A part of Derwent Conniston died seven years ago. That part of him was dead until he came through that door tonight and saw you. And then it flickered back into life. It is returning slowly, slowly. That which was dead is beginning to rouse itself, beginning to remember. See, little Mary Josephine. It was this!" He drew a hand to his forehead and placed a finger on the scar. "I got that seven years ago. It killed a half of Derwent Conniston, the part that should have lived. Do you understand? Until tonight--" Her eyes startled him, they were growing so big and dark and staring, living fires of understanding and horror. It was hard for him to go on with the lie. "For many weeks I was dead," he struggled on. "And when I came to life physically, I had forgotten a great deal. I had my name, my identity, but only ghastly dreams and visions of what had gone before. I remembered you, but it was in a dream, a strange and haunting dream that was with me always. It seems to me that for an age I have been seeking for a face, a voice, something I loved above all else on earth, something which was always near and yet was never found. It was you, Mary Josephine, you!" Was it the real Derwent Conniston speaking now? He felt again that overwhelming force from within which was not his own. The thing that had begun as a lie struck him now as a thing that was truth. It was he, John Keith, who had been questing and yearning and hoping. It was John Keith, and not Conniston, who had returned into a world filled with a desolation of loneliness, and it was to John Keith that a beneficent God had sent this wonderful creature in an hour that was blackest in its despair. He was not lying now. He was fighting. He was fighting to keep for himself the one atom of humanity that meant more to him than all the rest of the human race, fighting to keep a great love that had come to him out of a world in which he no longer had a friend or a home, and to that fight his soul went out as a drowning man grips at a spar on a sea. As the girl's hands came to his face and he heard the yearning, grief-filled cry of his name on her lips, he no longer sensed the things he was saying, but held her close in his arms, kissing her mouth, and her eyes, and her hair, and repeating over and over again that now he had found her he would never give her up. Her arms clung to him. They were like two children brought together after a long separation, and Keith knew that Conniston's love for this girl who was his sister must have been a splendid thing. And his lie had saved Conniston as well as himself. There had been no time to question the reason for the Englishman's neglect--for his apparent desertion of the girl who had come across the sea to find him. Tonight it was sufficient that HE was Conniston, and that to him the girl had fallen as a precious heritage. He stood up with her at last, holding her away from him a little so that he could look into her face wet with tears and shining with happiness. She reached up a hand to his face, so that it touched the scar, and in her eyes he saw an infinite pity, a luminously tender glow of love and sympathy and understanding that no measurements could compass. Gently her hand stroked his scarred forehead. He felt his old world slipping away from under his feet, and with his triumph there surged over him a thankfulness for that indefinable something that had come to him in time to give him the strength and the courage to lie. For she believed him, utterly and without the shadow of a suspicion she believed him. "Tomorrow you will help me to remember a great many things," he said. "And now will you let me send you to bed, Mary Josephine?" She was looking at the scar. "And all those years I didn't know," she whispered. "I didn't know. They told me you were dead, but I knew it was a lie. It was Colonel Reppington--" She saw something in his face that stopped her. "Derry, DON'T YOU REMEMBER?" "I shall--tomorrow. But tonight I can see nothing and think of nothing but you. Tomorrow--" She drew his head down swiftly and kissed the brand made by the heated barrel of the Englishman's pistol. "Yes, yes, we must go to bed now, Derry," she cried quickly. "You must not think too much. Tonight it must just be of me. Tomorrow everything will come out right, everything. And now you may send me to bed. Do you remember--" She caught herself, biting her lip to keep back the word. "Tell me," he urged. "Do I remember what?" "How you used to come in at the very last and tuck me in at night, Derry? And how we used to whisper to ourselves there in the darkness, and at last you would kiss me good-night? It was the kiss that always made me go to sleep." He nodded. "Yes, I remember," he said. He led her to the spare room, and brought in her two travel-worn bags, and turned on the light. It was a man's room, but Mary Josephine stood for a moment surveying it with delight. "It's home, Derry, real home," she whispered. He did not explain to her that it was a borrowed home and that this was his first night in it. Such unimportant details would rest until tomorrow. He showed her the bath and its water system and then explained to Wallie that his sister was in the house and he would have to bunk in the kitchen. At the last he knew what he was expected to do, what he must do. He kissed Mary Josephine good night. He kissed her twice. And Mary Josephine kissed him and gave him a hug the like of which he had never experienced until this night. It sent him back to the fire with blood that danced like a drunken man's. He turned the lights out and for an hour sat in the dying glow of the birch. For the first time since he had come from Miriam Kirkstone's he had the opportunity to think, and in thinking he found his brain crowded with cold and unemotional fact. He saw his lie in all its naked immensity. Yet he was not sorry that he had lied. He had saved Conniston. He had saved himself. And he had saved Conniston's sister, to love, to fight for, to protect. It had not been a Judas lie but a lie with his heart and his soul and all the manhood in him behind it. To have told the truth would have made him his own executioner, it would have betrayed the dead Englishman who had given to him his name and all that he possessed, and it would have dragged to a pitiless grief the heart of a girl for whom the sun still continued to shine. No regret rose before him now. He felt no shame. All that he saw was the fight, the tremendous fight, ahead of him, his fight to make good as Conniston, his fight to play the game as Conniston would have him play it. The inspiration that had come to him as he stood facing the storm from the western mountains possessed him again. He would go to the river's end as he had planned to go before McDowell told him of Shan Tung and Miriam Kirkstone. And he would not go alone. Mary Josephine would go with him. It was midnight when he rose from the big chair and went to his room. The door was closed. He opened it and entered. Even as his hand groped for the switch on the wall, his nostrils caught the scent of something which was familiar and yet which should not have been there. It filled the room, just as it had filled the big hall at the Kirkstone house, the almost sickening fragrance of agallochum burned in a cigarette. It hung like a heavy incense. Keith's eyes glared as he scanned the room under the lights, half expecting to see Shan Tung sitting there waiting for him. It was empty. His eyes leaped to the two windows. The shade was drawn at one, the other was up, and the window itself was open an inch or two above the sill. Keith's hand gripped his pistol as he went to it and drew the curtain. Then he turned to the table on which were the reading lamp and Brady's pipes and tobacco and magazines. On an ash-tray lay the stub of a freshly burned cigarette. Shan Tung had come secretly, but he had made no effort to cover his presence. It was then that Keith saw something on the table which had not been there before. It was a small, rectangular, teakwood box no larger than a half of the palm of his hand. He had noticed Miriam Kirkstone's nervous fingers toying with just such a box earlier in the evening. They were identical in appearance. Both were covered with an exquisite fabric of oriental carving, and the wood was stained and polished until it shone with the dark luster of ebony. Instantly it flashed upon him that this was the same box he had seen at Miriam's. She had sent it to him, and Shan Tung had been her messenger. The absurd thought was in his head as he took up a small white square of card that lay on top of the box. The upper side of this card was blank; on the other side, in a script as exquisite in its delicacy as the carving itself, were the words: "WITH THE COMPLIMENTS OF SHAN TUNG." In another moment Keith had opened the box. Inside was a carefully folded slip of paper, and on this paper was written a single line. Keith's heart stopped beating, and his blood ran cold as he read what it held for him, a message of doom from Shan Tung in nine words: "WHAT HAPPENED TO DERWENT CONNISTON? DID YOU KILL HIM?" XI Stunned by a shock that for a few moments paralyzed every nerve center in his body, John Keith stood with the slip of white paper in his hands. He was discovered! That was the one thought that pounded like a hammer in his brain. He was discovered in the very hour of his triumph and exaltation, in that hour when the world had opened its portals of joy and hope for him again and when life itself, after four years of hell, was once more worth the living. Had the shock come a few hours before, he would have taken it differently. He was expecting it then. He had expected it when he entered McDowell's office the first time. He was prepared for it afterward. Discovery, failure, and death were possibilities of the hazardous game he was playing, and he was unafraid, because he had only his life to lose, a life that was not much more than a hopeless derelict at most. Now it was different. Mary Josephine had come like some rare and wonderful alchemy to transmute for him all leaden things into gold. In a few minutes she had upset the world. She had literally torn aside for him the hopeless chaos in which he saw himself struggling, flooding him with the warm radiance of a great love and a still greater desire. On his lips he could feel the soft thrill of her good-night kiss and about his neck the embrace of her soft arms. She had not gone to sleep yet. Across in the other room she was thinking of him, loving him; perhaps she was on her knees praying for him, even as he held in his fingers Shan Tung's mysterious forewarning of his doom. The first impulse that crowded in upon him was that of flight, the selfish impulse of personal salvation. He could get away. The night would swallow him up. A moment later he was mentally castigating himself for the treachery of that impulse to Mary Josephine. His floundering senses began to readjust themselves. Why had Shan Tung given him this warning? Why had he not gone straight to Inspector McDowell with the astounding disclosure of the fact that the man supposed to be Derwent Conniston was not Derwent Conniston, but John Keith, the murderer of Miriam Kirkstone's father? The questions brought to Keith a new thrill. He read the note again. It was a definite thing stating a certainty and not a guess. Shan Tung had not shot at random. He knew. He knew that he was not Derwent Conniston but John Keith. And he believed that he had killed the Englishman to steal his identity. In the face of these things he had not gone to McDowell! Keith's eyes fell upon the card again. "With the compliments of Shan Tung." What did the words mean? Why had Shan Tung written them unless--with his compliments--he was giving him a warning and the chance to save himself? His immediate alarm grew less. The longer he contemplated the slip of paper in his hand, the more he became convinced that the inscrutable Shan Tung was the last individual in the world to stage a bit of melodrama without some good reason for it. There was but one conclusion he could arrive at. The Chinaman was playing a game of his own, and he had taken this unusual way of advising Keith to make a getaway while the going was good. It was evident that his intention had been to avoid the possibility of a personal discussion of the situation. That, at least, was Keith's first impression. He turned to examine the window. There was no doubt that Shan Tung had come in that way. Both the sill and curtain bore stains of water and mud, and there was wet dirt on the floor. For once the immaculate oriental had paid no attention to his feet. At the door leading into the big room Keith saw where he had stood for some time, listening, probably when McDowell and Mary Josephine were in the outer room waiting for him. Suddenly his eyes riveted themselves on the middle panel of the door. Brady had intended his color scheme to be old ivory--the panel itself was nearly white--and on it Shan Tung had written heavily with a lead pencil the hour of his presence, "10.45 P.M." Keith's amazement found voice in a low exclamation. He looked at his watch. It was a quarter-hour after twelve. He had returned to the Shack before ten, and the clever Shan Tung was letting him know in this cryptic fashion that for more than three-quarters of an hour he had listened at the door and spied upon him and Mary Josephine through the keyhole. Had even such an insignificant person as Wallie been guilty of that act, Keith would have felt like thrashing him. It surprised himself that he experienced no personal feeling of outrage at Shan Tung's frank confession of eavesdropping. A subtle significance began to attach itself more and more to the story his room was telling him. He knew that Shan Tung had left none of the marks of his presence out of bravado, but with a definite purpose. Keith's psychological mind was at all times acutely ready to seize upon possibilities, and just as his positiveness of Conniston's spiritual presence had inspired him to act his lie with Mary Josephine, so did the conviction possess him now that his room held for him a message of the most vital importance. In such an emergency Keith employed his own method. He sat down, lighted his pipe again, and centered the full resource of his mind on Shan Tung, dissociating himself from the room and the adventure of the night as much as possible in his objective analysis of the man. Four distinct emotional factors entered into that analysis--fear, distrust, hatred, personal enmity. To his surprise he found himself drifting steadily into an unusual and unexpected mental attitude. From the time he had faced Shan Tung in the inspector's office, he had regarded him as the chief enemy of his freedom, his one great menace. Now he felt neither personal enmity nor hatred for him. Fear and distrust remained, but the fear was impersonal and the distrust that of one who watches a clever opponent in a game or a fight. His conception of Shan Tung changed. He found his occidental mind running parallel with the oriental, bridging the spaces which otherwise it never would have crossed, and at the end it seized upon the key. It proved to him that his first impulse had been wrong. Shan Tung had not expected him to seek safety in flight. He had given the white man credit for a larger understanding than that. His desire, first of all, had been to let Keith know that he was not the only one who was playing for big stakes, and that another, Shan Tung himself, was gambling a hazard of his own, and that the fraudulent Derwent Conniston was a trump card in that game. To impress this upon Keith he had, first of all, acquainted him with the fact that he had seen through his deception and that he knew he was John Keith and not Derwent Conniston. He had also let him know that he believed he had killed the Englishman, a logical supposition under the circumstances. This information he had left for Keith was not in the form of an intimidation. There was, indeed, something very near apologetic courtesy in the presence of the card bearing Shan Tung's compliments. The penciling of the hour on the panel of the door, without other notation, was a polite and suggestive hint. He wanted Keith to know that he understood his peculiar situation up until that particular time, that he had heard and possibly seen much that had passed between him and Mary Josephine. The partly opened window, the mud and wet on curtains and floor, and the cigarette stubs were all to call Keith's attention to the box on the table. Keith could not but feel a certain sort of admiration for the Chinaman. The two questions he must answer now were, What was Shan Tung's game? and What did Shan Tung expect him to do? Instantly Miriam Kirkstone flashed upon him as the possible motive for Shan Tung's visit. He recalled her unexpected and embarrassing question of that evening, in which she had expressed a suspicion and a doubt as to John Keith's death. He had gone to Miriam's at eight. It must have been very soon after that, and after she had caught a glimpse of the face at the window, that Shan Tung had hurried to the Shack. Slowly but surely the tangled threads of the night's adventure were unraveling themselves for Keith. The main facts pressed upon him, no longer smothered in a chaos of theory and supposition. If there had been no Miriam Kirkstone in the big house on the hill, Shan Tung would have gone to McDowell, and he would have been in irons at the present moment. McDowell had been right after all. Miriam Kirkstone was fighting for something that was more than her existence. The thought of that "something" made Keith writhe and his hands clench. Shan Tung had triumphed but not utterly. A part of the fruit of his triumph was still just out of his reach, and the two--beautiful Miss Kirkstone and the deadly Shan Tung--were locked in a final struggle for its possession. In some mysterious way he, John Keith, was to play the winning hand. How or when he could not understand. But of one thing he was convinced; in exchange for whatever winning card he held Shan Tung had offered him his life. Tomorrow he would expect an answer. That tomorrow had already dawned. It was one o'clock when Keith again looked at his watch. Twenty hours ago he had cooked his last camp-fire breakfast. It was only eighteen hours ago that he had filled himself with the smell of Andy Duggan's bacon, and still more recently that he had sat in the little barber shop on the corner wondering what his fate would be when he faced McDowell. It struck him as incongruous and impossible that only fifteen hours had passed since then. If he possessed a doubt of the reality of it all, the bed was there to help convince him. It was a real bed, and he had not slept in a real bed for a number of years. Wallie had made it ready for him. Its sheets were snow-white. There was a counterpane with a fringe on it and pillows puffed up with billowy invitation, as if they were on the point of floating away. Had they risen before his eyes, Keith would have regarded the phenomenon rather casually. After the swift piling up of the amazing events of those fifteen hours, a floating pillow would have seemed quite in the natural orbit of things. But they did not float. They remained where they were, their white breasts bared to him, urging upon him a common-sense perspective of the situation. He wasn't going to run away. He couldn't sit up all night. Therefore why not come to them and sleep? There was something directly personal in the appeal of the pillows and the bed. It was not general; it was for him. And Keith responded. He made another note of the time, a half-hour after one, when he turned in. He allotted himself four hours of sleep, for it was his intention to be up with the sun. XII Necessity had made of Keith a fairly accurate human chronometer. In the second year of his fugitivism he had lost his watch. At first it was like losing an arm, a part of his brain, a living friend. From that time until he came into possession of Conniston's timepiece he was his own hour-glass and his own alarm clock. He became proficient. Brady's bed and the Circe-breasted pillows that supported his head were his undoing. The morning after Shan Tung's visit he awoke to find the sun flooding in through the eastern window of his room, The warmth of it as it fell full in his face, setting his eyes blinking, told him it was too late. He guessed it was eight o'clock. When he fumbled his watch out from under his pillow and looked at it, he found it was a quarter past. He got up quietly, his mind swiftly aligning itself to the happenings of yesterday. He stretched himself until his muscles snapped, and his chest expanded with deep breaths of air from the windows he had left open when he went to bed. He was fit. He was ready for Shan Tung, for McDowell. And over this physical readiness there surged the thrill of a glorious anticipation. It fairly staggered him to discover how badly he wanted to see Mary Josephine again. He wondered if she was still asleep and answered that there was little possibility of her being awake--even at eight o'clock. Probably she would sleep until noon, the poor, tired, little thing! He smiled affectionately into the mirror over Brady's dressing-table. And then the unmistakable sound of voices in the outer room took him curiously to the door. They were subdued voices. He listened hard, and his heart pumped faster. One of them was Wallie's voice; the other was Mary Josephine's. He was amused with himself at the extreme care with which he proceeded to dress. It was an entirely new sensation. Wallie had provided him with the necessaries for a cold sponge and in some mysterious interim since their arrival had brushed and pressed the most important of Conniston's things. With the Englishman's wardrobe he had brought up from barracks a small chest which was still locked. Until this morning Keith had not noticed it. It was less than half as large as a steamer trunk and had the appearance of being intended as a strong box rather than a traveling receptacle. It was ribbed by four heavy bands of copper, and the corners and edges were reinforced with the same metal. The lock itself seemed to be impregnable to one without a key. Conniston's name was heavily engraved on a copper tablet just above the lock. Keith regarded the chest with swiftly growing speculation. It was not a thing one would ordinarily possess. It was an object which, on the face of it, was intended to be inviolate except to its master key, a holder of treasure, a guardian of mystery and of precious secrets. In the little cabin up on the Barren Conniston had said rather indifferently, "You may find something among my things down there that will help you out." The words flashed back to Keith. Had the Englishman, in that casual and uncommunicative way of his, referred to the contents of this chest? Was it not possible that it held for him a solution to the mystery that was facing him in the presence of Mary Josephine? A sense of conviction began to possess him. He examined the lock more closely and found that with proper tools it could be broken. He finished dressing and completed his toilet by brushing his beard. On account of Mary Josephine he found himself regarding this hirsute tragedy with a growing feeling of disgust, in spite of the fact that it gave him an appearance rather distinguished and military. He wanted it off. Its chief crime was that it made him look older. Besides, it was inclined to be reddish. And it must tickle and prick like the deuce when-- He brought himself suddenly to salute with an appreciative grin. "You're there, and you've got to stick," he chuckled. After all, he was a likable-looking chap, even with that handicap. He was glad. He opened his door so quietly that Mary Josephine did not see him at first. Her back was toward him as she bent over the dining-table. Her slim little figure was dressed in some soft stuff all crinkly from packing. Her hair, brown and soft, was piled up in shining coils on the top of her head. For the life of him Keith couldn't keep his eyes from traveling from the top of that glowing head to the little high-heeled feet on the floor. They were adorable, slim little, aristocratic feet with dainty ankles! He stood looking at her until she turned and caught him. There was a change since last night. She was older. He could see it now, the utter impropriety of his cuddling her up like a baby in the big chair--the impossibility, almost. Mary Josephine settled his doubt. With a happy little cry she ran to him, and Keith found her arms about him again and her lovely mouth held up to be kissed. He hesitated for perhaps the tenth part of a second, if hesitation could be counted in that space. Then his arms closed about her, and he kissed her. He felt the snuggle of her face against his breast again, the crush and sweetness of her hair against his lips and cheek. He kissed her again uninvited. Before he could stop the habit, he had kissed her a third time. Then her hands were at his face, and he saw again that look in her eyes, a deep and anxious questioning behind the shimmer of love in them, something mute and understanding and wonderfully sympathetic, a mothering soul looking at him and praying as it looked. If his life had paid the forfeit the next instant, he could not have helped kissing her a fourth time. If Mary Josephine had gone to bed with a doubt of his brotherly interest last night, the doubt was removed now. Her cheeks flushed. Her eyes shone. She was palpitantly, excitedly happy. "It's YOU, Derry," she cried. "Oh, it's you as you used to be!" She seized his hand and drew him toward the table. Wallie thrust in his head from the kitchenette, grinning, and Mary Josephine flashed him back a meaning smile. Keith saw in an instant that Wallie had turned from his heathen gods to the worship of something infinitely more beautiful. He no longer looked to Keith for instructions. Mary Josephine sat down opposite Keith at the table. She was telling him, with that warm laughter and happiness in her eyes, how the sun had wakened her, and how she had helped Wallie get breakfast. For the first time Keith was looking at her from a point of vantage; there was just so much distance between them, no more and no less, and the light was right. She was, to him, exquisite. The little puckery lines came into her smooth forehead when he apologized for his tardiness by explaining that he had not gone to bed until one o'clock. Her concern was delightful. She scolded him while Wallie brought in the breakfast, and inwardly he swelled with the irrepressible exultation of a great possessor. He had never had anyone to scold him like that before. It was a scolding which expressed Mary Josephine's immediate proprietorship of him, and he wondered if the pleasure of it made him look as silly as Wallie. His plans were all gone. He had intended to play the idiotic part of one who had partly lost his memory, but throughout the breakfast he exhibited no sign that he was anything but healthfully normal. Mary Josephine's delight at the improvement of his condition since last night shone in her face and eyes, and he could see that she was strictly, but with apparent unconsciousness, guarding herself against saying anything that might bring up the dread shadow between them. She had already begun to fight her own fight for him, and the thing was so beautiful that he wanted to go round to her, and get down on his knees, and put his head in her lap, and tell her the truth. It was in the moment of that thought that the look came into his face which brought the questioning little lines into her forehead again. In that instant she caught a glimpse of the hunted man, of the soul that had traded itself, of desire beaten into helplessness by a thing she would never understand. It was gone swiftly, but she had caught it. And for her the scar just under his hair stood for its meaning. The responsive throb in her breast was electric. He felt it, saw it, sensed it to the depth of his soul, and his faith in himself stood challenged. She believed. And he--was a liar. Yet what a wonderful thing to lie for! "--He called me up over the telephone, and when I told him to be quiet, that you were still asleep, I think he must have sworn--it sounded like it, but I couldn't hear distinctly--and then he fairly roared at me to wake you up and tell you that you didn't half deserve such a lovely little sister as I am. Wasn't that nice, Derry?" "You--you're talking about McDowell?" "To be sure I am talking about Mr. McDowell! And when I told him your injury troubled you more than usual, and that I was glad you were resting, I think I heard him swallow hard. He thinks a lot of you, Derry. And then he asked me WHICH injury it was that hurt you, and I told him the one in the head. What did he mean? Were you hurt somewhere else, Derry?" Keith swallowed hard, too. "Not to speak of," he said. "You see, Mary Josephine, I've got a tremendous surprise for you, if you'll promise it won't spoil your appetite. Last night was the first night I've spent in a real bed for three years." And then, without waiting for her questions, he began to tell her the epic story of John Keith. With her sitting opposite him, her beautiful, wide-open, gray eyes looking at him with amazement as she sensed the marvelous coincidence of their meeting, he told it as he had not told it to McDowell or even to Miriam Kirkstone. A third time the facts were the same. But it was John Keith now who was telling John Keith's story through the lips of an unreal and negative Conniston. He forgot his own breakfast, and a look of gloom settled on Wallie's face when he peered in through the door and saw that their coffee and toast were growing cold. Mary Josephine leaned a little over the table. Not once did she interrupt Keith. Never had he dreamed of a glory that might reflect his emotions as did her eyes. As he swept from pathos to storm, from the madness of long, black nights to starvation and cold, as he told of flight, of pursuit, of the merciless struggle that ended at last in the capture of John Keith, as he gave to these things words and life pulsing with the beat of his own heart, he saw them revisioned in those wonderful gray eyes, cold at times with fear, warm and glowing at other times with sympathy, and again shining softly with a glory of pride and love that was meant for him alone. With him she was present in the little cabin up in the big Barren. Until he told of those days and nights of hopeless desolation, of racking cough and the nearness of death, and of the comradeship of brothers that had come as a final benediction to the hunter and the hunted, until in her soul she was understanding and living those terrible hours as they two had lived them, he did not know how deep and dark and immeasurably tender that gray mystery of beauty in her eyes could be. From that hour he worshiped them as he worshiped no other part of her. "And from all that you came back the same day I came," she said in a low, awed voice. "You came back from THAT!" He remembered the part he must play. "Yes, three years of it. If I could only remember as well, only half as well, things that happened before this--" He raised a hand to his forehead, to the scar. "You will," she whispered swiftly. "Derry, darling, you will!" Wallie sidled in and, with an adoring grin at Mary Josephine, suggested that he had more coffee and toast ready to serve, piping hot. Keith was relieved. The day had begun auspiciously, and over the bacon and eggs, done to a ravishing brown by the little Jap, he told Mary Josephine of some of his bills of fare in the north and how yesterday he had filled up on bacon smell at Andy Duggan's. Steak from the cheek of a walrus, he told her, was equal to porterhouse; seal meat wasn't bad, but one grew tired of it quickly unless he was an Eskimo; polar bear meat was filling but tough and strong. He liked whale meat, especially the tail-steaks of narwhal, and cold boiled blubber was good in the winter, only it was impossible to cook it because of lack of fuel, unless one was aboard ship or had an alcohol stove in his outfit. The tidbit of the Eskimo was birds' eggs, gathered by the ton in summer-time, rotten before cold weather came, and frozen solid as chunks of ice in winter. Through one starvation period of three weeks he had lived on them himself, crunching them raw in his mouth as one worries away with a piece of rock candy. The little lines gathered in Mary Josephine's forehead at this, but they smoothed away into laughter when he humorously described the joy of living on nothing at all but air. And he added to this by telling her how the gluttonous Eskimo at feast-time would lie out flat on their backs so that their womenfolk could feed them by dropping chunks of flesh into their open maws until their stomachs swelled up like the crops of birds overstuffed with grain. It was a successful breakfast. When it was over, Keith felt that he had achieved a great deal. Before they rose from the table, he startled Mary Josephine by ordering Wallie to bring him a cold chisel and a hammer from Brady's tool-chest. "I've lost the key that opens my chest, and I've got to break in," he explained to her. Mary Josephine's little laugh was delicious. "After what you told me about frozen eggs, I thought perhaps you were going to eat some," she said. She linked her arm in his as they walked into the big room, snuggling her head against his shoulder so that, leaning over, his lips were buried in one of the soft, shining coils of her hair. And she was making plans, enumerating them on the tips of her fingers. If he had business outside, she was going with him. Wherever he went she was going. There was no doubt in her mind about that. She called his attention to a trunk that had arrived while he slept, and assured him she would be ready for outdoors by the time he had opened his chest. She had a little blue suit she was going to wear. And her hair? Did it look good enough for his friends to see? She had put it up in a hurry. "It is beautiful, glorious," he said. Her face pinked under the ardency of his gaze. She put a finger to the tip of his nose, laughing at him. "Why, Derry, if you weren't my brother I'd think you were my lover! You said that as though you meant it TERRIBLY much. Do you?" He felt a sudden dull stab of pain, "Yes, I mean it. It's glorious. And so are you, Mary Josephine, every bit of you." On tiptoe she gave him the warm sweetness of her lips again. And then she ran away from him, joy and laughter in her face, and disappeared into her room. "You must hurry or I shall beat you," she called back to him. XIII In his own room, with the door closed and locked, Keith felt again that dull, strange pain that made his heart sick and the air about him difficult to breathe. "IF YOU WEREN'T MY BROTHER." The words beat in his brain. They were pounding at his heart until it was smothered, laughing at him and taunting him and triumphing over him just as, many times before, the raving voices of the weird wind-devils had scourged him from out of black night and arctic storm. HER BROTHER! His hand clenched until the nails bit into his flesh. No, he hadn't thought of that part of the fight! And now it swept upon him in a deluge. If he lost in the fight that was ahead of him, his life would pay the forfeit. The law would take him, and he would hang. And if he won--she would be his sister forever and to the end of all time! Just that, and no more. His SISTER! And the agony of truth gripped him that it was not as a brother that he saw the glory in her hair, the glory in her eyes and face, and the glory in her slim little, beautiful body--but as the lover. A merciless preordination had stacked the cards against him again. He was Conniston, and she was Conniston's sister. A strong man, a man in whom blood ran red, there leaped up in him for a moment a sudden and unreasoning rage at that thing which he had called fate. He saw the unfairness of it all, the hopelessness of it, the cowardly subterfuge and trickery of life itself as it had played against him, and with tightly set lips and clenched hands he called mutely on God Almighty to play the game square. Give him a chance! Give him just one square deal, only one; let him see a way, let him fight a man's fight with a ray of hope ahead! In these red moments hope emblazoned itself before his eyes as a monstrous lie. Bitterness rose in him until he was drunk with it, and blasphemy filled his heart. Whichever way he turned, however hard he fought, there was no chance of winning. From the day he killed Kirkstone the cards had been stacked against him, and they were stacked now and would be stacked until the end. He had believed in God, he had believed in the inevitable ethics of the final reckoning of things, and he had believed strongly that an impersonal Something more powerful than man-made will was behind him in his struggles. These beliefs were smashed now. Toward them he felt the impulse of a maddened beast trampling hated things under foot. They stood for lies--treachery--cheating--yes, contemptible cheating! It was impossible for him to win. However he played, whichever way he turned, he must lose. For he was Conniston, and she was Conniston's sister, AND MUST BE TO THE END OF TIME. Faintly, beyond the door, he heard Mary Josephine singing. Like a bit of steel drawn to a tension his normal self snapped back into place. His readjustment came with a lurch, a subtle sort of shock. His hands unclenched, the tense lines in his face relaxed, and because that God Almighty he had challenged had given to him an unquenchable humor, he saw another thing where only smirking ghouls and hypocrites had rent his brain with their fiendish exultations a moment before. It was Conniston's face, suave, smiling, dying, triumphant over life, and Conniston was saying, just as he had said up there in the cabin on the Barren, with death reaching out a hand for him, "It's queer, old top, devilish queer--and funny!" Yes, it was funny if one looked at it right, and Keith found himself swinging back into his old view-point. It was the hugest joke life had ever played on him. His sister! He could fancy Conniston twisting his mustaches, his cool eyes glimmering with silent laughter, looking on his predicament, and he could fancy Conniston saying: "It's funny, old top, devilish funny--but it'll be funnier still when some other man comes along and carries her off!" And he, John Keith, would have to grin and bear it because he was her brother! Mary Josephine was tapping at his door. "Derwent Conniston," she called frigidly, "there's a female person on the telephone asking for you. What shall I say?" "Er--why--tell her you're my sister, Mary Josephine, and if it's Miss Kirkstone, be nice to her and say I'm not able to come to the 'phone, and that you're looking forward to meeting her, and that we'll be up to see her some time today." "Oh, indeed!" "You see," said Keith, his mouth close to the door, "you see, this Miss Kirkstone--" But Mary Josephine was gone. Keith grinned. His illimitable optimism was returning. Sufficient for the day that she was there, that she loved him, that she belonged to him, that just now he was the arbiter of her destiny! Far off in the mountains he dreamed of, alone, just they two, what might not happen? Some day-- With the cold chisel and the hammer he went to the chest. His task was one that numbed his hands before the last of the three locks was broken. He dragged the chest more into the light and opened it. He was disappointed. At first glance he could not understand why Conniston had locked it at all. It was almost empty, so nearly empty that he could see the bottom of it, and the first object that met his eyes was an insult to his expectations--an old sock with a huge hole in the toe of it. Under the sock was an old fur cap not of the kind worn north of Montreal. There was a chain with a dog-collar attached to it, a hip-pocket pistol and a huge forty-five, and not less than a hundred cartridges of indiscriminate calibers scattered loosely about. At one end, bundled in carelessly, was a pair of riding-breeches, and under the breeches a pair of white shoes with rubber soles. There was neither sentiment nor reason to the collection in the chest. It was junk. Even the big forty-five had a broken hammer, and the pistol, Keith thought, might have stunned a fly at close range. He pawed the things over with the cold chisel, and the last thing he came upon--buried under what looked like a cast-off sport shirt--was a pasteboard shoe box. He raised the cover. The box was full of papers. Here was promise. He transported the box to Brady's table and sat down. He examined the larger papers first. There were a couple of old game licenses for Manitoba, half a dozen pencil-marked maps, chiefly of the Peace River country, and a number of letters from the secretaries of Boards of Trade pointing out the incomparable possibilities their respective districts held for the homesteader and the buyer of land. Last of all came a number of newspaper clippings and a packet of letters. Because they were loose he seized upon the clippings first, and as his eyes fell upon the first paragraph of the first clipping his body became suddenly tensed in the shock of unexpected discovery and amazed interest. There were six of the clippings, all from English papers, English in their terseness, brief as stock exchange reports, and equally to the point. He read the six in three minutes. They simply stated that Derwent Conniston, of the Connistons of Darlington, was wanted for burglary--and that up to date he had not been found. Keith gave a gasp of incredulity. He looked again to see that his eyes were not tricking him. And it was there in cold, implacable print. Derwent Conniston--that phoenix among men, by whom he had come to measure all other men, that Crichton of nerve, of calm and audacious courage, of splendid poise--a burglar! It was cheap, farcical, an impossible absurdity. Had it been murder, high treason, defiance of some great law, a great crime inspired by a great passion or a great ideal, but it was burglary, brigandage of the cheapest and most commonplace variety, a sneaking night-coward's plagiarism of real adventure and real crime. It was impossible. Keith gritted the words aloud. He might have accepted Conniston as a Dick Turpin, a Claude Duval or a Macheath, but not as a Jeremy Diddler or a Bill Sykes. The printed lines were lies. They must be. Derwent Conniston might have killed a dozen men, but he had never cracked a safe. To think it was to think the inconceivable. He turned to the letters. They were postmarked Darlington, England. His fingers tingled as he opened the first. It was as he had expected, as he had hoped. They were from Mary Josephine. He arranged them--nine in all--in the sequence of their dates, which ran back nearly eight years. All of them had been written within a period of eleven months. They were as legible as print. And as he passed from the first to the second, and from the second to the third, and then read on into the others, he forgot there was such a thing as time and that Mary Josephine was waiting for him. The clippings had told him one thing; here, like bits of driftage to be put together, a line in this place and half a dozen in that, in paragraphs that enlightened and in others that puzzled, was the other side of the story, a growing thing that rose up out of mystery and doubt in segments and fractions of segments adding themselves together piecemeal, welding the whole into form and substance, until there rode through Keith's veins a wild thrill of exultation and triumph. And then he came to the ninth and last letter. It was in a different handwriting, brief, with a deadly specificness about it that gripped Keith as he read. This ninth letter he held in his hand as he rose from the table, and out of his mouth there fell, unconsciously, Conniston's own words, "It's devilish queer, old top--and funny!" There was no humor in the way he spoke them. His voice was hard, his eyes dully ablaze. He was looking back into that swirling, unutterable loneliness of the northland, and he was seeing Conniston again. Fiercely he caught up the clippings, struck a match, and with a grim smile watched them as they curled up into flame and crumbled into ash. What a lie was life, what a malformed thing was justice, what a monster of iniquity the man-fabricated thing called law! And again he found himself speaking, as if the dead Englishman himself were repeating the words, "It's devilish queer, old top--and funny!" XIV A quarter of an hour later, with Mary Josephine at his side, he was walking down the green slope toward the Saskatchewan. In that direction lay the rims of timber, the shimmering valley, and the broad pathways that opened into the plains beyond. The town was at their backs, and Keith wanted it there. He wanted to keep McDowell, and Shan Tung, and Miriam Kirkstone as far away as possible, until his mind rode more smoothly in the new orbit in which it was still whirling a bit unsteadily. More than all else he wanted to be alone with Mary Josephine, to make sure of her, to convince himself utterly that she was his to go on fighting for. He sensed the nearness and the magnitude of the impending drama. He knew that today he must face Shan Tung, that again he must go under the battery of McDowell's eyes and brain, and that like a fish in treacherous waters he must swim cleverly to avoid the nets that would entangle and destroy him. Today was the day--the stage was set, the curtain about to be lifted, the play ready to be enacted. But before it was the prologue. And the prologue was Mary Josephine's. At the crest of a dip halfway down the slope they had paused, and in this pause he stood a half-step behind her so that he could look at her for a moment without being observed. She was bareheaded, and it came upon him all at once how wonderful was a woman's hair, how beautiful beyond all other things beautiful and desirable. In twisted, glowing seductiveness it was piled up on Mary Josephine's head, transformed into brown and gold glories by the sun. He wanted to put forth his hand to it, and bury his fingers in it, and feel the thrill and the warmth and the crush of the palpitant life of it against his own flesh. And then, bending a little forward, he saw under her long lashes the sheer joy of life shining in her eyes as she drank in the wonderful panorama that lay below them to the west. Last night's rain had freshened it, the sun glorified it now, and the fragrance of earthly smells that rose up to them from it was the undefiled breath of a thing living and awake. Even to Keith the river had never looked more beautiful, and never had his yearnings gone out to it more strongly than in this moment, to the river and beyond--and to the back of beyond, where the mountains rose up to meet the blue sky and the river itself was born. And he heard Mary Josephine's voice, joyously suppressed, exclaiming softly, "Oh, Derry!" His heart was filled with gladness. She, too, was seeing what his eyes saw in that wonderland. And she was feeling it. Her hand, seeking his hand, crept into his palm, and the fingers of it clung to his fingers. He could feel the thrill of the miracle passing through her, the miracle of the open spaces, the miracle of the forests rising billow on billow to the purple mists of the horizon, the miracle of the golden Saskatchewan rolling slowly and peacefully in its slumbering sheen out of that mighty mysteryland that reached to the lap of the setting sun. He spoke to her of that land as she looked, wide-eyed, quick-breathing, her fingers closing still more tightly about his. This was but the beginning of the glory of the west and the north, he told her. Beyond that low horizon, where the tree tops touched the sky were the prairies--not the tiresome monotony which she had seen from the car windows, but the wide, glorious, God-given country of the Northwest with its thousands of lakes and rivers and its tens of thousands of square miles of forests; and beyond those things, still farther, were the foothills, and beyond the foothills the mountains. And in those mountains the river down there had its beginning. She looked up swiftly, her eyes brimming with the golden flash of the sun. "It is wonderful! And just over there is the town!" "Yes, and beyond the town are the cities." "And off there--" "God's country," said Keith devoutly. Mary Josephine drew a deep breath. "And people still live in towns and cities!" she exclaimed in wondering credulity. "I've dreamed of 'over here,' Derry, but I never dreamed that. And you've had it for years and years, while I--oh, Derry!" And again those two words filled his heart with gladness, words of loving reproach, atremble with the mysterious whisper of a great desire. For she was looking into the west. And her eyes and her heart and her soul were in the west, and suddenly Keith saw his way as though lighted by a flaming torch. He came near to forgetting that he was Conniston. He spoke of his dream, his desire, and told her that last night--before she came--he had made up his mind to go. She had come to him just in time. A little later and he would have been gone, buried utterly away from the world in the wonderland of the mountains. And now they would go together. They would go as he had planned to go, quietly, unobtrusively; they would slip away and disappear. There was a reason why no one should know, not even McDowell. It must be their secret. Some day he would tell her why. Her heart thumped excitedly as he went on like a boy planning a wonderful day. He could see the swifter beat of it in the flush that rose into her face and the joy glowing tremulously in her eyes as she looked at him. They would get ready quietly. They might go tomorrow, the next day, any time. It would be a glorious adventure, just they two, with all the vastness of that mountain paradise ahead of them. "We'll be pals," he said. "Just you and me, Mary Josephine. We're all that's left." It was his first experiment, his first reference to the information he had gained in the letters, and swift as a flash Mary Josephine's eyes turned up to him. He nodded, smiling. He understood their quick questioning, and he held her hand closer and began to walk with her down the slope. "A lot of it came back last night and this morning, a lot of it," he explained. "It's queer what miracles small things can work sometimes, isn't it? Think what a grain of sand can do to a watch! This was one of the small things." He was still smiling as he touched the scar on his forehead. "And you, you were the other miracle. And I'm remembering. It doesn't seem like seven or eight years, but only yesterday, that the grain of sand got mixed up somewhere in the machinery in my head. And I guess there was another reason for my going wrong. You'll understand, when I tell you." Had he been Conniston it could not have come from him more naturally, more sincerely. He was living the great lie, and yet to him it was no longer a lie. He did not hesitate, as shame and conscience might have made him hesitate. He was fighting that something beautiful might be raised up out of chaos and despair and be made to exist; he was fighting for life in place of death, for happiness in place of grief, for light in place of darkness--fighting to save where others would destroy. Therefore the great lie was not a lie but a thing without venom or hurt, an instrument for happiness and for all the things good and beautiful that went to make happiness. It was his one great weapon. Without it he would fail, and failure meant desolation. So he spoke convincingly, for what he said came straight from the heart though it was born in the shadow of that one master-falsehood. His wonder was that Mary Josephine believed him so utterly that not for an instant was there a questioning doubt in her eyes or on her lips. He told her how much he "remembered," which was no more and no less than he had learned from the letters and the clippings. The story did not appeal to him as particularly unusual or dramatic. He had passed through too many tragic happenings in the last four years to regard it in that way. It was simply an unfortunate affair beginning in misfortune, and with its necessary whirlwind of hurt and sorrow. The one thing of shame he would not keep out of his mind was that he, Derwent Conniston, must have been a poor type of big brother in those days of nine or ten years ago, even though little Mary Josephine had worshiped him. He was well along in his twenties then. The Connistons of Darlington were his uncle and aunt, and his uncle was a more or less prominent figure in ship-building interests on the Clyde. With these people the three--himself, Mary Josephine, and his brother Egbert--had lived, "farmed out" to a hard-necked, flinty-hearted pair of relatives because of a brother's stipulation and a certain English law. With them they had existed in mutual discontent and dislike. Derwent, when he became old enough, had stepped over the traces. All this Keith had gathered from the letters, but there was a great deal that was missing. Egbert, he gathered, must have been a scapegrace. He was a cripple of some sort and seven or eight years his junior. In the letters Mary Josephine had spoken of him as "poor Egbert," pitying instead of condemning him, though it was Egbert who had brought tragedy and separation upon them. One night Egbert had broken open the Conniston safe and in the darkness had had a fight and a narrow escape from his uncle, who laid the crime upon Derwent. And Derwent, in whom Egbert must have confided, had fled to America that the cripple might be saved, with the promise that some day he would send for Mary Josephine. He was followed by the uncle's threat that if he ever returned to England, he would be jailed. Not long afterward "poor Egbert" was found dead in bed, fearfully contorted. Keith guessed there had been something mentally as well as physically wrong with him. "--And I was going to send for you," he said, as they came to the level of the valley. "My plans were made, and I was going to send for you, when this came." He stopped, and in a few tense, breathless moments Mary Josephine read the ninth and last letter he had taken from the Englishman's chest. It was from her uncle. In a dozen lines it stated that she, Mary Josephine, was dead, and it reiterated the threat against Derwent Conniston should he ever dare to return to England. A choking cry came to her lips. "And that--THAT was it?" "Yes, that--and the hurt in my head," he said, remembering the part he must play. "They came at about the same time, and the two of them must have put the grain of sand in my brain." It was hard to lie now, looking straight into her face that had gone suddenly white, and with her wonderful eyes burning deep into his soul. She did not seem, for an instant, to hear his voice or sense his words. "I understand now," she was saying, the letter crumpling in her fingers. "I was sick for almost a year, Derry. They thought I was going to die. He must have written it then, and they destroyed my letters to you, and when I was better they told me you were dead, and then I didn't write any more. And I wanted to die. And then, almost a year ago, Colonel Reppington came to me, and his dear old voice was so excited that it trembled, and he told me that he believed you were alive. A friend of his had just returned from British Columbia, and this friend told him that three years before, while on a grizzly shooting trip, he had met a man named Conniston, an Englishman. We wrote a hundred letters up there and found the man, Jack Otto, who was in the mountains with you, and then I knew you were alive. But we couldn't find you after that, and so I came--" He would have wagered that she was going to cry, but she fought the tears back, smiling. "And--and I've found you!" she finished triumphantly. She snuggled close to him, and he slipped an arm about her waist, and they walked on. She told him about her arrival in Halifax, how Colonel Reppington had given her letters to nice people in Montreal and Winnipeg, and how it happened one day that she found his name in one of the Mounted Police blue books, and after that came on as fast as she could to surprise him at Prince Albert. When she came to that point, Keith pointed once more into the west and said: "And there is our new world. Let us forget the old. Shall we, Mary Josephine?" "Yes," she whispered, and her hand sought his again and crept into it, warm and confident. XV They went on through the golden morning, the earth damp under their feet, the air filled with its sweet incense, on past scattered clumps of balsams and cedars until they came to the river and looked down on its yellow sand-bars glistening in the sun. The town was hidden. They heard no sound from it. And looking up the great Saskatchewan, the river of mystery, of romance, of glamour, they saw before them, where the spruce walls seemed to meet, the wide-open door through which they might pass into the western land beyond. Keith pointed it out. And he pointed out the yellow bars, the glistening shores of sand, and told her how even as far as this, a thousand miles by river--those sands brought gold with them from the mountains, the gold whose treasure-house no man had ever found, and which must be hidden up there somewhere near the river's end. His dream, like Duggan's, had been to find it. Now they would search for it together. Slowly he was picking his way so that at last they came to the bit of cleared timber in which was his old home. His heart choked him as they drew near. There was an uncomfortable tightness in his breath. The timber was no longer "clear." In four years younger generations of life had sprung up among the trees, and the place was jungle-ridden. They were within a few yards of the house before Mary Josephine saw it, and then she stopped suddenly with a little gasp. For this that she faced was not desertion, was not mere neglect. It was tragedy. She saw in an instant that there was no life in this place, and yet it stood as if tenanted. It was a log chateau with a great, red chimney rising at one end curtains and shades still hung at the windows. There were three chairs on the broad veranda that looked riverward. But two of the windows were broken, and the chairs were falling into ruin. There was no life. They were facing only the ghosts of life. A swift glance into Keith's face told her this was so. His lips were set tight. There was a strange look in his face. Hand in hand they had come up, and her fingers pressed his tighter now. "What is it?" she asked. "It is John Keith's home as he left it four years ago," he replied. The suspicious break in his voice drew her eyes from the chateau to his own again. She could see him fighting. There was a twitching in his throat. His hand was gripping hers until it hurt. "John Keith?" she whispered softly. "Yes, John Keith." She inclined her head so that it rested lightly and affectionately against his arm. "You must have thought a great deal of him, Derry." "Yes." He freed her hand, and his fists clenched convulsively. She could feel the cording of the muscles in his arm, his face was white, and in his eyes was a fixed stare that startled her. He fumbled in a pocket and drew out a key. "I promised, when he died, that I would go in and take a last look for him," he said. "He loved this place. Do you want to go with me?" She drew a deep breath. "Yes." The key opened the door that entered on the veranda. As it swung back, grating on its rusty hinges, they found themselves facing the chill of a cold and lifeless air. Keith stepped inside. A glance told him that nothing was changed--everything was there in that room with the big fireplace, even as he had left it the night he set out to force justice from Judge Kirkstone. One thing startled him. On the dust-covered table was a bowl and a spoon. He remembered vividly how he had eaten his supper that night of bread and milk. It was the littleness of the thing, the simplicity of it, that shocked him. The bowl and spoon were still there after four years. He did not reflect that they were as imperishable as all the other things about; the miracle was that they were there on the table, as though he had used them only yesterday. The most trivial things in the room struck him deepest, and he found himself fighting hard, for a moment, to keep his nerve. "He told me about the bowl and the spoon, John Keith did," he said, nodding toward them. "He told me just what I'd find here, even to that. You see, he loved the place greatly and everything that was in it. It was impossible for him to forget even the bowl and the spoon and where he had left them." It was easier after that. The old home was whispering back its memories to him, and he told them to Mary Josephine as they went slowly from room to room, until John Keith was living there before her again, the John Keith whom Derwent Conniston had run to his death. It was this thing that gripped her, and at last what was in her mind found voice. "It wasn't YOU who made him die, was it, Derry? It wasn't you?" "No. It was the law. He died, as I told you, of a frosted lung. At the last I would have shared my life with him had it been possible. McDowell must never know that. You must never speak of John Keith before him." "I--I understand, Derry." "And he must not know that we came here. To him John Keith was a murderer whom it was his duty to hang." She was looking at him strangely. Never had he seen her look at him in that way. "Derry," she whispered. "Yes?" "Derry, IS JOHN KEITH ALIVE?" He started. The shock of the question was in his face. He caught himself, but it was too late. And in an instant her hand was at his mouth, and she was whispering eagerly, almost fiercely: "No, no, no--don't answer me, Derry! DON'T ANSWER ME! I know, and I understand, and I'm glad, glad, GLAD! He's alive, and it was you who let him live, the big, glorious brother I'm proud of! And everyone else thinks he's dead. But don't answer me, Derry, don't answer me!" She was trembling against him. His arms closed about her, and he held her nearer to his heart, and longer, than he had ever held her before. He kissed her hair many times, and her lips once, and up about his neck her arms twined softly, and a great brightness was in her eyes. "I understand," she whispered again. "I understand." "And I--I must answer you," he said. "I must answer you, because I love you, and because you must know. Yes, John Keith is alive!" XVI An hour later, alone and heading for the inspector's office, Keith felt in battle trim. His head was fairly singing with the success of the morning. Since the opening of Conniston's chest many things had happened, and he was no longer facing a blank wall of mystery. His chief cause of exhilaration was Mary Josephine. She wanted to go away with him. She wanted to go with him anywhere, everywhere, as long as they were together. When she had learned that his term of enlistment was about to expire and that if he remained in the Service he would be away from her a great deal, she had pleaded with him not to reenlist. She did not question him when he told her that it might be necessary to go away very suddenly, without letting another soul know of their movements, not even Wallie. Intuitively she guessed that the reason had something to do with John Keith, for he had let the fear grow in her that McDowell might discover he had been a traitor to the Service, in which event the Law itself would take him away from her for a considerable number of years. And with that fear she was more than ever eager for the adventure, and planned with him for its consummation. Another thing cheered Keith. He was no longer the absolute liar of yesterday, for by a fortunate chance he had been able to tell her that John Keith was alive. This most important of all truths he had confided to her, and the confession had roused in her a comradeship that had proclaimed itself ready to fight for him or run away with him. Not for an instant had she regretted the action he had taken in giving Keith his freedom. He was peculiarly happy because of that. She was glad John Keith was alive. And now that she knew the story of the old home down in the clump of timber and of the man who had lived there, she was anxious to meet Miriam Kirkstone, daughter of the man he had killed. Keith had promised her they would go up that afternoon. Within himself he knew that he was not sure of keeping the promise. There was much to do in the next few hours, and much might happen. In fact there was but little speculation about it. This was the big day. Just what it held for him he could not be sure until he saw Shan Tung. Any instant might see him put to the final test. Cruze was pacing slowly up and down the hall when Keith entered the building in which McDowell had his offices. The young secretary's face bore a perplexed and rather anxious expression. His hands were buried deep in his trousers pockets, and he was puffing a cigarette. At Keith's appearance he brightened up a bit. "Don't know what to make of the governor this morning, by Jove I don't!" he explained, nodding toward the closed doors. "I've got instructions to let no one near him except you. You may go in." "What seems to be the matter?" Keith felt out cautiously. Cruze shrugged his thin shoulders, nipped the ash from his cigarette, and with a grimace said, "Shan Tung." "Shan Tung?" Keith spoke the name in a sibilant whisper. Every nerve in him had jumped, and for an instant he thought he had betrayed himself. Shan Tung had been there early. And now McDowell was waiting for him and had given instructions that no other should be admitted. If the Chinaman had exposed him, why hadn't McDowell sent officers up to the Shack? That was the first question that jumped into his head. The answer came as quickly--McDowell had not sent officers because, hating Shan Tung, he had not believed his story. But he was waiting there to investigate. A chill crept over Keith. Cruze was looking at him intently. "There's something to this Shan Tung business," he said. "It's even getting on the old man's nerves. And he's very anxious to see you, Mr. Conniston. I've called you up half a dozen times in the last hour." He nipped away his cigarette, turned alertly, and moved toward the inspector's door. Keith wanted to call him back, to leap upon him, if necessary, and drag him away from that deadly door. But he neither moved nor spoke until it was too late. The door opened, he heard Cruze announce his presence, and it seemed to him the words were scarcely out of the secretary's mouth when McDowell himself stood in the door. "Come in, Conniston," he said quietly. "Come in." It was not McDowell's voice. It was restrained, terrible. It was the voice of a man speaking softly to cover a terrific fire raging within. Keith felt himself doomed. Even as he entered, his mind was swiftly gathering itself for the last play, the play he had set for himself if the crisis came. He would cover McDowell, bind and gag him even as Cruze sauntered in the hall, escape through a window, and with Mary Josephine bury himself in the forests before pursuit could overtake them. Therefore his amazement was unbounded when McDowell, closing the door, seized his hand in a grip that made him wince, and shook it with unfeigned gladness and relief. "I'm not condemning you, of course," he said. "It was rather beastly of me to annoy your sister before you were up this morning. She flatly refused to rouse you, and by George, the way she said it made me turn the business of getting into touch with you over to Cruze. Sit down, Conniston. I'm going to explode a mine under you." He flung himself into his swivel chair and twisted one of his fierce mustaches, while his eyes blazed at Keith. Keith waited. He saw the other was like an animal ready to spring and anxious to spring, the one evident stricture on his desire being that there was nothing to spring at unless it was himself. "What happened last night?" he asked. Keith's mind was already working swiftly. McDowell's question gave him the opportunity of making the first play against Shan Tung. "Enough to convince me that I am going to see Shan Tung today," he said. He noticed the slow clenching and unclenching of McDowell's fingers about the arms of his chair. "Then--I was right?" "I have every reason to believe you were--up to a certain point. I shall know positively when I have talked with Shan Tung." He smiled grimly. McDowell's eyes were no harder than his own. The iron man drew a deep breath and relaxed a bit in his chair. "If anything should happen," he said, looking away from Keith, as though the speech were merely casual, "if he attacks you--" "It might be necessary to kill him in self-defense," finished Keith. McDowell made no sign to show that he had heard, yet Keith thrilled with the conviction that he had struck home. He went on telling briefly what had happened at Miriam Kirkstone's house the preceding night. McDowell's face was purple when he described the evidences of Shan Tung's presence at the house on the hill, but with a mighty effort he restrained his passion. "That's it, that's it," he exclaimed, choking back his wrath. "I knew he was there! And this morning both of them lie about it--both of them, do you understand! She lied, looking me straight in the eyes. And he lied, and for the first time in his life he laughed at me, curse me if he didn't! It was like the gurgle of oil. I didn't know a human could laugh that way. And on top of that he told me something that I WON'T believe, so help me God, I won't!" He jumped to his feet and began pacing back and forth, his hands clenched behind him. Suddenly he whirled on Keith. "Why in heaven's name didn't you bring Keith back with you, or, if not Keith, at least a written confession, signed by him?" he demanded. This was a blow from behind for Keith. "What--what has Keith got to do with this?" he stumbled. "More than I dare tell you, Conniston. But WHY didn't you bring back a signed confession from him? A dying man is usually willing to make that." "If he is guilty, yes," agreed Keith. "But this man was a different sort. If he killed Judge Kirkstone, he had no regret. He did not consider himself a criminal. He felt that he had dealt out justice in his own way, and therefore, even when he was dying, he would not sign anything or state anything definitely." McDowell subsided into his chair. "And the curse of it is I haven't a thing on Shan Tung," he gritted. "Not a thing. Miriam Kirkstone is her own mistress, and in the eyes of the law he is as innocent of crime as I am. If she is voluntarily giving herself as a victim to this devil, it is her own business--legally, you understand. Morally--" He stopped, his savagely gleaming eyes boring Keith to the marrow. "He hates you as a snake hates fire-water. It is possible, if he thought the opportunity had come to him--" Again he paused, cryptic, waiting for the other to gather the thing he had not spoken. Keith, simulating two of Conniston's tricks at the same time, shrugged a shoulder and twisted a mustache as he rose to his feet. He smiled coolly down at the iron man. For once he gave a passable imitation of the Englishman. "And he's going to have the opportunity today," he said understandingly. "I think, old chap, I'd better be going. I'm rather anxious to see Shan Tung before dinner." McDowell followed him to the door. His face had undergone a change. There was a tense expectancy, almost an eagerness there. Again he gripped Keith's hand, and before the door opened he said, "If trouble comes between you let it be in the open, Conniston--in the open and not on Shan Tung's premises." Keith went out, his pulse quickening to the significance of the iron man's words, and wondering what the "mine" was that McDowell had promised to explode, but which he had not. XVII Keith lost no time in heading for Shan Tung's. He was like a man playing chess, and the moves were becoming so swift and so intricate that his mind had no rest. Each hour brought forth its fresh necessities and its new alternatives. It was McDowell who had given him his last cue, perhaps the surest and safest method of all for winning his game. The iron man, that disciple of the Law who was merciless in his demand of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, had let him understand that the world would be better off without Shan Tung. This man, who never in his life had found an excuse for the killer, now maneuvered subtly the suggestion for a killing. Keith was both shocked and amazed. "If anything happens, let it be in the open and not on Shan Tung's premises," he had warned him. That implied in McDowell's mind a cool and calculating premeditation, the assumption that if Shan Tung was killed it would be in self-defense. And Keith's blood leaped to the thrill of it. He had not only found the depths of McDowell's personal interest in Miriam Kirkstone, but a last weapon had been placed in his hands, a weapon which he could use this day if it became necessary. Cornered, with no other hope of saving himself, he could as a last resort kill Shan Tung--and McDowell would stand behind him! He went directly to Shan Tung's cafe and sauntered in. There were large changes in it since four years ago. The moment he passed through its screened vestibule, he felt its oriental exclusiveness, the sleek and mysterious quietness of it. One might have found such a place catering to the elite of a big city. It spoke sumptuously of a large expenditure of money, yet there was nothing bizarre or irritating to the senses. Its heavily-carved tables were almost oppressive in their solidity. Linen and silver, like Shan Tung himself, were immaculate. Magnificently embroidered screens were so cleverly arranged that one saw not all of the place at once, but caught vistas of it. The few voices that Keith heard in this pre-lunch hour were subdued, and the speakers were concealed by screens. Two orientals, as immaculate as the silver and linen, were moving about with the silence of velvet-padded lynxes. A third, far in the rear, stood motionless as one of the carven tables, smoking a cigarette and watchful as a ferret. This was Li King, Shan Tung's right-hand man. Keith approached him. When he was near enough, Li King gave the slightest inclination to his head and took the cigarette from his mouth. Without movement or speech he registered the question, "What do you want?" Keith knew this to be a bit of oriental guile. In his mind there was no doubt that Li King had been fully instructed by his master and that he had been expecting him, even watching for him. Convinced of this, he gave him one of Conniston's cards and said, "Take this to Shan Tung. He is expecting me." Li King looked at the card, studied it for a moment with apparent stupidity, and shook his head. "Shan Tung no home. Gone away." That was all. Where he had gone or when he would return Keith could not discover from Li King. Of all other matters except that he had gone away the manager of Shan Tung's affairs was ignorant. Keith felt like taking the yellow-skinned hypocrite by the throat and choking something out of him, but he realized that Li King was studying and watching him, and that he would report to Shan Tung every expression that had passed over his face. So he looked at his watch, bought a cigar at the glass case near the cash register, and departed with a cheerful nod, saying that he would call again. Ten minutes later he determined on a bold stroke. There was no time for indecision or compromise. He must find Shan Tung and find him quickly. And he believed that Miriam Kirkstone could give him a pretty good tip as to his whereabouts. He steeled himself to the demand he was about to make as he strode up to the house on the hill. He was disappointed again. Miss Kirkstone was not at home. If she was, she did not answer to his knocking and bell ringing. He went to the depot. No one he questioned had seen Shan Tung at the west-bound train, the only train that had gone out that morning, and the agent emphatically disclaimed selling him a ticket. Therefore he had not gone far. Suspicion leaped red in Keith's brain. His imagination pictured Shan Tung at that moment with Miriam Kirkstone, and at the thought his disgust went out against them both. In this humor he returned to McDowell's office. He stood before his chief, leaning toward him over the desk table. This time he was the inquisitor. "Plainly speaking, this liaison is their business," he declared. "Because he is yellow and she is white doesn't make it ours. I've just had a hunch. And I believe in following hunches, especially when one hits you good and hard, and this one has given me a jolt that means something. Where is that big fat brother of hers?" McDowell hesitated. "It isn't a liaison," he temporized. "It's one-sided--a crime against--" "WHERE IS THAT BIG FAT BROTHER?" With each word Keith emphasized his demand with a thud of his fist on the table. "WHERE IS HE?" McDowell was deeply perturbed. Keith could see it and waited. After a moment of silence the iron man rose from the swivel chair, walked to the window, gazed out for another moment, and walked back again, twisting one of his big gray mustaches in a way that betrayed the stress of his emotion. "Confound it, Conniston, you've got a mind for seeking out the trivialities, and little things are sometimes the most embarrassing." "And sometimes most important," added Keith. "For instance, it strikes me as mighty important that we should know where Peter Kirkstone is and why he is not here fighting for his sister's salvation. Where is he?" "I don't know. He disappeared from town a month ago. Miriam says he is somewhere in British Columbia looking over some old mining properties. She doesn't know just where." "And you believe her?" The eyes of the two men met. There was no longer excuse for equivocation. Both understood. McDowell smiled in recognition of the fact. "No. I think, Conniston, that she is the most wonderful little liar that lives. And the beautiful part of it is, she is lying for a purpose. Imagine Peter Kirkstone, who isn't worth the powder to blow him to Hades, interested in old mines or anything else that promises industry or production! And the most inconceivable thing about the whole mess is that Miriam worships that fat and worthless pig of a brother. I've tried to find him in British Columbia. Failed, of course. Another proof that this affair between Miriam and Shan Tung isn't a voluntary liaison on her part. She's lying. She's walking on a pavement of lies. If she told the truth--" "There are some truths which one cannot tell about oneself," interrupted Keith. "They must be discovered or buried. And I'm going deeper into this prospecting and undertaking business this afternoon. I've got another hunch. I think I'll have something interesting to report before night." Ten minutes later, on his way to the Shack, he was discussing with himself the modus operandi of that "hunch." It had come to him in an instant, a flash of inspiration. That afternoon he would see Miriam Kirkstone and question her about Peter. Then he would return to McDowell, lay stress on the importance of the brother, tell him that he had a clew which he wanted to follow, and suggest finally a swift trip to British Columbia. He would take Mary Josephine, lie low until his term of service expired, and then report by letter to McDowell that he had failed and that he had made up his mind not to reenlist but to try his fortunes with Mary Josephine in Australia. Before McDowell received that letter, they could be on their way into the mountains. The "hunch" offered an opportunity for a clean getaway, and in his jubilation Miriam Kirkstone and her affairs were important only as a means to an end. He was John Keith now, fighting for John Keith's life--and Derwent Conniston's sister. Mary Josephine herself put the first shot into the fabric of his plans. She must have been watching for him, for when halfway up the slope he saw her coming to meet him. She scolded him for being away from her, as he had expected her to do. Then she pulled his arm about her slim little waist and held the hand thus engaged in both her own as they walked up the winding path. He noticed the little wrinkles in her adorable forehead. "Derry, is it the right thing for young ladies to call on their gentlemen friends over here?" she asked suddenly. "Why--er--that depends, Mary Josephine. You mean--" "Yes, I do, Derwent Conniston! She's pretty, and I don't blame you, but I can't help feeling that I don't like it!" His arm tightened about her until she gasped. The fragile softness of her waist was a joy to him. "Derry!" she remonstrated. "If you do that again, I'll break!" "I couldn't help it," he pleaded. "I couldn't, dear. The way you said it just made my arm close up tight. I'm glad you didn't like it. I can love only one at a time, and I'm loving you, and I'm going on loving you all my life." "I wasn't jealous," she protested, blushing. "But she called twice on the telephone and then came up. And she's pretty." "I suppose you mean Miss Kirkstone?" "Yes. She was frightfully anxious to see you, Derry." "And what did you think of her, dear?" She cast a swift look up into his face. "Why, I like her. She's sweet and pretty, and I fell in love with her hair. But something was troubling her this morning. I'm quite sure of it, though she tried to keep it back." "She was nervous, you mean, and pale, with sometimes a frightened look in her eyes. Was that it?" "You seem to know, Derry. I think it was all that." He nodded. He saw his horizon aglow with the smile of fortune. Everything was coming propitiously for him, even this unexpected visit of Miriam Kirkstone. He did not trouble himself to speculate as to the object of her visit, for he was grappling now with his own opportunity, his chance to get away, to win out for himself in one last master-stroke, and his mind was concentrated in that direction. The time was ripe to tell these things to Mary Josephine. She must be prepared. On the flat table of the hill where Brady had built his bungalow were scattered clumps of golden birch, and in the shelter of one of the nearer clumps was a bench, to which Keith drew Mary Josephine. Thereafter for many minutes he spoke his plans. Mary Josephine's cheeks grew flushed. Her eyes shone with excitement and eagerness. She thrilled to the story he told her of what they would do in those wonderful mountains of gold and mystery, just they two alone. He made her understand even more definitely that his safety and their mutual happiness depended upon the secrecy of their final project, that in a way they were conspirators and must act as such. They might start for the west tonight or tomorrow, and she must get ready. There he should have stopped. But with Mary Josephine's warm little hand clinging to his and her beautiful eyes shining at him like liquid stars, he felt within him an overwhelming faith and desire, and he went on, making a clean breast of the situation that was giving them the opportunity to get away. He felt no prick of conscience at thought of Miriam Kirkstone's affairs. Her destiny must be, as he had told McDowell, largely a matter of her own choosing. Besides, she had McDowell to fight for her. And the big fat brother, too. So without fear of its effect he told Mary Josephine of the mysterious liaison between Miriam Kirkstone and Shan Tung, of McDowell's suspicions, of his own beliefs, and how it was all working out for their own good. Not until then did he begin to see the changing lights in her eyes. Not until he had finished did he notice that most of that vivid flush of joy had gone from her face and that she was looking at him in a strained, tense way. He felt then the reaction. She was not looking at the thing as he was looking at it. He had offered to her another woman's tragedy as THEIR opportunity, and her own woman's heart had responded in the way that has been woman's since the dawn of life. A sense of shame which he fought and tried to crush took possession of him. He was right. He must be right, for it was his life that was hanging in the balance. Yet Mary Josephine could not know that. Her fingers had tightened about his, and she was looking away from him. He saw now that the color had almost gone from her face. There was the flash of a new fire in her yes. "And THAT was why she was nervous and pale, with sometimes a frightened look in her eyes," she spoke softly, repeating his words. "It was because of this Chinese monster, Shan Tung--because he has some sort of power over her, you say--because--" She snatched her hand from his with a suddenness that startled him. Her eyes, so beautiful and soft a few minutes before, scintillated fire. "Derry, if you don't fix this heathen devil--I WILL!" She stood up before him, breathing quickly, and he beheld in her not the soft, slim-waisted little goddess of half an hour ago, but the fiercest fighter of all the fighting ages, a woman roused. And no longer fear, but a glory swept over him. She was Conniston's sister, AND SHE WAS CONNISTON. Even as he saw his plans falling about him, he opened his arms and held them out to her, and with the swiftness of love she ran into them, putting her hands to his face while he held her close and kissed her lips. "You bet we'll fix that heathen devil before we go," he said. "You bet we will--SWEETHEART!" XVIII Wallie, suffering the outrage of one who sees his dinner growing cold, found Keith and Mary Josephine in the edge of the golden birch and implored them to come and eat. It was a marvel of a dinner. Over Mary Josephine's coffee and Keith's cigar they discussed their final plans. Keith made the big promise that he would "fix Shan Tung" in a hurry, perhaps that very afternoon. In the glow of Mary Josephine's proud eyes he felt no task too large for him, and he was eager to be at it. But when his cigar was half done, Mary Josephine came around and perched herself on the arm of his chair, and began running her fingers through his hair. All desire to go after Shan Tung left him. He would have remained there forever. Twice she bent down and touched his forehead lightly with her lips. Again his arm was round her soft little waist, and his heart was pumping like a thing overworked. It was Mary Josephine, finally, who sent him on his mission, but not before she stood on tiptoe, her hands on his shoulders, giving him her mouth to kiss. An army at his back could not have strengthened Keith with a vaster determination than that kiss. There would be no more quibbling. His mind was made up definitely on the point. And his first move was to head straight for the Kirkstone house on the hill. He did not get as far as the door this time. He caught a vision of Miriam Kirkstone in the shrubbery, bareheaded, her hair glowing radiantly in the sun. It occurred to him suddenly that it was her hair that roused the venom in him when he thought of her as the property of Shan Tung. If it had been black or even brown, the thought might not have emphasized itself so unpleasantly in his mind. But that vivid gold cried out against the crime, even against the girl herself. She saw him almost in the instant his eyes fell upon her, and came forward quickly to meet him. There was an eagerness in her face that told him his coming relieved her of a terrific suspense. "I'm sorry I wasn't at the Shack when you came, Miss Kirkstone," he said, taking for a moment the hand she offered him. "I fancy you were up there to see me about Shan Tung." He sent the shot bluntly, straight home. In the tone of his voice there was no apology. He saw her grow cold, her eyes fixed on him staringly, as though she not only heard his words but saw what was in his mind. "Wasn't that it, Miss Kirkstone?" She nodded affirmatively, but her lips did not move. "Shan Tung," he repeated. "Miss Kirkstone, what is the trouble? Why don't you confide in someone, in McDowell, in me, in--" He was going to say "your brother," but the suddenness with which she caught his arm cut the words short. "Shan Tung has been to see him--McDowell?" she questioned excitedly. "He has been there today? And he told him--" She stopped, breathing quickly, her fingers tightening on his arm. "I don't know what passed between them," said Keith. "But McDowell was tremendously worked up about you. So am I. We might as well be frank, Miss Kirkstone. There's something rotten in Denmark when two people like you and Shan Tung mix up. And you are mixed; you can't deny it. You have been to see Shan Tung late at night. He was in the house with you the first night I saw you. More than that--HE IS IN YOUR HOUSE NOW!" She shrank back as if he had struck at her. "No, no, no," she cried. "He isn't there. I tell you, he isn't!" "How am I to believe you?" demanded Keith. "You have not told the truth to McDowell. You are fighting to cover up the truth. And we know it is because of Shan Tung. WHY? I am here to fight for you, to help you. And McDowell, too. That is why we must know. Miss Kirkstone, do you love the Chinaman?" He knew the words were an insult. He had guessed their effect. As if struck there suddenly by a painter's brush, two vivid spots appeared in the girl's pale cheeks. She shrank back from him another step. Her eyes blazed. Slowly, without turning their flame from his face, she pointed to the edge of the shrubbery a few feet from where they were standing. He looked. Twisted and partly coiled on the mold, where it had been clubbed to death, was a little green grass snake. "I hate him--like that!" she said. His eyes came back to her. "Then for some reason known only to you and Shan Tung you have sold or are intending to sell yourself to him!" It was not a question. It was an accusation. He saw the flush of anger fading out of her cheeks. Her body relaxed, her head dropped, and slowly she nodded in confirmation. "Yes, I am going to sell myself to him." The astounding confession held him mute for a space. In the interval it was the girl who became self-possessed. What she said next amazed him still more. "I have confessed so much because I am positive that you will not betray me. And I went up to the Shack to find you, because I want you to help me find a story to tell McDowell. You said you would help me. Will you?" He still did not speak, and she went on. "I am accepting that promise as granted, too. McDowell mistrusts, but he must not know. You must help me there. You must help me for two or three weeks, At the end of that time something may happen. He must be made to have faith in me again. Do you understand?" "Partly," said Keith. "You ask me to do this blindly, without knowing why I am doing it, without any explanation whatever on your part except that for some unknown and mysterious price you are going to sell yourself to Shan Tung. You want me to cover and abet this monstrous deal by hoodwinking the man whose suspicions threaten its consummation. If there was not in my own mind a suspicion that you are insane, I should say your proposition is as ludicrous as it is impossible. Having that suspicion, it is a bit tragic. Also it is impossible. It is necessary for you first to tell me why you are going to sell yourself to Shan Tung." Her face was coldly white and calm again. But her hands trembled. He saw her try to hide them, and pitied her. "Then I won't trouble you any more, for that, too, is impossible," she said. "May I trust you to keep in confidence what I have told you? Perhaps I have had too much faith in you for a reason which has no reason, because you were with John Keith. John Keith was the one other man who might have helped me." "And why John Keith? How could he have helped you?" She shook her head. "If I told you that, I should be answering the question which is impossible." He saw himself facing a checkmate. To plead, to argue with her, he knew would profit him nothing. A new thought came to him, swift and imperative. The end would justify the means. He clenched his hands. He forced into his face a look that was black and vengeful. And he turned it on her. "Listen to me," he cried. "You are playing a game, and so am I. Possibly we are selfish, both of us, looking each to his own interests with no thought of the other. Will you help me, if I help you?" Again he pitied her as he saw with what eager swiftness she caught at his bait. "Yes," she nodded, catching her breath. "Yes, I will help you." His face grew blacker. He raised his clenched hands so she could see them, and advanced a step toward her. "Then tell me this--would you care if something happened to Shan Tung? Would you care if he died, if he was killed, if--" Her breath was coming faster and faster. Again the red spots blazed in her cheeks. "WOULD YOU CARE?" he demanded. "No--no--I wouldn't care. He deserves to die." "Then tell me where Shan Tung is. For my game is with him. And I believe it is a bigger game than your game, for it is a game of life and death. That is why I am interested in your affair. It is because I am selfish, because I have my own score to settle, and because you can help me. I shall ask you no more questions about yourself. And I shall keep your secret and help you with McDowell if you will keep mine and help me. First, where is Shan Tung?" She hesitated for barely an instant. "He has gone out of town. He will be away for ten days." "But he bought no ticket; no one saw him leave by train." "No, he walked up the river. An auto was waiting for him. He will pass through tonight on the eastbound train on his way to Winnipeg." "Will you tell me why he is going to Winnipeg?" "No, I cannot." He shrugged his shoulders. "It is scarcely necessary to ask. I can guess. It is to see your brother." Again he knew he had struck home. And yet she said, "No, it is not to see my brother." He held out his hand to her. "Miss Kirkstone, I am going to keep my promise. I am going to help you with McDowell. Of course I demand my price. Will you swear on your word of honor to let me know the moment Shan Tung returns?" "I will let you know." Their hands clasped. Looking into her eyes, Keith saw what told him his was not the greatest cross to bear. Miriam Kirkstone also was fighting for her life, and as he turned to leave her, he said: "While there is life there is hope. In settling my score with Shan Tung I believe that I shall also settle yours. It is a strong hunch, Miss Kirkstone, and it's holding me tight. Ten days, Shan Tung, and then--" He left her, smiling. Miriam Kirkstone watched him go, her slim hands clutched at her breast, her eyes aglow with a new thought, a new hope; and as he heard the gate slam behind him, a sobbing cry rose in her throat, and she reached out her hands as if to call him back, for something was telling her that through this man lay the way to her salvation. And her lips were moaning softly, "Ten days--ten days--and then--what?" XIX In those ten days all the wonders of June came up out of the south. Life pulsed with a new and vibrant force. The crimson fire-flowers, first of wild blooms to come after snow and frost, splashed the green spaces with red. The forests took on new colors, the blue of the sky grew nearer, and in men's veins the blood ran with new vigor and anticipations. To Keith they were all this and more. Four years along the rim of the Arctic had made it possible for him to drink to the full the glory of early summer along the Saskatchewan. And to Mary Josephine it was all new. Never had she seen a summer like this that was dawning, that most wonderful of all the summers in the world, which comes in June along the southern edge of the Northland. Keith had played his promised part. It was not difficult for him to wipe away the worst of McDowell's suspicions regarding Miss Kirkstone, for McDowell was eager to believe. When Keith told him that Miriam was on the verge of a nervous breakdown simply because of certain trouble into which Shan Tung had inveigled her brother, and that everything would be straightened out the moment Shan Tung returned from Winnipeg, the iron man seized his hands in a sudden burst of relief and gratitude. "But why didn't she confide in me, Conniston?" he complained. "Why didn't she confide in me?" The anxiety in his voice, its note of disappointment, were almost boyish. Keith was prepared. "Because--" He hesitated, as if projecting the thing in his mind. "McDowell, I'm in a delicate position. You must understand without forcing me to say too much. You are the last man in the world Miss Kirkstone wants to know about her trouble until she has triumphed, and it is over. Delicacy, perhaps; a woman's desire to keep something she is ashamed of from the one man she looks up to above all other men--to keep it away from him until she has cleared herself so that there is no suspicion. McDowell, if I were you, I'd be proud of her for that." McDowell turned away, and for a space Keith saw the muscles in the back of his neck twitching. "Derwent, maybe you've guessed, maybe you understand," he said after a moment with his face still turned to the window. "Of course she will never know. I'm too Old, old enough to be her father. But I've got the right to watch over her, and if any man ever injures her--" His fists grew knotted, and softly Keith said behind him: "You'd possibly do what John Keith did to the man who wronged his father. And because the Law is not always omniscient, it is also possible that Shan Tung may have to answer in some such way. Until then, until she comes to you of her own free will and with gladness in her eyes tells you her own secret and why she kept it from you--until she does that, I say, it is your part to treat her as if you had seen nothing, guessed nothing, suspected nothing. Do that, McDowell, and leave the rest to me." He went out, leaving the iron man still with his face to the window. With Mary Josephine there was no subterfuge. His mind was still centered in his own happiness. He could not wipe out of his brain the conviction that if he waited for Shan Tung he was waiting just so long under the sword of Damocles, with a hair between him and doom. He hoped that Miriam Kirkstone's refusal to confide in him and her reluctance to furnish him with the smallest facts in the matter would turn Mary Josephine's sympathy into a feeling of indifference if not of actual resentment. He was disappointed. Mary Josephine insisted on having Miss Kirkstone over for dinner the next day, and from that hour something grew between the two girls which Keith knew he was powerless to overcome. Thereafter he bowed his head to fate. He must wait for Shan Tung. "If it wasn't for your promise not to fall in love, I'd be afraid," Mary Josephine confided to him that night, perched on the arm of his big chair. "At times I was afraid today, Derry. She's lovely. And you like pretty hair--and hers--is wonderful!" "I don't remember," said Keith quietly, "that I promised you I wouldn't fall in love. I'm desperately in love, and with you, Mary Josephine. And as for Miss Kirkstone's lovely hair--I wouldn't trade one of yours for all she has on her head." At that, with a riotous little laugh of joy, Mary Josephine swiftly unbound her hair and let it smother about his face and shoulders. "Sometimes I have a terribly funny thought, Derry," she whispered. "If we hadn't always been sweethearts, back there at home, and if you hadn't always liked my hair, and kissed me, and told me I was pretty, I'd almost think you weren't my brother!" Keith laughed and was glad that her hair covered his face. During those wonderful first days of the summer they were inseparable, except when matters of business took Keith away. During these times he prepared for eventualities. The Keith properties in Prince Albert, he estimated, were worth at least a hundred thousand dollars, and he learned from McDowell that they would soon go through a process of law before being turned over to his fortunate inheritors. Before that time, however, he knew that his own fate would be sealed one way or the other, and now that he had Mary Josephine to look after, he made a will, leaving everything to her, and signing himself John Keith. This will he carried in an envelope pinned inside his shirt. As Derwent Conniston he collected one thousand two hundred and sixty dollars for three and a half years back wage in the Service. Two hundred and sixty of this he kept in his own pocket. The remaining thousand he counted out in new hundred-dollar bills under Mary Josephine's eyes, sealed the bills in another envelope, and gave the envelope to her. "It's safer with you than with me," he excused himself. "Fasten it inside your dress. It's our grub-stake into the mountains." Mary Josephine accepted the treasure with the repressed delight of one upon whose fair shoulders had been placed a tremendous responsibility. There were days of both joy and pain for Keith. For even in the fullest hours of his happiness there was a thing eating at his heart, a thing that was eating deeper and deeper until at times it was like a destroying flame within him. One night he dreamed; he dreamed that Conniston came to his bedside and wakened him, and that after wakening him he taunted him in ghoulish glee and told him that in bequeathing him a sister he had given unto him forever and forever the curse of the daughters of Achelous. And Keith, waking in the dark hour of night, knew in his despair that it was so. For all time, even though he won this fight he was fighting, Mary Josephine would be the unattainable. A sister--and he loved her with the love of a man! It was the next day after the dream that they wandered again into the grove that sheltered Keith's old home, and again they entered it and went through the cold and empty rooms. In one of these rooms he sought among the titles of dusty rows of books until he came to one and opened it. And there he found what had been in the corner of his mind when the sun rose to give him courage after the night of his dream. The daughters of Achelous had lost in the end. Ulysses had tricked them. Ulysses had won. And in this day and age it was up to him, John Keith, to win, and win he would! Always he felt this mastering certainty of the future when alone with Mary Josephine in the open day. With her at his side, her hand in his, and his arm about her waist, he told himself that all life was a lie--that there was no earth, no sun, no song or gladness in all the world, if that world held no hope for him. It was there. It was beyond the rim of forest. It was beyond the yellow plains, beyond the farthest timber of the farthest prairie, beyond the foothills; in the heart of the mountains was its abiding place. As he had dreamed of those mountains in boyhood and youth, so now he dreamed his dreams over again with Mary Josephine. For her he painted his pictures of them, as they wandered mile after mile up the shore of the Saskatchewan--the little world they would make all for themselves, how they would live, what they would do, the mysteries they would seek out, the triumphs they would achieve, the glory of that world--just for two. And Mary Josephine planned and dreamed with him. In a week they lived what might have been encompassed in a year. So it seemed to Keith, who had known her only so long. With Mary Josephine the view-point was different. There had been a long separation, a separation filled with a heartbreak which she would never forget, but it had not served to weaken the bonds between her and this loved one, who, she thought, had always been her own. To her their comradeship was more complete now than it ever had been, even back in the old days, for they were alone in a land that was strange to her, and one was all that the world held for the other. So her possessorship of Keith was a thing which--again in the dark and brooding hours of night--sometimes made him writhe in an agony of shame. Hers was a shameless love, a love which had not even the lover's reason for embarrassment, a love unreserved and open as the day. It was her trick, nights, to nestle herself in the big armchair with him, and it was her fun to smother his face in her hair and tumble it about him, piling it over his mouth and nose until she made him plead for air. Again she would fit herself comfortably in the hollow of his arm and sit the evening out with her head on his shoulder, while they planned their future, and twice in that week she fell asleep there. Each morning she greeted him with a kiss, and each night she came to him to be kissed, and when it was her pleasure she kissed him--or made him kiss her--when they were on their long walks. It was bitter-sweet to Keith, and more frequently came the hours of crushing desolation for him, those hours in the still, dark night when his hypocrisy and his crime stood out stark and hideous in his troubled brain. As this thing grew in him, a black and foreboding thunderstorm on the horizon of his dreams, an impulse which he did not resist dragged him more and more frequently down to the old home, and Mary Josephine was always with him. They let no one know of these visits. And they talked about John Keith, and in Mary Josephine's eyes he saw more than once a soft and starry glow of understanding. She loved the memory of this man because he, her brother, had loved him. And after these hours came the nights when truth, smiling at him, flung aside its mask and stood a grinning specter, and he measured to the depths the falseness of his triumph. His comfort was the thought that she knew. Whatever happened, she would know what John Keith had been. For he, John Keith, had told her. So much of the truth had he lived. He fought against the new strain that was descending upon him slowly and steadily as the days passed. He could not but see the new light that had grown in Miriam Kirkstone's eyes. At times it was more than a dawn of hope. It was almost certainty. She had faith in him, faith in his promise to her, in his power to fight, his strength to win. Her growing friendship with Mary Josephine accentuated this, inspiring her at times almost to a point of conviction, for Mary Josephine's confidence in him was a passion. Even McDowell, primarily a fighter of his own battles, cautious and suspicious, had faith in him while he waited for Shan Tung. It was this blind belief in him that depressed him more than all else, for he knew that victory for himself must be based more or less on deceit and treachery. For the first time he heard Miriam laugh with Mary Josephine; he saw the gold and the brown head together out in the sun; he saw her face shining with a light that he had never seen there before, and then, when he came upon them, their faces were turned to him, and his heart bled even as he smiled and held out his hands to Mary Josephine. They trusted him, and he was a liar, a hypocrite, a Pharisee. On the ninth day he had finished supper with Mary Josephine when the telephone rang. He rose to answer it. It was Miriam Kirkstone. "He has returned," she said. That was all. The words were in a choking voice. He answered and hung up the receiver. He knew a change had come into his face when he turned to Mary Josephine. He steeled himself to a composure that drew a questioning tenseness into her face. Gently he stroked her soft hair, explaining that Shan Tung had returned and that he was going to see him. In his bedroom he strapped his Service automatic under his coat. At the door, ready to go, he paused. Mary Josephine came to him and put her hands to his shoulders. A strange unrest was in her eyes, a question which she did not ask. Something whispered to him that it was the last time. Whatever happened now, tonight must leave him clean. His arms went around her, he drew her close against his breast, and for a space he held her there, looking into her eyes. "You love me?" he asked softly. "More than anything else in the world," she whispered. "Kiss me, Mary Josephine." Her lips pressed to his. He released her from his arms, slowly, lingeringly. After that she stood in the lighted doorway, watching him, until he disappeared in the gloom of the slope. She called good-by, and he answered her. The door closed. And he went down into the valley, a hand of foreboding gripping at his heart. XX With a face out of which all color had fled, and eyes filled with the ghosts of a new horror, Miriam Kirkstone stood before Keith in the big room in the house on the hill. "He was here--ten minutes," she said, and her voice was as if she was forcing it out of a part of her that was dead and cold. It was lifeless, emotionless, a living voice and yet strange with the chill of death. "In those ten minutes he told me--that! If you fail--" It was her throat that held him, fascinated him. White, slim, beautiful--her heart seemed pulsing there. And he could see that heart choke back the words she was about to speak. "If I fail--" he repeated the words slowly after her, watching that white, beating throat. "There is only the one thing left for me to do. You--you--understand?" "Yes, I understand. Therefore I shall not fail." He backed away from her toward the door, and still he could not take his eyes from the white throat with its beating heart. "I shall not fail," he repeated. "And when the telephone rings, you will be here--to answer?" "Yes, here," she replied huskily. He went out. Under his feet the gravelly path ran through a flood of moonlight. Over him the sky was agleam with stars. It was a white night, one of those wonderful gold-white nights in the land of the Saskatchewan. Under that sky the world was alive. The little city lay in a golden glimmer of lights. Out of it rose a murmur, a rippling stream of sound, the voice of its life, softened by the little valley between. Into it Keith descended. He passed men and women, laughing, talking, gay. He heard music. The main street was a moving throng. On a corner the Salvation Army, a young woman, a young man, a crippled boy, two young girls, and an old man, were singing "Nearer, My God, to Thee." Opposite the Board of Trade building on the edge of the river a street medicine-fakir had drawn a crowd to his wagon. To the beat of the Salvation Army's tambourine rose the thrum of a made-up negro's banjo. Through these things Keith passed, his eyes open, his ears listening, but he passed swiftly. What he saw and what he heard pressed upon him with the chilling thrill of that last swan-song, the swan-song of Ecla, of Kobat, of Ty, who had heard their doom chanted from the mountain-tops. It was the city rising up about his cars in rejoicing and triumph. And it put in his heart a cold, impassive anger. He sensed an impending doom, and yet he was not afraid. He was no longer chained by dreams, no more restrained by self. Before his eyes, beating, beating, beating, he saw that tremulous heart in Miriam Kirkstone's soft, white throat. He came to Shan Tung's. Beyond the softly curtained windows it was a yellow glare of light. He entered and met the flow of life, the murmur of voices and laughter, the tinkle of glasses, the scent of cigarette smoke, and the fainter perfume of incense. And where he had seen him last, as though he had not moved since that hour nine days ago, still with his cigarette, still sphinx-like, narrow-eyed, watchful, stood Li King. Keith walked straight to him. And this time, as he approached, Li King greeted him with a quick and subtle smile. He nipped his cigarette to the tiled floor. He was bowing, gracious. Tonight he was not stupid. "I have come to see Shan Tung," said Keith. He had half expected to be refused, in which event he was prepared to use his prerogative as an officer of the law to gain his point. But Li King did not hesitate. He was almost eager. And Keith knew that Shan Tung was expecting him. They passed behind one of the screens and then behind another, until it seemed to Keith their way was a sinuous twisting among screens. They paused before a panel in the wall, and Li King pressed the black throat of a long-legged, swan-necked bird with huge wings and the panel opened and swung toward them. It was dark inside, but Li King turned on a light. Through a narrow hallway ten feet in length he led the way, unlocked a second door, and held it open, smiling at Keith. "Up there," he said. A flight of steps led upward and as Keith began to mount them the door closed softly behind him. Li King accompanied him no further. He mounted the steps, treading softly. At the top was another door, and this he opened as quietly as Li King had closed the one below him. Again the omnipresent screens, and then his eyes looked out upon a scene which made him pause in astonishment. It was a great room, a room fifty feet long by thirty in width, and never before had he beheld such luxury as it contained. His feet sank into velvet carpets, the walls were hung richly with the golds and browns and crimsons of priceless tapestries, and carven tables and divans of deep plush and oriental chairs filled the space before him. At the far end was a raised dais, and before this, illumined in candleglow, was a kneeling figure. He noticed then that there were many candles burning, that the room was lighted by candles, and that in their illumination the figure did not move. He caught the glint of armors standing up, warrior like, against the tapestries, and he wondered for a moment if the kneeling figure was a heathen god made of wood. It was then that he smelled the odor of frankincense; it crept subtly into his nostrils and his mouth, sweetened his breath, and made him cough. At the far end, before the dais, the kneeling figure began to move. Its arms extended slowly, they swept backward, then out again, and three times the figure bowed itself and straightened, and with the movement came a low, human monotone. It was over quickly. Probably two full minutes had not passed since Keith had entered when the kneeling figure sprang to its feet with the quickness of a cat, faced about, and stood there, smiling and bowing and extending its hand. "Good evening, John Keith!" It was Shan Tung. An oriental gown fell about him, draping him like a woman. It was a crimson gown, grotesquely ornamented with embroidered peacocks, and it flowed and swept about him in graceful undulations as he advanced, his footfalls making not the sound of a mouse on the velvet floors. "Good evening, John Keith!" He was close, smiling, his eyes glowing, his hand still outstretched, friendliness in his voice and manner. And yet in that voice there was a purr, the purr of a cat watching its prey, and in his eyes a glow that was the soft rejoicing of a triumph. Keith did not take the hand. He made as if he did not see it. He was looking into those glowing, confident eyes of the Chinaman. A Chinaman! Was it possible? Could a Chinaman possess that voice, whose very perfection shamed him? Shan Tung seemed to read his thoughts. And what he found amused him, and he bowed again, still smiling. "I am Shan Tung," he said with the slightest inflection of irony. "Here--in my home--I am different. Do you not recognize me?" He waved gracefully a hand toward a table on either side of which was a chair. He seated himself, not waiting for Keith. Keith sat down opposite him. Again he must have read what was in Keith's heart, the desire and the intent to kill, for suddenly he clapped his hands, not loudly, once--twice-- "You will join me in tea?" he asked. Scarcely had he spoken when about them, on all sides of them it seemed to Keith, there was a rustle of life. He saw tapestries move. Before his eyes a panel became a door. There was a clicking, a stir as of gowns, soft footsteps, a movement in the air. Out of the panel doorway came a Chinaman with a cloth, napkins, and chinaware. Behind him followed a second with tea-urn and a bowl, and with the suddenness of an apparition, without sound or movement, a third was standing at Keith's side. And still there was rustling behind, still there was the whispering beat of life, and Keith knew that there were others. He did not flinch, but smiled back at Shan Tung. A minute, no more, and the soft-footed yellow men had performed their errands and were gone. "Quick service," he acknowledged. "VERY quick service. Shan Tung! But I have my hand on something that is quicker!" Suddenly Shan Tung leaned over the table. "John Keith, you are a fool if you came here with murder in your heart," he said. "Let us be friends. It is best. Let us be friends." XXI It was as if with a swiftness invisible to the eye a mask had dropped from Shan Tung's face. Keith, preparing to fight, urging himself on to the step which he believed he must take, was amazed. Shan Tung was earnest. There was more than earnestness in his eyes, an anxiety, a frankly revealed hope that Keith would meet him halfway. But he did not offer his hand again. He seemed to sense, in that instant, the vast gulf between yellow and white. He felt Keith's contempt, the spurning contumely that was in the other's mind. Under the pallid texture of his skin there began to burn a slow and growing flush. "Wait!" he said softly. In his flowing gown he seemed to glide to a carven desk near at hand. He was back in a moment with a roll of parchment in his hand. He sat down again and met Keith's eyes squarely and in silence for a moment. "We are both MEN, John Keith." His voice was soft and calm. His tapering fingers with their carefully manicured nails fondled the roll of parchment, and then unrolled it, and held it so the other could read. It was a university diploma. Keith stared. A strange name was scrolled upon it, Kao Lung, Prince of Shantung. His mind leaped to the truth. He looked at the other. The man he had known as Shan Tung met his eyes with a quiet, strange smile, a smile in which there was pride, a flash of sovereignty, of a thing greater than skins that were white. "I am Prince Kao," he said. "That is my diploma. I am a graduate of Yale." Keith's effort to speak was merely a grunt. He could find no words. And Kao, rolling up the parchment and forgetting the urn of tea that was growing cold, leaned a little over the table again. And then it was, deep in his narrowed, smoldering eyes, that Keith saw a devil, a living, burning thing of passion, Kao's soul itself. And Kao's voice was quiet, deadly. "I recognized you in McDowell's office," he said. "I saw, first, that you were not Derwent Conniston. And then it was easy, so easy. Perhaps you killed Conniston. I am not asking, for I hated Conniston. Some day I should have killed him, if he had come back. John Keith, from that first time we met, you were a dead man. Why didn't I turn you over to the hangman? Why did I warn you in such a way that I knew you would come to see me? Why did I save your life which was in the hollow of my hand? Can you guess?" "Partly," replied Keith. "But go on. I am waiting." Not for an instant had it enter his mind to deny that he was John Keith. Denial was folly, a waste of time, and just now he felt that nothing in the world was more precious to him than time. Kao's quick mind, scheming and treacherous though it was, caught his view-point, and he nodded appreciatively. "Good, John Keith. It is easily guessed. Your life is mine. I can save it. I can destroy it. And you, in turn, can be of service to me. You help me, and I save you. It is a profitable arrangement. And we both are happy, for you keep Derwent Conniston's sister--and I--I get my golden-headed goddess, Miriam Kirkstone!" "That much I have guessed," said Keith. "Go on!" For a moment Kao seemed to hesitate, to study the cold, gray passiveness of the other's face. "You love Derwent Conniston's sister," he continued in a voice still lower and softer. "And I--I love my golden-headed goddess. See! Up there on the dais I have her picture and a tress of her golden hair, and I worship them." Colder and grayer was Keith's face as he saw the slumbering passion burn fiercer in Kao's eyes. It turned him sick. It was a terrible thing which could not be called love. It was a madness. But Kao, the man himself, was not mad. He was a monster. And while the eyes burned like two devils, his voice was still soft and low. "I know what you are thinking; I see what you are seeing," he said. "You are thinking yellow, and you are seeing yellow. My skin! My birthright! My--" He smiled, and his voice was almost caressing. "John Keith, in Pe-Chi-Li is the great city of Pekin, and Pe-Chi-Li is the greatest province in all China. And second only to that is the province of Shantung, which borders Pe-Chi-Li, the home of our Emperors for more centuries than you have years. And for so many generations that we cannot remember my forefathers have been rulers of Shantung. My grandfather was a Mandarin with the insignia of the Eighth Order, and my father was Ninth and highest of all Orders, with his palace at Tsi-Nan, on the Yellow Sea. And I, Prince Kao, eldest of his sons, came to America to learn American law and American ways. And I learned them, John Keith. I returned, and with my knowledge I undermined a government. For a time I was in power, and then this thing you call the god of luck turned against me, and I fled for my life. But the blood is still here--" he put his hand softly to his breast, "--the blood of a hundred generations of rulers. I tell you this because you dare not betray me, you dare not tell them who I am, though even that truth could not harm me. I prefer to be known as Shan Tung. Only you--and Miriam Kirkstone--have heard as much." Keith's blood was like fire, but his voice was cold as ice. "GO ON!" This time there could be no mistake. That cold gray of his passionless face, the steely glitter in his eyes, were read correctly by Kao. His eyes narrowed. For the first time a dull flame leaped into his colorless cheeks. "Ah, I told you this because I thought we would work together, friends," he cried. "But it is not so. You, like my golden-headed goddess, hate me! You hate me because of my yellow skin. You say to yourself that I have a yellow heart. And she hates me, and she says that--but she is mine, MINE!" He sprang suddenly to his feet and swept about him with his flowing arms. "See what I have prepared for her! It is here she will come, here she will live until I take her away. There, on that dais, she will give up her soul and her beautiful body to me--and you cannot help it, she cannot help it, all the world cannot help it--AND SHE IS COMING TO ME TONIGHT!" "TONIGHT!" gasped John Keith. He, too, leaped to his feet. His face was ghastly. And Kao, in his silken gown, was sweeping his arms about him. "See! The candles are lighted for her. They are waiting. And tonight, when the town is asleep, she will come. AND IT IS YOU WHO WILL MAKE HER COME, JOHN KEITH!" Facing the devils in Kao's eyes, within striking distance of a creature who was no longer a man but a monster, Keith marveled at the coolness that held him back. "Yes, it is you who will at last give her soul and her beautiful body to me," he repeated. "Come. I will show you how--and why!" He glided toward the dais. His hand touched a panel. It opened and in the opening he turned about and waited for Keith. "Come!" he said. Keith, drawing a deep breath, his soul ready for the shock, his body ready for action, followed him. XXII Into a narrow corridor, through a second door that seemed made of padded wool, and then into a dimly lighted room John Keith followed Kao, the Chinaman. Out of this room there was no other exit; it was almost square, its ceiling was low, its walls darkly somber, and that life was there Keith knew by the heaviness of cigarette smoke in the air. For a moment his eyes did not discern the physical evidence of that life. And then, staring at him out of the yellow glow, he saw a face. It was a haunting, terrible face, a face heavy and deeply lined by sagging flesh and with eyes sunken and staring. They were more than staring. They greeted Keith like living coals. Under the face was a human form, a big, fat, sagging form that leaned outward from its seat in a chair. Kao, bowing, sweeping his flowing raiment with his arms, said, "John Keith, allow me to introduce you to Peter Kirkstone." For the first time amazement, shock, came to Keith's lips in an audible cry. He advanced a step. Yes, in that pitiable wreck of a man he recognized Peter Kirkstone, the fat creature who had stood under the picture of the Madonna that fateful night, Miriam Kirkstone's brother! And as he stood, speechless, Kao said: "Peter Kirkstone, you know why I have brought this man to you tonight. You know that he is not Derwent Conniston. You know that he is John Keith, the murderer of your father. Is it not so?" The thick lips moved. The voice was husky--"Yes." "He does not believe. So I have brought him that he may listen to you. Peter Kirkstone, is it your desire that your sister, Miriam, give herself to me, Prince Kao, tonight?" Again the thick lips moved. This time Keith saw the effort. He shuddered. He knew these questions and answers had been prepared. A doomed man was speaking. And the voice came, choking, "Yes." "WHY?" The terrible face of Peter Kirkstone seemed to contort. He looked at Kao. And Kao's eyes were shining in that dull room like the eyes of a snake. "Because--it will save my life." "And why will it save your life?" Again that pause, again the sickly, choking effort. "Because--I HAVE KILLED A MAN." Bowing, smiling, rustling, Kao turned to the door. "That is all, Peter Kirkstone. Good night. John Keith, will you follow me?" Dumbly Keith followed through the dark corridor, into the big room mellow with candle-glow, back to the table with its mocking tea-urn and chinaware. He felt a thing like clammy sweat on his back. He sat down. And Kao sat opposite him again. "That is the reason, John Keith. Peter Kirkstone, her brother, is a murderer, a cold-blooded murderer. And only Miriam Kirkstone and your humble servant, Prince Kao, know his secret. And to buy my secret, to save his life, the golden-headed goddess is almost ready to give herself to me--almost, John Keith. She will decide tonight, when you go to her. She will come. Yes, she will come tonight. I do not fear. I have prepared for her the candles, the bridal dais, the nuptial supper. Oh, she will come. For if she does not, if she fails, with tomorrow's dawn Peter Kirkstone and John Keith both go to the hangman!" Keith, in spite of the horror that had come over him, felt no excitement. The whole situation was clear to him now, and there was nothing to be gained by argument, no possibility of evasion. Kao held the winning hand, the hand that put him back to the wall in the face of impossible alternatives. These alternatives flashed upon him swiftly. There were two and only two--flight, and alone, without Mary Josephine; and betrayal of Miriam Kirkstone. Just how Kao schemed that he should accomplish that betrayal, he could not guess. His voice, like his face, was cold and strange when it answered the Chinaman; it lacked passion; there was no emphasis, no inflection that gave to one word more than to another. And Keith, listening to his own voice, knew what it meant. He was cold inside, cold as ice, and his eyes were on the dais, the sacrificial altar that Kao had prepared, waiting in the candleglow. On the floor of that dais was a great splash of dull-gold altar cloth, and it made him think of Miriam Kirkstone's unbound and disheveled hair strewn in its outraged glory over the thing Kao had prepared for her. "I see. It is a trade, Kao. You are offering me my life in return for Miriam Kirkstone." "More than that, John Keith. Mine is the small price. And yet it is great to me, for it gives me the golden goddess. But is she more to me than Derwent Conniston's sister may be to you? Yes, I am giving you her, and I am giving you your life, and I am giving Peter Kirkstone his life--all for ONE." "For one," repeated Keith. "Yes, for one." "And I, John Keith, in some mysterious way unknown to me at present, am to deliver Miriam Kirkstone to you?" "Yes." "And yet, if I should kill you, now--where you sit--" Kao shrugged his slim shoulders, and Keith heard that soft, gurgling laugh that McDowell had said was like the splutter of oil. "I have arranged. It is all in writing. If anything should happen to me, there are messengers who would carry it swiftly. To harm me would be to seal your own doom. Besides, you would not leave here alive. I am not afraid." "How am I to deliver Miriam Kirkstone to you?" Kao leaned forward, his fingers interlacing eagerly. "Ah, NOW you have asked the question, John Keith! And we shall be friends, great friends, for you see with the eyes of wisdom. It will be easy, so easy that you will wonder at the cheapness of the task. Ten days ago Miriam Kirkstone was about to pay my price. And then you came. From that moment she saw you in McDowell's office, there was a sudden change. Why? I don't know. Perhaps because of that thing you call intuition but to which we give a greater name. Perhaps only because you were the man who had run down her father's murderer. I saw her that afternoon, before you went up at night. Ah, yes, I could see, I could understand the spark that had begun to grow in her, hope, a wild, impossible hope, and I prepared for it by leaving you my message. I went away. I knew that in a few days all that hope would be centered in you, that it would live and die in you, that in the end it would be your word that would bring her to me. And that word you must speak tonight. You must go to her, hope-broken. You must tell her that no power on earth can save her, and that Kao waits to make her a princess, that tomorrow will be too late, that TONIGHT must the bargain be closed. She will come. She will save her brother from the hangman, and you, in bringing her, will save John Keith and keep Derwent Conniston's sister. Is it not a great reward for the little I am asking?" It was Keith who now smiled into the eyes of the Chinaman, but it was a smile that did not soften that gray and rock-like hardness that had settled in his face. "Kao, you are a devil. I suppose that is a compliment to your dirty ears. You're rotten to the core of the thing that beats in you like a heart; you're a yellow snake from the skin in. I came to see you because I thought there might be a way out of this mess. I had almost made up my mind to kill you. But I won't do that. There's a better way. In half an hour I'll be with McDowell, and I'll beat you out by telling him that I'm John Keith. And I'll tell him this story of Miriam Kirkstone from beginning to end. I'll tell him of that dais you've built for her--your sacrificial altar!--and tomorrow Prince Albert will rise to a man to drag you out of this hole and kill you as they would kill a rat. That is my answer, you slit-eyed, Yale-veneered yellow devil! I may die, and Peter Kirkstone may die, but you'll not get Miriam Kirkstone!" He was on his feet when he finished, amazed at the calmness of his own voice, amazed that his hands were steady and his brain was cool in this hour of his sacrifice. And Kao was stunned. Before his eyes he saw a white man throwing away his life. Here, in the final play, was a master-stroke he had not foreseen. A moment before the victor, he was now the vanquished. About him he saw his world falling, his power gone, his own life suddenly hanging by a thread. In Keith's face he read the truth. This white man was not bluffing. He would go to McDowell. He would tell the truth. This man who had ventured so much for his own life and freedom would now sacrifice that life to save a girl, one girl! He could not understand, and yet he believed. For it was there before his eyes in that gray, passionless face that was as inexorable as the face of one of his own stone gods. As he uttered the words that smashed all that Kao had planned for, Keith sensed rather than saw the swift change of emotion sweeping through the yellow-visaged Moloch staring up at him. For a space the oriental's evil eyes had widened, exposing wider rims of saffron white, betraying his amazement, the shock of Keith's unexpected revolt, and then the lids closed slowly, until only dark and menacing gleams of fire shot between them, and Keith thought of the eyes of a snake. Swift as the strike of a rattler Kao was on his feet, his gown thrown back, one clawing hand jerking a derringer from his silken belt. In the same breath he raised his voice in a sharp call. Keith sprang back. The snake-like threat in the Chinaman's eyes had prepared him, and his Service automatic leaped from its holster with lightning swiftness. Yet that movement was no swifter than the response to Kao's cry. The panel shot open, the screens moved, tapestries billowed suddenly as if moved by the wind, and Kao's servants sprang forth and were at him like a pack of dogs. Keith had no time to judge their number, for his brain was centered in the race with Kao's derringer. He saw its silver mountings flash in the candle-glow, saw its spurt of smoke and fire. But its report was drowned in the roar of his automatic as it replied with a stream of lead and flame. He saw the derringer fall and Kao crumple up like a jackknife. His brain turned red as he swung his weapon on the others, and as he fired, he backed toward the door. Then something caught him from behind, twisting his head almost from his shoulders, and he went down. He lost his automatic. Weight of bodies was upon him; yellow hands clutched for his throat; he felt hot breaths and heard throaty cries. A madness of horror possessed him, a horror that was like the blind madness of Laocoon struggling with his sons in the coils of the giant serpent. In these moments he was not fighting men. They were monsters, yellow, foul-smelling, unhuman, and he fought as Laocoon fought. As if it had been a cane, he snapped the bone of an arm whose hand was throttling him; he twisted back a head until it snapped between its shoulders; he struck and broke with a blind fury and a giant strength, until at last, torn and covered with blood, he leaped free and reached the door. As he opened it and sprang through, he had the visual impression that only two of his assailants were rising from the floor. For the space of a second he hesitated in the little hallway. Down the stairs was light--and people. He knew that he was bleeding and his clothes were torn, and that flight in that direction was impossible. At the opposite end of the hall was a curtain which he judged must cover a window. With a swift movement he tore down this curtain and found that he was right. In another second he had crashed the window outward with his shoulder, and felt the cool air of the night in his face. The door behind him was still closed when he crawled out upon a narrow landing at the top of a flight of steps leading down into the alley. He paused long enough to convince himself that his enemies were making no effort to follow him, and as he went down the steps, he caught himself grimly chuckling. He had given them enough. In the darkness of the alley he paused again. A cool breeze fanned his cheeks, and the effect of it was to free him of the horror that had gripped him in his fight with the yellow men. Again the calmness with which he had faced Kao possessed him. The Chinaman was dead. He was sure of that. And for him there was not a minute to lose. After all, it was his fate. The game had been played, and he had lost. There was one thing left undone, one play Conniston would still make, if he were there. And he, too, would make it. It was no longer necessary for him to give himself up to McDowell, for Kao was dead, and Miriam Kirkstone was saved. It was still right and just for him to fight for his life. But Mary Josephine must know FROM HIM. It was the last square play he could make. No one saw him as he made his way through alleys to the outskirts of the town. A quarter of an hour later he came up the slope to the Shack. It was lighted, and the curtains were raised to brighten his way up the hill. Mary Josephine was waiting for him. Again there came over him the strange and deadly calmness with which he had met the tragedy of that night. He had tried to wipe the blood from his face, but it was still there when he entered and faced Mary Josephine. The wounds made by the razor-like nails of his assailants were bleeding; he was hatless, his hair was disheveled, and his throat and a part of his chest were bare where his clothes had been torn away. As Mary Josephine came toward him, her arms reaching out to him, her face dead white, he stretched out a restraining hand, and said, "Please wait, Mary Josephine!" Something stopped her--the strangeness of his voice, the terrible hardness of his face, gray and blood-stained, the something appalling and commanding in the way he had spoken. He passed her quickly on his way to the telephone. Her lips moved; she tried to speak; one of her hands went to her throat. He was calling Miriam Kirkstone's number! And now she saw that his hands, too, were bleeding. There came the murmur of a voice in the telephone. Someone answered. And then she heard him say, "SHAN TUNG IS DEAD!" That was all. He hung up the receiver and turned toward her. With a little cry she moved toward him. "DERRY--DERRY--" He evaded her and pointed to the big chair in front of the fireplace. "Sit down, Mary Josephine." She obeyed him. Her face was whiter than he had thought a living face could be, And then, from the beginning to the end, he told her everything. Mary Josephine made no sound, and in the big chair she seemed to crumple smaller and smaller as he confessed the great lie to her, from the hour Conniston and he had traded identities in the little cabin on the Barren. Until he died he knew she would haunt him as he saw her there for the last time--her dead-white face, her great eyes, her voiceless lips, her two little hands clutched at her breast as she listened to the story of the great lie and his love for her. Even when he had done, she did not move or speak. He went into his room, closed the door, and turned on the lights. Quickly he put into his pack what he needed. And when he was ready, he wrote on a piece of paper: "A thousand times I repeat, 'I love you.' Forgive me if you can. If you cannot forgive, you may tell McDowell, and the Law will find me up at the place of our dreams--the river's end. --John Keith." This last message he left on the table for Mary Josephine. For a moment he listened at the door. Outside there was no movement, no sound. Quietly, then, he raised the window through which Kao had come into his room. A moment later he stood under the light of the brilliant stars. Faintly there came to him the sounds of the city, the sound of life, of gayety, of laughter and of happiness, rising to him now from out of the valley. He faced the north. Down the side of the hill and over the valley lay the forests. And through the starlight he strode back to them once more, back to their cloisters and their heritage, the heritage of the hunted and the outcast. XXIII All through the starlit hours of that night John Keith trudged steadily into the Northwest. For a long time his direction took him through slashings, second-growth timber, and cleared lands; he followed rough roads and worn trails and passed cabins that were dark and without life in the silence of midnight. Twice a dog caught the stranger scent in the air and howled; once he heard a man's voice, far away, raised in a shout. Then the trails grew rougher. He came to a deep wide swamp. He remembered that swamp, and before he plunged into it, he struck a match to look at his compass and his watch. It took him two hours to make the other side. He was in the deep and uncut timber then, and a sense of relief swept over him. The forest was again his only friend. He did not rest. His brain and his body demanded the action of steady progress, though it was not through fear of what lay behind him. Fear had ceased to be a stimulating part of him; it was even dead within him. It was as if his energy was engaged in fighting for a principle, and the principle was his life; he was following a duty, and this duty impelled him to make his greatest effort. He saw clearly what he had done and what was ahead of him. He was twice a killer of men now, and each time the killing had rid the earth of a snake. This last time it had been an exceedingly good job. Even McDowell would concede that, and Miriam Kirkstone, on her knees, would thank God for what he had done. But Canadian law did not split hairs like its big neighbor on the south. It wanted him at least for Kirkstone's killing if not for that of Kao, the Chinaman. No one, not even Mary Josephine, would ever fully realize what he had sacrificed for the daughter of the man who had ruined his father. For Mary Josephine would never understand how deeply he had loved her. It surprised him to find how naturally he fell back into his old habit of discussing things with himself, and how completely and calmly he accepted the fact that his home-coming had been but a brief and wonderful interlude to his fugitivism. He did not know it at first, but this calmness was the calmness of a despair more fatal than the menace of the hangman. "They won't catch me," he encouraged himself. "And she won't tell them where I'm going. No, she won't do that." He found himself repeating that thought over and over again. Mary Josephine would not betray him. He repeated it, not as a conviction, but to fight back and hold down another thought that persisted in forcing itself upon him. And this thing, that at times was like a voice within him, cried out in its moments of life, "She hates you--and she WILL tell where you are going!" With each hour it was harder for him to keep that voice down; it persisted, it grew stronger; in its intervals of triumph it rose over and submerged all other thoughts in him. It was not his fear of her betrayal that stabbed him; it was the underlying motive of it, the hatred that would inspire it. He tried not to vision her as he had seen her last, in the big chair, crushed, shamed, outraged--seeing in him no longer the beloved brother, but an impostor, a criminal, a man whom she might suspect of killing that brother for his name and his place in life. But the thing forced itself on him. It was reasonable, and it was justice. "But she won't do it," he told himself. "She won't do it." This was his fight, and its winning meant more to him than freedom. It was Mary Josephine who would live with him now, and not Conniston. It was her spirit that would abide with him, her voice he would hear in the whispers of the night, her face he would see in the glow of his lonely fires, and she must remain with him always as the Mary Josephine he had known. So he crushed back the whispering voice, beat it down with his hands clenched at his side, fought it through the hours of that night with the desperation of one who fights for a thing greater than life. Toward dawn the stars began to fade out of the sky. He had been tireless, and he was tireless now. He felt no exhaustion. Through the gray gloom that came before day he went on, and the first glow of sun found him still traveling. Prince Albert and the Saskatchewan were thirty miles to the south and east of him. He stopped at last on the edge of a little lake and unburdened himself of his pack for the first time. He was glad that the premonition of just such a sudden flight as this had urged him to fill his emergency grub-sack yesterday morning. "Won't do any harm for us to be prepared," he had laughed jokingly to Mary Josephine, and Mary Josephine herself had made him double the portion of bacon because she was fond of it. It was hard for him to slice that bacon without a lump rising in his throat. Pork and love! He wanted to laugh, and he wanted to cry, and between the two it was a queer, half-choked sound that came to his lips. He ate a good breakfast, rested for a couple of hours, and went on. At a more leisurely pace he traveled through most of the day, and at night he camped. In the ten days following his flight from Prince Albert he kept utterly out of sight. He avoided trappers' shacks and trails and occasional Indians. He rid himself of his beard and shaved himself every other day. Mary Josephine had never cared much for the beard. It prickled. She had wanted him smooth-faced, and now he was that. He looked better, too. But the most striking resemblance to Derwent Conniston was gone. At the end of the ten days he was at Turtle Lake, fifty miles east of Fort Pitt. He believed that he could show himself openly now, and on the tenth day bartered with some Indians for fresh supplies. Then he struck south of Fort Pitt, crossed the Saskatchewan, and hit between the Blackfoot Hills and the Vermillion River into the Buffalo Coulee country. In the open country he came upon occasional ranches, and at one of these he purchased a pack-horse. At Buffalo Lake he bought his supplies for the mountains, including fifty steel traps, crossed the upper branch of the Canadian Pacific at night, and the next day saw in the far distance the purple haze of the Rockies. It was six weeks after the night in Kao's place that he struck the Saskatchewan again above the Brazeau. He did not hurry now. Just ahead of him slumbered the mountains; very close was the place of his dreams. But he was no longer impelled by the mighty lure of the years that were gone. Day by day something had worn away that lure, as the ceaseless grind of water wears away rock, and for two weeks he wandered slowly and without purpose in the green valleys that lay under the snow-tipped peaks of the ranges. He was gripped in the agony of an unutterable loneliness, which fell upon and scourged him like a disease. It was a deeper and more bitter thing than a yearning for companionship. He might have found that. Twice he was near camps. Three times he saw outfits coming out, and purposely drew away from them. He had no desire to meet men, no desire to talk or to be troubled by talking. Day And night his body and his soul cried out for Mary Josephine, and in his despair he cursed those who had taken her away from him. It was a crisis which was bound to come, and in his aloneness he fought it out. Day after day he fought it, until his face and his heart bore the scars of it. It was as if a being on whom he had set all his worship had died, only it was worse than death. Dead, Mary Josephine would still have been his inspiration; in a way she would have belonged to him. But living, hating him as she must, his dreams of her were a sacrilege and his love for her like the cut of a sword. In the end he was like a man who had triumphed over a malady that would always leave its marks upon him. In the beginning of the third week he knew that he had conquered, just as he had triumphed in a similar way over death and despair in the north. He would go into the mountains, as he had planned. He would build his cabin. And if the Law came to get him, it was possible that again he would fight. On the second day of this third week he saw advancing toward him a solitary horseman. The stranger was possibly a mile away when he discovered him, and he was coming straight down the flat of the valley. That he was not accompanied by a pack-horse surprised Keith, for he was bound out of the mountains and not in. Then it occurred to him that he might be a prospector whose supplies were exhausted, and that he was easing his journey by using his pack as a mount. Whoever and whatever he was, Keith was not in any humor to meet him, and without attempting to conceal himself he swung away from the river, as if to climb the slope of the mountain on his right. No sooner had he clearly signified the new direction he was taking, than the stranger deliberately altered his course in a way to cut him off. Keith was irritated. Climbing up a narrow terrace of shale, he headed straight up the slope, as if his intention were to reach the higher terraces of the mountain, and then he swung suddenly down into a coulee, where he was out of sight. Here he waited for ten minutes, then struck deliberately and openly back into the valley. He chuckled when he saw how cleverly his ruse had worked. The stranger was a quarter of a mile up the mountain and still climbing. "Now what the devil is he taking all that trouble for?" Keith asked himself. An instant later the stranger saw him again. For perhaps a minute he halted, and in that minute Keith fancied he was getting a round cursing. Then the stranger headed for him, and this time there was no escape, for the moment he struck the shelving slope of the valley, he prodded his horse into a canter, swiftly diminishing the distance between them. Keith unbuttoned the flap of his pistol holster and maneuvered so that he would be partly concealed by his pack when the horseman rode up. The persistence of the stranger suggested to him that Mary Josephine had lost no time in telling McDowell where the law would be most likely to find him. Then he looked over the neck of his pack at the horseman, who was quite near, and was convinced that he was not an officer. He was still jogging at a canter and riding atrociously. One leg was napping as if it had lost its stirrup-hold; the rider's arms were pumping, and his hat was sailing behind at the end of a string. "Whoa!" said Keith. His heart stopped its action. He was staring at a big red beard and a huge, shaggy head. The horseman reined in, floundered from his saddle, and swayed forward as if seasick. "Well, I'll be--" "DUGGAN!" "JOHNNY--JOHNNY KEITH!" XXIV For a matter of ten seconds neither of the two men moved. Keith was stunned. Andy Duggan's eyes were fairly popping out from under his bushy brows. And then unmistakably Keith caught the scent of bacon in the air. "Andy--Andy Duggan," he choked. "You know me--you know Johnny Keith--you know me--you--" Duggan answered with an inarticulate bellow and jumped at Keith as if to bear him to the ground. He hugged him, and Keith hugged, and then for a minute they stood pumping hands until their faces were red, and Duggan was growling over and over: "An' you passed me there at McCoffin's Bend--an' I didn't know you, I didn't know you, I didn't know you! I thought you was that cussed Conniston! I did. I thought you was Conniston!" He stood back at last. "Johnny--Johnny Keith!" "Andy, you blessed old devil!" They pumped hands again, pounded shoulders until they were sore, and in Keith's face blazed once more the love of life. Suddenly old Duggan grew rigid and sniffed the air. "I smell bacon!" "It's in the pack, Andy. But for Heaven's sake don't notice the bacon until you explain how you happen to be here." "Been waitin' for you," replied Duggan in an affectionate growl. "Knew you'd have to come down this valley to hit the Little Fork. Been waitin' six weeks." Keith dug his fingers into Duggan's arm. "How did you know I was coming HERE?" he demanded. "Who told you?" "All come out in the wash, Johnny. Pretty mess. Chinaman dead. Johnny Keith, alias Conniston, alive an' living with Conniston's pretty sister. Johnny gone--skipped. No one knew where. I made guesses. Knew the girl would know if anyone did. I went to her, told her how you'n me had been pals, an' she give me the idee you was goin' up to the river's end. I resigned from the Betty M., that night. Told her, though, that she was a ninny if she thought you'd go up there. Made her believe the note was just a blind." "My God," breathed Keith hopelessly, "I meant it." "Sure you did, Johnny. I knew it. But I didn't dare let HER know it. If you could ha' seen that pretty mouth o' hern curlin' up as if she'd liked to have bit open your throat, an' her hands clenched, an' that murder in her eyes--Man, I lied to her then! I told her I was after you, an' that if she wouldn't put the police on you, I'd bring back your head to her, as they used to do in the old times. An' she bit. Yes, sir, she said to me, 'If you'll do that, I won't say a word to the police!' An' here I am, Johnny. An' if I keep my word with that little tiger, I've got to shoot you right now. Haw! Haw!" Keith had turned his face away. Duggan, pulling him about by the shoulders, opened his eyes wide in amazement.--"Johnny--" "Maybe you don't understand, Andy," struggled Keith. "I'm sorry--she feels--like that." For a moment Duggan was silent. Then he exploded with a sudden curse. "SORRY! What the devil you sorry for, Johnny? You treated her square, an' you left her almost all of Conniston's money. She ain't no kick comin', and she ain't no reason for feelin' like she does. Let 'er go to the devil, I say. She's pretty an' sweet an' all that--but when anybody wants to go clawin' your heart out, don't be fool enough to feel sorry about it. You lied to her, but what's that? There's bigger lies than yourn been told, Johnny, a whole sight bigger! Don't you go worryin'. I've been here waitin' six weeks, an' I've done a lot of thinkin', and all our plans are set an' hatched. An' I've got the nicest cabin all built and waitin' for us up the Little Fork. Here we are. Let's be joyful, son!" He laughed into Keith's tense, gray face. "Let's be joyful!" Keith forced a grin. Duggan didn't know. He hadn't guessed what that "little tiger who would have liked to have bit open his throat" had been to him. The thick-headed old hero, loyal to the bottom of his soul, hadn't guessed. And it came to Keith then that he would never tell him. He would keep that secret. He would bury it in his burned-out soul, and he would be "joyful" if he could. Duggan's blazing, happy face, half buried in its great beard, was like the inspiration and cheer of a sun rising on a dark world. He was not alone. Duggan, the old Duggan of years ago, the Duggan who had planned and dreamed with him, his best friend, was with him now, and the light came back into his face as he looked toward the mountains. Off there, only a few miles distant, was the Little Fork, winding into the heart of the Rockies, seeking out its hidden valleys, its trailless canons, its hidden mysteries. Life lay ahead of him, life with its thrill and adventure, and at his side was the friend of all friends to seek it with him. He thrust out his hands. "God bless you, Andy," he cried. "You're the gamest pal that ever lived!" A moment later Duggan pointed to a clump of timber half a mile ahead. "It's past dinner-time," he said. "There's wood. If you've got any bacon aboard, I move we eat." An hour later Andy was demonstrating that his appetite was as voracious as ever. Before describing more of his own activities, he insisted that Keith recite his adventures from the night "he killed that old skunk, Kirkstone." It was two o'clock when they resumed their journey. An hour later they struck the Little Fork and until seven traveled up the stream. They were deep in the lap of the mountains when they camped for the night. After supper, smoking his pipe, Duggan stretched himself out comfortably with his back to a tree. "Good thing you come along when you did, Johnny," he said. "I been waitin' in that valley ten days, an' the eats was about gone when you hove in sight. Meant to hike back to the cabin for supplies tomorrow or next day. Gawd, ain't this the life! An' we're goin' to find gold, Johnny, we're goin' to find it!" "We've got all our lives to--to find it in," said Keith. Duggan puffed out a huge cloud of smoke and heaved a great sigh of pleasure. Then he grunted and chuckled. "Lord, what a little firebrand that sister of Conniston's is!" he exclaimed. "Johnny, I bet if you'd walk in on her now, she'd kill you with her own hands. Don't see why she hates you so, just because you tried to save your life. Of course you must ha' lied like the devil. Couldn't help it. But a lie ain't nothin'. I've told some whoppers, an' no one ain't never wanted to kill me for it. I ain't afraid of McDowell. Everyone said the Chink was a good riddance. It's the girl. There won't be a minute all her life she ain't thinkin' of you, an' she won't be satisfied until she's got you. That is, she thinks she won't. But we'll fool the little devil, Johnny. We'll keep our eyes open--an' fool her!" "Let's talk of pleasanter things," said Keith. "I've got fifty traps in the pack, Andy. You remember how we used to plan on trapping during the winter and hunting for gold during the summer?" Duggan rubbed his hands until they made a rasping sound; he talked of lynx signs he had seen, and of marten and fox. He had panned "colors" at a dozen places along the Little Fork and was ready to make his affidavit that it was the same gold he had dredged at McCoffin's Bend. "If we don't find it this fall, we'll be sittin' on the mother lode next summer," he declared, and from then until it was time to turn in he talked of nothing but the yellow treasure it had been his lifelong dream to find. At the last, when they had rolled in their blankets, he raised himself on his elbow for a moment and said to Keith: "Johnny, don't you worry about that Conniston girl. I forgot to tell you I've took time by the forelock. Two weeks ago I wrote an' told her I'd learned you was hittin' into the Great Slave country, an' that I was about to hike after you. So go to sleep an' don't worry about that pesky little rattlesnake." "I'm not worrying," said Keith. Fifteen minutes later he heard Duggan snoring. Quietly he unwrapped his blanket and sat up. There were still burning embers in the fire, the night--like that first night of his flight--was a glory of stars, and the moon was rising. Their camp was in a small, meadowy pocket in the center of which was a shimmering little lake across which he could easily have thrown a stone. On the far side of this was the sheer wall of a mountain, and the top of this wall, thousands of feet up, caught the glow of the moon first. Without awakening his comrade, Keith walked to the lake. He watched the golden illumination as it fell swiftly lower over the face of the mountain. He could see it move like a great flood. And then, suddenly, his shadow shot out ahead of him, and he turned to find the moon itself glowing like a monstrous ball between the low shoulders of a mountain to the east. The world about him became all at once vividly and wildly beautiful. It was as if a curtain had lifted so swiftly the eye could not follow it. Every tree and shrub and rock stood out in a mellow spotlight; the lake was transformed to a pool of molten silver, and as far as he could see, where shoulders and ridges did not cut him out, the moonlight was playing on the mountains. In the air was a soft droning like low music, and from a distant crag came the rattle of loosened rocks. He fancied, for a moment, that Mary Josephine was standing at his side, and that together they were drinking in the wonder of this dream at last come true. Then a cry came to his lips, a broken, gasping man-cry which he could not keep back, and his heart was filled with anguish. With all its beauty, all its splendor of quiet and peace, the night was a bitter one for Keith, the bitterest of his life. He had not believed the worst of Mary Josephine. He knew he had lost her and that she might despise him, but that she would actually hate him with the desire for a personal vengeance he had not believed. Was Duggan right? Was Mary Josephine unfair? And should he in self-defense fight to poison his own thoughts against her? His face set hard, and a joyless laugh fell from his lips. He knew that he was facing the inevitable. No matter what had happened, he must go on loving Mary Josephine. All through that night he was awake. Half a dozen times he went to his blanket, but it was impossible for him to sleep. At four o'clock he built up the fire and at five roused Duggan. The old river-man sprang up with the enthusiasm of a boy. He came back from the lake with his beard and head dripping and his face glowing. All the mountains held no cheerier comrade than Duggan. They were on the trail at six o'clock and hour after hour kept steadily up the Little Fork. The trail grew rougher, narrower, and more difficult to follow, and at intervals Duggan halted to make sure of the way. At one of these times he said to Keith: "Las' night proved there ain't no danger from her, Johnny. I had a dream, an' dreams goes by contraries an' always have. What you dream never comes true. It's always the opposite. An' I dreamed that little she-devil come up on you when you was asleep, took a big bread-knife, an' cut your head plumb off! Yessir, I could see her holdin' up that head o' yourn, an' the blood was drippin', an' she was a-laughin'--" "SHUT UP!" Keith fairly yelled the words. His eyes blazed. His face was dead white. With a shrug of his huge shoulders and a sullen grunt Duggan went on. An hour later the trail narrowed into a short canon, and this canon, to Keith's surprise, opened suddenly into a beautiful valley, a narrow oasis of green hugged in between the two ranges. Scarcely had they entered it, when Duggan raised his voice in a series of wild yells and began firing his rifle into the air. "Home-coming," he explained to Keith, after he was done. "Cabin's just over that bulge. Be there in ten minutes." In less than ten minutes Keith saw it, sheltered in the edge of a thick growth of cedar and spruce from which its timbers had been taken. It was a larger cabin than he had expected to see--twice, three times as large. "How did you do it alone!" he exclaimed in admiration. "It's a wonder, Andy. Big enough for--for a whole family!" "Half a dozen Indians happened along, an' I hired 'em," explained Duggan. "Thought I might as well make it big enough, Johnny, seein' I had plenty of help. Sometimes I snore pretty loud, an'--" "There's smoke coming out of it," cried Keith. "Kept one of the Indians," chuckled Duggan. "Fine cook, an' a sassy-lookin' little squaw she is, Johnny. Her husband died last winter, an' she jumped at the chance to stay, for her board an' five bucks a month. How's your Uncle Andy for a schemer, eh, Johnny?" A dozen rods from the cabin was a creek. Duggan halted here to water his horse and nodded for Keith to go on. "Take a look, Johnny; go ahead an' take a look! I'm sort of sot up over that cabin." Keith handed his reins to Duggan and obeyed. The cabin door was open, and he entered. One look assured him that Duggan had good reason to be "sot up." The first big room reminded him of the Shack. Beyond that was another room in which he heard someone moving and the crackle of a fire in a stove. Outside Duggan was whistling. He broke off whistling to sing, and as Keith listened to the river-man's bellowing voice chanting the words of the song he had sung at McCoffin's Bend for twenty years, he grinned. And then he heard the humming of a voice in the kitchen. Even the squaw was happy. And then--and then-- "GREAT GOD IN HEAVEN--" In the doorway she stood, her arms reaching out to him, love, glory, triumph in her face--MARY JOSEPHINE! He swayed; he groped out; something blinded him--tears--hot, blinding tears that choked him, that came with a sob in his throat. And then she was in his arms, and her arms were around him, and she was laughing and crying, and he heard her say: "Why--why didn't you come back--to me--that night? Why--why did you--go out--through the--window? I--I was waiting--and I--I'd have gone--with you--" From the door behind them came Duggan's voice, chuckling, exultant, booming with triumph. "Johnny, didn't I tell you there was lots bigger lies than yourn? Didn't I? Eh?" XXV It was many minutes, after Keith's arms had closed around Mary Josephine, before he released her enough to hold her out and look at her. She was there, every bit of her, eyes glowing with a greater glory and her face wildly aflush with a thing that had never been there before; and suddenly, as he devoured her in that hungry look, she gave a little cry, and hugged herself to his breast, and hid her face there. And he was whispering again and again, as though he could find no other word, "Mary--Mary--Mary--" Duggan drew away from the door. The two had paid no attention to his voice, and the old river-man was one continuous chuckle as he unpacked Keith's horse and attended to his own, hobbling them both and tying cow-bells to them. It was half an hour before he ventured up out of the grove along the creek and approached the cabin again. Even then he halted, fussing with a piece of harness, until he saw Mary Josephine in the door. The sun was shining on her. Her glorious hair was down, and behind her was Keith, so close that his shoulders were covered with it. Like a bird Mary Josephine sped to Duggan. Great red beard and all she hugged him, and on the flaming red of his bare cheek-bone she kissed him. "Gosh," said Duggan, at a loss for something better to say. "Gosh--" Then Keith had him by the hand. "Andy, you ripsnorting old liar, if you weren't old enough to be my father, I'd whale the daylights out of you!" he cried joyously. "I would, just because I love you so! You've made this day the--the--the--" "--The most memorable of my life," helped Mary Josephine. "Is that it--John?" Timidly, for the first time, her cheek against his shoulder, she spoke his name. And before Duggan's eyes Keith kissed her. Hours later, in a world aglow with the light of stars and a radiant moon, Keith and Mary Josephine were alone out in the heart of their little valley. To Keith it was last night returned, only more wonderful. There was the same droning song in the still air, the low rippling of running water, the mysterious whisperings of the mountains. All about them were the guardian peaks of the snow-capped ranges, and under their feet was the soft lush of grass and the sweet scent of flowers. "Our valley of dreams," Mary Josephine had named it, an infinite happiness trembling in her voice. "Our beautiful valley of dreams--come true!" "And you would have come with me--that night?" asked Keith wonderingly. "That night--I ran away?" "Yes. I didn't hear you go. And at last I went to your door and listened, and then I knocked, and after that I called to you, and when you didn't answer, I entered your room." "Dear heaven!" breathed Keith. "After all that, you would have come away with me, covered with blood, a--a murderer, they say--a hunted man--" "John, dear." She took one of his hands in both her own and held it tight. "John, dear, I've got something to tell you." He was silent. "I made Duggan promise not to tell you I was here when he found you, and I made him promise something else--to keep a secret I wanted to tell you myself. It was wonderful of him. I don't see how he did it." She snuggled still closer to him, and held his hand a little tighter. "You see, John, there was a terrible time after you killed Shan Tung. Only a little while after you had gone, I saw the sky growing red. It was Shan Tung's place--afire. I was terrified, and my heart was broken, and I didn't move. I must have sat at the window a long time, when the door burst open suddenly and Miriam ran in, and behind her came McDowell. Oh, I never heard a man swear as McDowell swore when he found you had gone, and Miriam flung herself on the floor at my feet and buried her head in my lap. "McDowell tramped up and down, and at last he turned to me as if he was going to eat me, and he fairly shouted, 'Do you know--THAT CURSED FOOL DIDN'T KILL JUDGE KIRKSTONE!'" There was a pause in which Keith's brain reeled. And Mary Josephine went on, as quietly as though she were talking about that evening's sunset: "Of course, I knew all along, from what you had told me about John Keith, that he wasn't what you would call a murderer. You see, John, I had learned to LOVE John Keith. It was the other thing that horrified me! In the fight, that night, Judge Kirkstone wasn't badly hurt, just stunned. Peter Kirkstone and his father were always quarreling. Peter wanted money, and his father wouldn't give it to him. It seems impossible,--what happened then. But it's true. After you were gone, PETER KIRKSTONE KILLED HIS FATHER THAT HE MIGHT INHERIT THE ESTATE! And then he laid the crime on you!" "My God!" breathed Keith. "Mary--Mary Josephine--how do you know?" "Peter Kirkstone was terribly burned in the fire. He died that night, and before he died he confessed. That was the power Shan Tung held over Miriam. He knew. And Miriam was to pay the price that would save her brother from the hangman." "And that," whispered Keith, as if to himself, "was why she was so interested in John Keith." He looked away into the shimmering distance of the night, and for a long time both were silent. A woman had found happiness. A man's soul had come out of darkness into light. THE END 
29958	----	THE LAW-BREAKERS By RIDGWELL CULLUM AUTHOR OF "The Story of the Foss River Ranch," "In the Brooding Wild," "The Way of the Strong," Etc. With Frontispiece in Colors A. L. BURT COMPANY Publishers New York Published by Arrangement with GEORGE W. JACOBS & CO. COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY GEORGE W. JACOBS & COMPANY ALL RIGHTS RESERVED PRINTED IN U. S. A. BY THE SAME AUTHOR THE WAY OF THE STRONG THE TWINS OF SUFFERING CREEK THE NIGHT-RIDERS THE ONE-WAY TRAIL THE TRAIL OF THE AXE THE SHERIFF OF DYKE HOLE THE WATCHERS OF THE PLAINS [Illustration: "WHAT IS THIS MAN TO YOU?" HE DEMANDED _The Law-Breakers._ _Frontispiece._] CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I WATCHING THE LINE 1 II WHITE POINT 5 III THE HOLD-UP 11 IV AT THE FOOT OF AN AGED PINE 18 V BOUND FOR THE SOUTHERN TRAIL 25 VI THE MAN-HUNTERS 35 VII CHARLIE BRYANT 43 VIII THE SOUL-SAVERS 53 IX THE "STRAY"-HUNTER 64 X THE BROTHERS 73 XI THE UNREGENERATE 79 XII THE DISCOMFITURE OF HELEN 91 XIII LIGHT-HEARTED SOULS 100 XIV THE HOUSE OF DIRTY O'BRIEN 110 XV ADVENTURES IN THE NIGHT 120 XVI FURTHER ADVENTURES 128 XVII BILL PEEPS UNDER THE SURFACE 137 XVIII THE ARM OUTREACHING 142 XIX BILL MAKES THREE DISCOVERIES 155 XX IN THE FAR REACHES 166 XXI WORD FROM HEADQUARTERS 176 XXII MOVES IN THE GAME OF LOVE 184 XXIII STORM CLOUDS 195 XXIV THE SOUL OF A MAN 206 XXV THE BROKEN CHAIN 215 XXVI ROCKY SPRINGS HEARS THE NEWS 221 XXVII AT THE HIDDEN CORRAL 235 XXVIII A WAGER 241 XXIX BILL'S FRESH BLUNDERING 256 XXX THE COMMITTEE DECIDE 261 XXXI ANTAGONISTS 265 XXXII TREACHERY 272 XXXIII PLAYING THE GAME 278 XXXIV AN ENCOUNTER 286 XXXV ON MONDAY NIGHT 296 XXXVI STILL MONDAY NIGHT 299 XXXVII THE NIGHT TRAIL 307 XXXVIII THE FALL OF THE OLD PINE 315 XXXIX FROM THE ASHES 327 XL THE DAWN 335 THE LAW-BREAKERS CHAPTER I WATCHING THE LINE There was no shade anywhere. The terrible glare of the summer sun beat down upon the whole length of the wooden platform at Amberley. Hot as was the dry, bracing air, it was incomparable with the blistering intensity of heat reflected from the planking, which burned through to the soles of the feet of the uniformed man who paced its length, slowly, patiently. This sunburnt, gray-eyed man, with his loose, broad shoulders, his powerful, easy-moving limbs, seemed quite indifferent to the irritating climatic conditions of the moment. Even the droning of the worrying mosquitoes had no power to disturb him. Like everything else unpleasant in this distant northwestern land, he accepted these things as they came, and brushed them aside for the more important affairs he was engaged upon. He gazed out across the wide monotony of prairie with its undulating wavelets, a tawny green beneath the scorching summer sun. He was thinking deeply; perhaps dreaming, although dreaming had small enough place in his busy life. His lot was a stern fight against crime, and, in a land so vast, so new, where crime flourished upon virgin soil, it left him little time for the more pleasant avenues of thought. Inspector Stanley Fyles came to a halt at the eastern end of the long platform. Miles of railroad track stretched away in a dead straight line toward the distant, shimmering horizon. For miles ahead the road was unbroken by a single moving object, and, after a long, keen survey, the man abruptly turned his back upon it. In a moment he became aware of a hollow-chested man hurrying toward him. He was coming from the direction of the only building upon the platform--the railroad office, or, as it was grandiloquently called, the "booking hall." Fyles recognized the man as the railroad agent, Huntly, who controlled the affairs of his company in this half-fledged prairie town. He came up in a flurry of unusual excitement. "She's past New Camp, inspector," he cried. "Guess she's in the Broken Hills, an' gettin' near White Point. I'd say she'd be along in an hour--sure." "Damn!" For once in his life Stanley Fyles's patience gave way. The man grinned. "It ain't no use cussin'," he protested, with a suggestion of malicious delight. "Y'see, she's just a bum freight. Ain't even a 'through.' I tell you, these sort have emptied a pepper box of gray around my head. Yes, sir, there's more gray to my head by reason of their sort than a hired man could hoe out in half a year." "Twenty minutes ago you told me she'd be in in half an hour." There was resentment as well as distrust in the officer's protest. "Sure," the man responded glibly. "That was accordin' to schedule. Guess Ananias must have been the fellow who invented schedules for local freights." The toe of Fyles's well-polished riding-boot tapped the superheated platform. His gray eyes suddenly fixed and held the ironical eyes of the other. "See here, Huntly," he said at last, in that tone of quiet authority which never deserted him for long. "I can rely on that? There's nothing to stop her by the way--now? Nothing at all?" But the agent shook his head, and his eyes still shone with their ironical light. "I'd say the prophet business petered out miser'bly nigh two thousand years ago. I wouldn't say this dogone prairie 'ud be the best place to start resurrectin' it. No, sir! There's too many chances for that--seein' we're on a branch line. There's the track--it might give way. You never can tell on a branch line. The locomotive might drop dead of senile decay. Maybe the train crew's got drunk, and is raisin' hell at some wayside city. You never can tell on a branch line. Then there's that cargo of liquor you're yearnin' to----" "Cut it out, man," broke in the officer sharply. "You are sure about the train? You know what you're talking about?" The agent grinned harder than ever. "This is a prohibition territory----" he began. But again Fyles cut him short. The man's irrepressible love of fooling, half good-humored, half malicious, had gone far enough. "Anyway you don't usually get drunk before sundown, so I guess I'll have to take your word for it." Then Inspector Fyles smiled back into the other's face, which had abruptly taken on a look of resentment at the charge. "I tell you what it is," he went on. "You boys get mighty close to the wind swilling prohibited liquor. It's against the spirit of the law--anyway." But the agent's good humor warmed again under the officer's admission of his difficulties. He was an irrepressible fellow when opportunity offered. Usually he lived in a condition of utter boredom. In fact, there were only two things that made life tolerable for him in Amberley. These were the doings of the Mounted Police, and the doings of those who made their existence a necessity in the country. Even while weighted down with the oppressive routine of his work, it was an inspiriting thing to watch the war between law and lawlessness. Here in Amberley, situated in the heart of the Canadian prairie lands, was a handful of highly trained men pitted against almost a world of crime. Perhaps the lightest of their duties was the enforcing of the prohibition laws, formulated by a dear, grandmotherly government in an excess of senile zeal for the welfare of the health and morals of those far better able to think for themselves. The laws of prohibition! The words stuck with Mr. Huntly as they stuck with every full-grown man and woman in the country outside the narrow circle of temperance advocates. The law was anathema to him. Under its influence the bettering, the purification of life in the Northwestern Territories had received a setback, which optimistic antagonists of the law declared was little less than a quarter of a century. Drunkenness had increased about one hundred per cent, since human nature had been forbidden the importation and consumption of alcohol in any form stronger than four per cent. beer. Huntly knew that Inspector Fyles was almost solely at work upon the capture of contraband liquor. Also he knew, and hated the fact, that his own duty required that he must give any information concerning this traffic upon his railroad which the police might require. Therefore there was an added vehemence in his reply to the officer's warning. "Sakes, man! What 'ud you have us do?" he cried, with a laugh that was more than half angry. "Do you think we're goin' to sit around this darned diagram of a town readin' temperance tracts, just because somebody guesses we haven't the right to souse liquor? Think we're goin' to suck milk out of a kid's feeder, just because you boys in red coats figure that way? No, sir. Guess that ain't doin'--anyway. I'm sousing all the liquor I can get my hooks on, an' it's all the sweeter because of you boys. Outside my duty to the railroad company I wouldn't raise a finger to stop a gallon of good rye comin' into town, no, not if the penitentiary was yearnin' to swallow me right up." Fyles's purposeful eyes surveyed the man with a thoughtful smile. "Just so," he said coolly. "That clause about 'duty' squares the rest. You'll need to do your duty about these things. That's all we want. That's all we intend to have. Do you get me? I'm right here to see that duty done. The first trip, my friend, and you won't talk of penitentiary so--easily." The quietness with which he spoke did not rob his words of their significance. Then he went on, just a shade more sharply. "Now, see here. When that freight gets in I hold you responsible that the hindmost car--next the caboose--is dropped here, and the seals are intact. It's billed loaded with barrels of cube sugar, for Calford. Get me? That's your duty just now. See you do it." Huntly understood Fyles. Everybody in Amberley understood him. And the majority recognized the deliberate purpose lying behind his calmest assurance. The agent knew that his protest had touched the limit, consequently there was nothing left him but to carry out instructions to the letter. He hated the position. His face twisted into a wry grin. "Guess you don't leave much to the imagination, inspector," he said sourly. Fyles was moving away. He replied over his shoulder. "No. Just the local color of the particular penitentiary," he said, with a laugh. CHAPTER II WHITE POINT Mr. Moss was the sole employe of the railroad company at White Point flag station. His official hours were long. They extended round the dial of the clock twice daily. Curiously enough, his leisure extended to practically the same limits. The truth was, in summer, anyway, he had no duties that could seriously claim him. Thus the long summer days were spent chiefly among his vegetables, and the bits of flowers at the back of the shanty, which was at once his home and his office, in short, White Point. Jack Huntly at Amberley grumbled at the unenlivening conditions of his existence, but compared with those of Mr. Moss he lived in a perfect whirlwind of gaiety. There was no police station at White Point. There were no farms in the neighborhood. There was not even a half-breed camp, with its picturesque squalor, to break up the deadly drear of the surrounding plains. The only human diversion that ever marred the calm serenity of the neighborhood was the rare visit of some lodge of Indians, straying from the reservation, some sixty miles to the south, on a hunting pass. But if White Point lacked interest from human associations its setting at least was curiously arresting. Nature's whim was the inspiration which had brought the station into existence. To the north, south, and west the prairie stretched away in the distance for untold miles; but immediately to the east quite another aspect prevailed. Here lay the reason of White Point station. Almost from the very foot of the walls of Mr. Moss's shanty the land rose up with, as it were, a jolt. Great forest-clad hills reared their torn and barren crests to enormous heights out of the dead level of the prairie. A tumbled sea of Nature's wreckage lay strewn about unaccountably, for a distance of something like two miles, east and west, and double that distance from north to south. It was an oasis of natural splendor in the heart of a calm sea of green grass. These strange hills necessitated a watchful eye upon the railroad track, which pierced their heart, in winter and spring. In summer there was nothing to exercise the mind of Mr. Moss. But in winter the track was constantly becoming blocked with snow, while during the spring thaw there was always the dread of a "wash-out" to disturb his nightly dreams. At such times these things kept the agent far more alive than he cared about. Just now, however, it was the height of summer, and no such anxieties prevailed. Therefore Mr. Moss fell back upon the less exciting pastime of a perspiry afternoon among his potatoes and other vegetable luxuries. He was hoeing the rows of potatoes with a sort of dogged determination to find interest in the work. He believed that physical effort was the only safety-valve for healthy feelings all too long bottled up. Even the streaming sweat suggested to him a feeling that it was at least hygienic, although the moist mixture of muddy consistency upon his face, merging with the growth of three days' beard, left his appearance something more than a blot upon the general view. Just now he had nothing to disturb the blank of his mind. The only possible interruption to the work in hand, of an official character, was the passing of a local freight train. However, a local freight was a matter of no importance whatever. It might come to-day, or it might come to-morrow. He would signal it through in due course, after that he didn't much care what happened to it. The potatoes fully occupied him, and as he came to the end of each row he took the opportunity of straightening out the crick in his back, and gazing upon his handiwork with the look of a man who feels he has surely earned his own admiration. Once he varied this procedure by glancing up while still in the middle of a row. His glance was sharp and startled. He had heard an unaccustomed sound, distinct but distant. It seemed to him that a horse had neighed. There came an answering neigh. It was quite disturbing. A long and careful scrutiny of the plains in every direction, however, left him with a feeling of doubt. There was no horse in sight anywhere, and the great hills adjacent offered no inducement whatsoever for any straying quadruped. He assured himself that the solitude of his life was rendering him fanciful, and forthwith returned to his work. For some time the measured stroke of his hoe clanked upon the baking soil, and later on he paused to fill and light his pipe. He had just cut the flakes of tobacco from his plug, and was rolling them in the palms of his hands, when the thought occurred to him to glance at the time. His great coin-silver timepiece pointed the hour when he felt he might safely signal the freight train through. Lounging round to the front of the station building he walked down the track to the foot of the semaphore, and flung the rusty lever over. His action expressed something of the contempt in which he held all "local freights." Then he sauntered back to his work with his pipe under full blast. But his day has yet surprises in store. In half an hour's time he received his second start. A distant rumble and grinding warned him that the freight was approaching through the hills. He smiled at the sound, and his smile was largely satirical. He glanced up once, but promptly continued his work. But it was only for a few moments. The sound which had been growing had almost died out and was being replaced by the hammering of the cars as they closed up against each other. The train was stopping. He was looking up now full of interest, and one hand went up to his head, and its fingers raked among the roots of his hair. Suddenly the engine bell began to clang violently. There was distinctly a note of protest in the sound. Something was wrong. He swung round and looked at his signal. Say--was he dreaming? What on earth----? Half an hour ago he had lowered the semaphore, at least he had set the lever over, and now--now it was set against the train! For a second he stared at the offending arm, then, as the bell clanged still more violently, he dashed across the intervening space to remedy his mistake. But now incident crowded upon him. He was quite right. The lever was set as it should be set. His practiced eye glanced rapidly down the connecting rod to discover the source of the trouble, and further amazement waited upon him. The explanation of the mystery lay before his eyes. There at the triangular junction, where the connecting rod linked with the down-haul of the semaphore, the bolt had fallen out, and the whole thing was disconnected. The bolt with its screw nut and washer were lying on the ground, where, apparently, they had fallen. The furious clanging of the engine bell, where the head of the train stood just in view round the bend of the track where it entered the hills, left him no time for consideration of the mishap. The protesting train must be passed on without further delay. Therefore, with deft hands, he quickly readjusted the bolt, and once again set the lever. This time the arm of the signal dropped. It was not until these things were accomplished that he had time to study the cause of the disconnection. Then, at once, a curious feeling of incredulity swept over him. It was an impossibility for the thing to have happened. The bolt fitted horizontally, and the washered nut had full two inches to unscrew! Besides this, the whole thing was well rusted with years of exposure. Yet the impossible had happened! He stood gazing at the bolt with a sort of uncanny feeling stirring within him. The engine at the head of its long string of box cars approached. It passed him, and he heard its driver hurl some uncomplimentary remark at him as the rattling old kettle clanked by. Then, as the last car passed him, and rapidly grew smaller as the distance swallowed it up, he turned back to his vegetable patch with the mystery still unsolved. * * * * * The journey through the hills was nearly over, and White Point was but a short distance ahead. The conductor and crew of the local freight were lounging comfortably in the caboose. The brakeman's life is full of risk and little comfort, and such moments as these were all too few. When they came they were more than gratefully received. Now the men were spread out in various attitudes of repose, and, for the most part, were half asleep. Suddenly, without the least warning, they were startled into full wakefulness by the familiar clatter, beginning at the head of the train and passing rapidly down its full length, as the cars closed up on each other. The resting men knew that the locomotive was either stopping, or had already come to a halt. The conductor, or head brakeman, sat up with a jolt. "Hey, you, Jack!" he cried peevishly. "Get up aloft an' get a peek out. Say, we sure ain't goin' to get held up at a bum flag layout." His contempt was no less for the flag station than Mr. Moss's for a local freight. The man addressed as "Jack" sprang alertly to the roof of the caboose. A moment later his voice echoed through the car below him. "Can't see a thing," he cried. "We're on the last bend, just outside White Point. She's stopped--dead sure. Guess the flag has got us held up." With a few added curses he clambered down into the car again. * * * * * As the brakeman left the roof of the caboose the enactment of a strange scene began at the fore part of the car immediately in front of it. A glance down at the coupling would have revealed the cautious appearance of a shock of rough hair covering a man's head from under the last box car. Slowly it twisted round till a grimy, dust-covered face was turned upward, and a pair of expectant eyes peered up at the tops of the two cars. Apparently the preliminary survey was satisfactory, for, in a moment, the head was withdrawn, only to be replaced by an outstretched bare hand and forearm. The hand reached up and caught the iron foot rail, gripping it firmly. Then another hand appeared, and with it came the same head again and part of a man's body. The second hand reached toward the coupling-pin, which, with a dexterous movement, was slowly and noiselessly removed. The pin was lowered to the length of its chain. Then, once more the hand reached toward the coupling. This time it seized the great iron link. This, without a moment's delay, was lifted from its hook and noiselessly lowered till it swung suspended from the car in front. Then both arms, head, and body vanished once more under the car, beneath which the man must have traveled for miles. * * * * * A few moments later the welcome jolting of couplings reached the crew in the caboose, who promptly settled themselves down to await the next call of duty. The conductor's relief at the brevity of the delay was expressed in smiling contempt at the expense of all flag stations. "Trust a darned outfit like that to hold you up," he cried witheringly. "They got to act fresh, or the company 'ud get wise they ain't no sort o' use on the line. Say----" But he broke off listening. The jolting had ceased. The grinding of wheels of the moving train was plainly heard. But--the caboose remained stationary. He leaped to his feet. "Hell!" he cried. "What the----" But the brakeman, Jack, was on his feet, too. With a bound he sprang at the door of the caboose. But instantly he fell back with a cry. Four gun muzzles were leveled at his body, and, behind them, stood the figures of two masked men. One of the two spoke in the slow easy drawl of the West, which lacked nothing in conviction. "Jest keep dead still--all o' you," he said. "Don't move--nor nothin', or we'll blow holes through your figgers that'll cause a hell of a draught. We ain't yearning to make no sort o' mess in this yer caboose. But we're going to do it--'cep' you keep quite still, an' don't worry any." The conductor was a man of wide experience on the railroad. He had seen many "hold-ups." So many, he was almost used to them. But without being absolutely sure of the purpose of these men he thanked his genius of good luck that he had not seen the "pay train" for nearly a month. He was quite ready to obey. For all he cared the raiders could take locomotive, train, caboose and all, provided he was left with a whole skin. CHAPTER III THE HOLD-UP Just beyond the flag station at White Point, where the forest-clad slopes of the great hills crowded in upon the railroad track, a scene of utter lawlessness was being silently enacted. The spot was a lonely one, lonely with that oppressive solitude always to be found where the great hills of ages rear their towering heads. It was utterly cut off, too, from the outer world, by a monstrous abutment of hill which left the track a mere ribbon, like the track of some invertebrate, laboriously making its way through surroundings all uncongenial and antagonistic. Yet the station was but a few hundred yards beyond this point, where it lay open to the sweep of at least three of the four winds of Heaven. But even so, the two places were as effectually separated as though miles, and not yards, intervened. No breath of air stirred the generous spruce and darkening pinewoods. The drooping, westering sun, already athwart the barren crown of the hill tops, left a false, velvety suggestion of twilight in the heart of the valley, while a depressing superheat enervated all life, except the profusion of vegetation which beautified the rugged slopes. For the most part the stillness was profound, only the most trifling sounds disturbing it. There was an uneasy shuffle of moving feet; there was the occasional crisp clip of a driven axe; then, too, weighty articles being dropped into the bottom of a heavy wagon sent up their dull boom at long intervals. The outlaws worked swiftly, but without apparent haste. The success of their efforts depended upon rapidity of execution, that and the most exact care for the detail of their organization. Provided these things were held foremost in their minds there was small enough chance of interruption. Had not the train, with its all unconscious driver, passed upon its rumbling way toward Amberley? Had not all suspicion been lulled in the mind of the bucolic agent, who was even now laboriously expending a maximum of energy for a minimum return of culinary delicacies in his vegetable patch? What was there to interfere? Nothing. These men well knew that except for the flag station there was not a habitation within ten miles, and the ruggedness of the hills barred them to every form of traffic except the irresistible impulse of railroad enterprise. Three men carried out the work of unloading the box car, while the two others held the train crew at bay. All were masked with one exception, and he, from his evident authority and mode of dress, was obviously the leader of the gang. He was a slight, dark man, of somewhat remarkable refinement of appearance. He was good looking, and almost boyish in the lack of hair upon his face. But this was more than counterbalanced by the determined set of his features, and the keen, calculating glance of his eyes. The latter, particularly, were darkly luminous and lit with an expression of lawless exhilaration as the work proceeded. Compared with his fellows, who were of the well-known type of ruffian, in whom the remoter prairie lands abound, he looked wholly out of place in such a transaction. His air was that of a town-bred man, and his clothing, too, suggested a refinement of tailoring, particularly the rather loose cord riding breeches he affected. The others, masked as they were, with their coatless bodies, and loose, unclean shirts, their leather chapps, and the guns they wore upon their hips--well, they made an exquisite picture of that ruffianism which bows to no law of civilization, but that which they carry in the leather holsters hanging at their waists. The trackside was strewn with disemboweled whitewood barrels. The wreckage was grotesque. The ground was strewn in every direction with a litter of white cube sugar, like the wind-swept drifts of a summer snowfall. Barrels were still being dragged out of the car and dropped roughly to the ground, where the sharp stroke of an axe ripped out the head, revealing within the neatly packed keg of spirit, embedded so carefully in its setting of sugar. The cargo had been well shipped by men skilled in the subtle art of contraband. It was billed, and the barrels were addressed, to a firm in Calford whose reputation for integrity was quite unimpeachable. Herein was the cunning of the smugglers. The sugar barrels were never intended to reach Calford. They were not robbing the consignees in this raid upon the freight train. They were simply possessing themselves, in unorthodox fashion, of an illicit cargo that belonged to their leader. Fifteen kegs of spirit had been removed and bestowed in the wagon. There were still five more to complete the tally. The leader, in easy tones, urged his men to greater speed. "Get a hustle, boys," he said, in a deep, steady voice, while he strove with his somewhat delicate hands to lift a keg into the wagon. The effort was too great for him single-handed, and one of his assistants came to his aid. "There's no time to spare," he went on a moment later, breathing hard from his exertion. "Maybe the loco driver'll whistle for brakes." He laughed with a pleasant, half humorous chuckle. "If that happens, why--why I guess the train'll be chasing back on its tracks to pick up its lost tail." He spoke with a refined accent of the West. The man nearest him guffawed immoderately. "Gee!" he exclaimed delightedly. "This game's a cinch. Guess Fyles'll kick thirteen holes in himself when that train gets in." "Thirteen?" inquired the leader smilingly. "Sure. Guess most folks reckon that figure unlucky." The third man snorted as he shouldered a keg and moved toward the Wagon. "Holes? Thirteen?" he cried, as he dropped his burden into the vehicle. Then he hawked and spat. "When that blamed train gets around Amberley he'll hate hisself wuss'n a bank clerk with his belly awash wi' boardin' house wet hash." Again came the leader's dark smile. But he had nothing to add. Presently the last keg was hoisted into the wagon. The leader of the enterprise sighed. It was a sigh of pent feeling, the sigh of a man laboring under great stress. Yet it was not wholly an expression of relief. If anything, there was regret in it, regret that work he delighted in was finished. One of the men was removing his mask, and he watched him. Then, as the face of the man who had been concealed under the car was revealed, he signed to him. "Get busy on the wagon," he said. The man promptly mounted to the driving seat, and gathered up the reins. "Hit the south trail for the temporary cache," the leader went on. "Guess we'll need to ride hard if Fyles is feeling as worried as you fellows--hope." The man winked abundantly. "That's all right, all right. He'll need to hop some when we get busy. Ho, boys!" And he chirrupped his horses out of the shallow cutting, and the wagon crushed its way into the smaller bush. The leader stood for a moment looking after it. Then he turned to the other man, still awaiting orders. "Get the other boys' horses up," he said sharply. "Then stand by on horseback, and hold the train crew while they tumble into the saddle. Then make for the cache." The man hurried to obey. There were no questions asked when this man gave his orders. Long experience had taught these men that there was no necessity to question. Hardy ruffians as they were they knew well enough that if they had the bodies for this work, he had a head that was far cleverer even than that of Inspector Fyles himself. Meanwhile the leader had moved out into the center of the track, and his eyes were turned westward, toward the bend round the great hill. They were pensive eyes, almost regretful, and somehow his whole face had changed from its look of daring to match them. The exhilaration had gone out of it; the command, even the determination had merged into something like weakness. His look was soft--even tender. He stood there while the final details of his enterprise were completed. He heard the horses come up; he heard the two men clamber from the caboose and get into the saddle. Then, at last, he turned, and moved off the track. Once more the old look of reckless daring was shining in his luminous eyes. He dashed off into the bush to mount his horse, leaving his softer mood somewhere behind him--in the West. There was a clatter and rattle of speeding hoofs, which rapidly died out. Then again the hills returned to their brooding silence. The withdrawal of the outlaws was the cue for absurd activity on the part of the train crew. A whirlwind of heated blasphemy set in, which might well have scorched the wooden sides of the car. They cursed everybody and everything, but most of all they cursed the bucolic agent at White Point. Then came a cautious reconnoitering beyond the door. This was promptly followed by a pell-mell dash for the open. In a moment they were crowding the trackside, staring with stupid eyes and mouths agape at the miniature snowfall of sugar, and the wreckage of whitewood barrels. The conductor was the first to gather his scattered faculties. "The lousy bums!" he cried fiercely. Then he added, with less ferocity and more regret, "The--lousy--bums!" A moment later he turned upon his comrades in the aggrieved fashion of one who would like to accuse. "'Taint no use in gawkin' around here," he cried sharply. "We're up agin it. That's how it is." Then his face went scarlet, as a memory occurred to him. "Say, White Point's around the corner. And that's where we'll find that hop-headed agent--if he ain't done up. Anyways, if he ain't--why, I guess we'll just set him playin' a miser-arey over his miser'ble wires, that'll set 'em diggin' out a funeral hearse and mournin' coaches in that dogasted prairie sepulcher--Amberley." * * * * * Mr. Moss was disentangling the crick in his back for the last time that day. His stomach had forced on him the conviction that his evening meal was a necessity not lightly to be denied. His back eased, he shouldered his hoe and moved off toward his shanty with the dispirited air of the man who must prepare his own meal. As he passed the lean-to, where his kindling and fuel were kept, he flung the implements inside it, as though glad to be rid of the burden of his labors. Then he passed on round to the front of the building with the lagging step of indifference. There was little enough in his life to encourage hopeful anticipation. At the door he paused. Such was his habit that his eyes wandered to the track which had somehow become the highway of his life, and he glanced up and down it. The far-reaching plains to the west offered him too wide a focus. There was nothing to hold him in its breadth of outlook. But as his gaze came in contact with the frowning crags to the east, a sudden light of interest, even apprehension, leaped into his eyes. In a moment he became a creature transformed. His bucolic calm had gone. The metamorphosis was magical. In one bound he leaped within the hut. Then, in a moment, he was back at the door again, his tensely poised figure filling up the opening. His powerful hands were gripping his Winchester, and he stood ready. The farmer in him had disappeared. His eyes were alight with the impulse of battle. Along the track, from out of the hills, ran four unkempt human figures. They were rushing for the flag station, gesticulating as they came. In the loneliness of the spot there was only one interpretation of their attitude for the waiting man. Mr. Moss's voice rang out violently, and caught the echo of the hills. "What in hell----?" he shouted, raising the deadly Winchester swiftly to his shoulder. "Hold up!" he went on, "or I'll let daylight into some of you." The effect of this challenge was instantaneous and almost ludicrous. The oncoming figures stopped, and nearly fell over each other in their haste to thrust their hands above their heads. Then the eager, anxious shout of the gray-headed brakeman came back to him. "Fer Gawd's sake don't shoot!" he cried, in terrified tones. "We're the train crew! The freight crew! We bin held up! Say----!" But the lowering of the threatening gun saved him further explanation at such a distance. The light of battle had entirely died out of Mr. Moss's eyes, but it was the brakeman's uniform, rather than his explanation, that had inspired the white flag of peace. The man came hastily up. "What the----?" began the agent. But he was permitted to proceed no further. The angry eyes of the brakeman snapped, and his blasphemous tongue poured out its protesting story as rapidly as his stormy feelings could drive him. Then, with an added violence, he came to his final charge of the agent himself. "What in hell did you flag us for?" he cried. "You, on this bum layout? Do you stand in with these 'hold-ups'? I tell you right here this thing's goin' to be just as red-hot for you as I can make it. That train was flagged _without official reason_," he went on with rising heat. "Get me? An' you're responsible." Having delivered himself of his threat, he assumed the hectoring air which the moral support of his companions afforded him. "Now, you just start right in and get busy on the wires. You can just hammer seven sorts of hell into your instruments and call up Amberley quick. You're goin' to put 'em wise right away. Macinaw! When I'm done with this thing you're goin' to hate White Point wuss'n hell, an' wish to Gawd they'd cut 'flag station' right out o' the conversation of the whole durned American continent." Mr. Moss had listened in a perfect daze. It was his blank acceptance of the brakeman's hectoring which had so encouraged that individual. But now that all had been told, and the man's harsh tones ceased to disturb the peace of their surroundings, his mind cleared, and hot resentment leaped to his tongue. He sat down at his instrument and pounded the key, calling up Amberley; and as the Morse sign clacked its metallic, broken note he verbally replied to his accuser. "You've talked a whole heap that sounds to me like hot air," he cried, with bitter feeling. "Maybe you're old, so it don't amount to anything. As for your bum freight it was late--as usual. It wasn't my duty to pass it through till you shouted for signals. There ain't any schedule for bum freights. When they're late it's up to them." But for all Mr. Moss's contempt, and righteous indignation, the brakeman's charge had had its effect. Well enough he remembered the disjointed connecting rod, and he wondered how these "hold-ups" had contrived it under his very nose. In his own phraseology, he felt "sore." But his ill humor was not alone due to the brakeman's abuse. He was thinking of something far more vital. He knew well enough that his explanation would never satisfy the heads of his department. Then, too, always hovering somewhere in the background, was the, to him, sinister figure of Inspector Fyles of the Mounted Police. CHAPTER IV AT THE FOOT OF AN AGED PINE Waiting for word from the agent, Huntly, Inspector Fyles had retreated to the insignificant wooden shack which served the police as a Town Station in Amberley. It consisted of two rooms and a loft in the pitch of the roof. Its furniture was reduced to a minimum, and everything, except the loft above where the two troopers and the corporal in charge slept, was a matter of bare boards and bare wooden chairs. The officer sat in the smaller inner room where the telephone was close to his hand, while the non-commissioned officer and his men occupied the outer room. Fyles faced the window with his hard Windsor chair close beside the office table. His elbow rested upon its chipped and discolored surface, and his chin was supported on the palm of his hand. Just now his busy thoughts were free to wander whithersoever they listed. This was an interim of waiting, when all preparations were made for the work in hand, and there was nothing to do but await developments. So used was he to this work of seizing contraband spirits that its contemplation had not power enough to quicken one single beat of his pulse. And in this, too, he displayed that wondrous patience which was so much a part of his nature. Stanley Fyles's reputation in these wild regions was decidedly unique. Scarcely a day passed but what some strenuous emergency arose demanding quick thought and quicker action, where life, frequently his own, hung in the balance. Yet the most strenuous of them found him always easy, always deliberate, and, as his subordinates loved to declare, he always managed to "beat the game by a second." There were people outside, civilians, who confidently and contemptuously declared him to be a bungler; a patient, hard-working bungler. These were the men who saw few of his successes, and always contrived to smell out his failures. These people were those who had no understanding of the difficulties of a handful of men pitted against a country eaten up with every form of criminal disease. There were others, again, who insisted that far more crime slipped through his well "oiled" hands than ever was held by them. These were the people who sneered at his reputation for stern discipline, and declared it to be a mere pose to cover his tracks, while he patiently piled up a fortune through the shady channels of "graft." A small minority admitted his ability, but averred that his patience erred on the side of slackness, which was one of the causes that the flood of prohibited liquor in the country showed no abatement. Nevertheless, one and all admitted his patience, whether it was in bungling, in harvesting his graft, or whether it was a form of slackness. Nor could they help doing so, for patience, a wonderful purposeful patience, was his greatest characteristic. Every other feature of his personality was subservient to it, and so it was that the most hardened criminals began at once a nervous scrutiny of their tracks the moment the news reached them that the lean nose of Stanley Fyles had caught their scent. Those who knew Fyles best ignored the patience which caught the public mind so readily. They saw something more beneath it, something much more to their liking. His patience only masked a keen, swift-moving, scheming brain, packed to the uttermost with a wonderful instinct for detection. He worked on no rule-of-thumb method as so many of his comrades did. He was the fortunate possessor of an imagination, and, long since, he had learned its value in his crusade against crime. But this man was by no means a mere detection machine. He was full of ambition. Police work was merely serving its purpose in his scheme of things. He saw advancement in it--advancement in the right direction. In five years he had raised himself from the lowest rung of the police ladder to a commissioned rank, and from this rank he knew he could reach out in any of the directions in which he required to proceed. There were several directions in which his ambitious eyes gazed. There were politics, with their multifarious opportunities for fortune and place. There was the land, crying aloud of the fortunes lying hidden within its bosom. There was official service upon higher planes, from which so many names were drawn to fill the roll of fame to be handed down to an adoring posterity. He was not yet thirty years of age, and he felt that any one of these things lay well within the focus his present position presented. But the time for his next move was not yet; and herein was the real man. In his mind there were still purposes which required complete fulfilment before that further upward movement began. It was the more human side of the man dictating its will upon him, that will which can never be denied when once it rouses from its slumbers amid the living fires which course through the veins of healthy manhood. Just now, as he leaned back in his unyielding chair, luxuriating in a comfort which only a man as hard as he could have extracted from it, the hot, living fires were stirring in his veins. His mind had gone back to a picture, one of the many pictures which so often held him in his scant leisure, that represented the first waking of those dormant fires of manhood. The scene was a memory forming the starting point of a long series of other pictures, which aways came with a rush, changing and changing with kaleidoscopic rapidity till they developed into a stream of swiftly flowing thought. It was the picture of a quaint, straggling prairie village, half hidden in the multi-hued foliage of a deep valley, as viewed from his saddle where his horse stood upon the shoulder of land which dropped away at his feet. It was one of those wondrous fairy scenes with which the prairie, in her friendlier moods, delights to charm the eye. Perhaps "mock" would better express her whim, for many of these fair settlements in the days of the Prohibition Laws were veritable sepulchers of crime, only whitewashed by the humorous mood of nature. Ten yards below him an aged pine reared its hoary, time-worn head toward the gleaming azure of a noonday summer sky. It was a landmark known throughout the land; it was the landmark which had guided him to this obscure village of Rocky Springs. It had been in his eye all the morning as he rode toward it, and as he drew near curiosity had impelled him to leave the trail he was on and examine more closely this wonderful specimen of a far, far distant age. But his inspection was never fully made. Instead, his interest was abruptly diverted to that which he beheld reposing beneath its shadow. A girl was sitting, half reclining, against the dark old trunk, with a sewing basket at her side, and a perfect maze of white needlework in her lap. She was not sewing, however, as he drew near. She was gazing out over the village below, with a pair of eyes so deep and darkly beautiful that the man caught his breath. Just for one unconscious moment Stanley Fyles had followed the direction of her gaze, then his own eyes came back to her face and riveted themselves upon it. She was very, very beautiful. Her hair was abundant and dark. Yet it was quite devoid of that suggestion of great weight so often found in very dark hair. There was a melting luster in the velvet softness of her deeply fringed eyes. Her features were sufficiently irregular to escape the accusation of classic form, and possessed a firmness and decision quite remarkable. At that moment the solitary horseman decided in his mind that here was the most beautiful creature he had ever looked upon. She was dressed in a light summer frock, through the delicate texture of which peeped the warm tint of beautifully rounded arms and shoulders. She was hatless, too, in spite of the summer blaze. To his fired imagination she belonged to a canvas painted by some old master whose portrayals suggested a strength and depth of character rarely seen in life. Even the beautiful olive of her complexion suggested those southern climes whence alone, he had always been led to believe, old masters hailed. To him it was the face of a woman whose heart and mind were crowding with a yearning for something--something unattainable. Such was her look of strength and virility that he almost regretted them, fearing that her character might belie her wondrous femininity. But in a moment he had denial forced upon him. The girl turned slowly, and gazed up into his face with smiling frankness. Her eyes took him in from his prairie hat to his well-booted feet. They passed swiftly over his dark patrol jacket, with its star upon its shoulder, and down the yellow stripe of his riding breeches. There was nothing left him but to salute, which he did as her voice broke the silence. "You're Inspector Stanley Fyles?" she said, with a rising inflection in her deep musical voice. The man answered bluntly. He was taken aback at the unconventional greeting. "Yes----" He cleared his throat in his momentary confusion. Then he responded to her still smiling eyes. "And--that's Rocky Springs?" he inquired, pointing down the valley. The information was quite unnecessary. The girl nodded. "Yes," she said, "a prairie village that's full of everything interesting--except, perhaps, honesty." The man smiled broadly. "That's why I'm here." The girl laughed a merry, rippling laugh. "Sure," she nodded. "We heard you were coming. You're going to fix a police station here, aren't you?" Then, as he nodded, her smile died out and her eyes became almost earnest. "It's surely time," she declared. "I've heard of bad places, I've read of them, I guess. But all I've heard of, or read of, are heavens of righteousness compared with this place. Look," she cried, rising from the ground and reaching out one beautifully rounded arm in the direction of the nestling houses, amid their setting of green woods, with the silvery gleam of the river peeping up as it wound its sluggish summer way through the heart of the valley. "Was there ever such a mockery? The sweetest picture human eyes could rest on. Fair--far, far fairer than any artist's fancy could paint it. It's a fit resting place for everything that's good, and true, and beautiful in life, and--and yet--I'd say that Rocky Springs, very nearly to a man, is--against the law." For a moment Fyles had no reply. He was thinking of the charm of the picture she made standing there silhouetted against the green slope of the far side of the valley. Then, as she suddenly dropped her arm, and began to gather up the sewing she had tumbled upon the ground when she stood up, he pulled himself together. He beamed an unusually genial smile. "Guess there are things we police need to be thankful for, and places like Rocky Springs are among 'em," he said, cheerfully. "I'd say if it wasn't for your Rocky Springs, and its like, we should be chasing around as uselessly as hungry coyotes in winter. The Government wouldn't fancy paying us for nothing." By the time he had finished speaking the girl's work was gathered in her arms. "That's the trail," she said abruptly, pointing at the path which Fyles had left for his inspection of the tree. "It goes right on down to the saloon. You see," she added slyly, "the saloon's about the most important building in the town. Good-bye." Without another word she walked off down the slope, and, in a moment, was lost among the generous growth of shrubs. This was the scene to which his mind always reverted. But there were others, many of them, and in each this beautiful girl's presence was always the center of his focus. He had seen and spoken to her many times since then, for his duty frequently took him into the neighborhood of that aged pine. But in spite of her frankness at their first meeting she quickly proved far more elusive than he would have believed possible, and consequently his intimacy with her had progressed very little. The result was a natural one. The man's interest in her was still further whetted, till, in time, he finally realized that the long anticipated move upwards, which he was preparing for, could no longer be made--alone. These were the thoughts occupying him now as he stared out through the dusty window at the scattered houses which lined Amberley's main street. These were the thoughts which conjured on his bronzed, strong features, that pleasant half-smile of satisfaction. He wanted her very much. He wanted her so much that all impulse to rush headlong and make her his was thrust aside. He must wait--wait with the same patience which he applied to all that which was important in his life, and, when opportunity offered, when the moment was ripe, he would make the great effort upon which he knew so much of his future happiness depended. Thus he was dreaming on pleasantly, hopefully, and yet not without doubts, when a sharp knock at his door banished the last vestige of romance from his mind. In an instant he was on his feet, alert and waiting. "Come!" His summons was promptly answered, and the tall figure of the corporal stood framed in the doorway. "Well?" The question came with the sharp ring of authority. "It's Huntly, sir," the man explained briefly. "He's got a message. There's been a 'hold-up' of the freight, just beyond White Point. The 'jumpers' have dropped off the two hindermost cars and held the crew prisoners. Seems the train was flagged on the bend out of the hills and then allowed to pass. While it was standing the cars were cut loose. Then the train came on without them. She's in sight now. Huntly's outside." The Inspector gave no sign while his subordinate talked. His eyes were lowered at a point of interest on the floor. At the conclusion of the man's brief outline he glanced up. "Has Huntly got the message with him?" "Yes, sir." Fyles made a move, and the other stepped back to let him pass out. The agent was waiting in the outer office. His eyes were wide with excitement. "Well? Where's the message?" the officer demanded. Huntly thrust a paper into his hand. "It just came through." Fyles took it, and his strong brows drew together as he read the long story of the "hold-up" which the man had taken down from his instrument. A deep silence prevailed while the officer read the news which so completely frustrated all his plans. At last he looked up. Favoring the man Huntly with one inquiring glance, he turned to the corporal. "It says here the brakeman heard the leader tell his men to make for the south trail. That was either bluff--or a mistake. They sometimes make mistakes, and that's how we get our chances. The south trail is the road into Rocky Springs. Rocky Springs is twenty-two miles from White Point. They've probably had an hour's start with a heavily loaded wagon. Rocky Springs is twenty-six from here by trail. Good. Say, tell the boys to get on the move quick. They'll strike the south trail about seven miles northeast of Rocky Springs. If they ride hard they should cut them off, or, any way, hit their trail close behind them." "Yes, sir." As Fyles turned back to the inner room and picked up the telephone, ignoring the still waiting agent, the corporal hurried away. In a moment the telephone bell rang out and the officer was speaking. "Yes, sir, Fyles. Yes, at the Town Station. I'm coming up to barracks right away. It's most important. I must see you. The whisky-runners have--doubled on us." CHAPTER V BOUND FOR THE SOUTHERN TRAIL Three uniformed men rode hard across the tawny plains. They rode abreast. Their horses were a-lather; their lean sides tuckered, but their gait remained unslackening. It was a gait they would keep as long as daylight lasted. Sergeant McBain's horse kept its nose just ahead of the others. It was as though the big, rawboned animal appreciated its rider's rank. Quite abruptly the non-commissioned officer raised an arm and pointed. "Yon's the Cypress Hills, boys," he cried. "See, they're getting up out of the heat haze on the skyline. We're heading too far south." He spoke without for a moment withdrawing the steady gaze of his hard blue eyes. One of the troopers answered him. "Sure, sergeant," he agreed. "We need to head away to the left." The horses swung off the line, beating the sun-scorched grass with their iron-shod hoofs with a vigor that felt good to the riders. The bronzed faces of the men were eager. Their widely gazing eyes were alert and watchful. They were trailing a hot scent, a pastime as well as a work that was their life. They needed no greater incentive to put forth the best efforts of bodily and mental energies. The uniform of these riders of the western plains was unassuming. Their brown canvas tunics, their prairie hats, their black, hard serge breeches, with broad, yellow stripes down the thighs, possessed a businesslike appearance not to be found in a modern soldier's uniform. These things were for sheer hard service. The life of these men was made up of hard service. It was demanded of them by the Government; it was also demanded of them by the conditions of the country. Lawlessness prevailed on these fair, sunlit plains; lawlessness of man, lawlessness of Nature. Between the two they were left with scarce a breathing space for those comforts which only found existence in dreams that were all too brief and transitory. Nominally, these men were military police, yet their methods were far enough removed from all matters martial. Theirs it was to obey orders, but all similarity ended there. Each man was left free to think and act for himself. Brief orders, with little detail, were hurled at him. For the rest his superiors demanded one result--achievement. A crime was committed; a criminal was at large; information of a contemplated breach of the peace was to hand. Then go--and see to it. Investigate and arrest. The individual must plan and carry out, whatever the odds. Success would meet with cool approval; failure would be promptly rewarded with the utmost rigor of the penal code governing the force. The work might take days, weeks, months. It mattered not. Nor did it matter the expense, provided success crowned the effort. But with failure resulting--ah, there must be no failure. The prestige of the force could not stand failure, for its seven hundred men were required to dominate and cleanse a territory in which half a dozen European countries could be comfortably lost. Presently Sergeant McBain spoke again. His steady eyes were still fixed upon the horizon. "Say, that's her," he said. "There she is. Coming right up like a mop head. That's the pine at Rocky Springs. Further away to the left still, boys." He turned his horse, and the race against time was continued. Somewhere ahead, on the southern trail, a gang of whisky smugglers were plying their trade. Inspector Fyles had said, "Go, and--round them up." The odds were all against these men, yet no one considered the matter. Each, with eyes and brain alert, was ready to do all of which human effort was capable. Now that definite direction over those wastes of grass had been finally located, the sergeant, a rough, hard-faced Scot, relaxed his vigilance. His mind drifted to the purpose in hand, and a dry humor lit his eyes. "Eh, man, but it's a shameful waste, spilling good spirit," he said, addressing no one in particular. "Governments are always prodigal--except with pay." One of the troopers sniggered. "Guess we could spill some of it, sergeant," he declared meaningly. "Spill it!" The sergeant grinned. "That isn't the word, boy. Spill don't describe the warm trickle of good liquor down a man's throat. Say, I mind----" The other trooper broke in. "Fyles 'ud spill champagne," he cried in disgust. "A man like that needs seeing to." The sergeant shook his head. "Fyles would spill anything or anybody that required spilling, so he gets his nose to windward of the game. He's right, too, in this God-forgotten land. If we didn't spill, we'd be right down and out, and our lives wouldn't be worth a second's purchase. No, boys, it breaks our hearts to spill--but we got to do it--or be spilt ourselves." The man shook his reins and bustled the great sorrel under him. The animal's response was a lengthening of stride which left his companions hard put to it to keep pace. The brief talk was closed. It had been a moment of relaxed tension. Now, once more, every eye was fixed on the shimmering skyline. They were eagerly looking out for the southern trail. Half an hour later its yellow, sandy surface lay beneath their feet, an open book for the reading. All three leaped from the saddle and began a close examination of it, while their sweating horses promptly regaled themselves with the ripe, tufty grass at the trail side. Sergeant McBain narrowly scrutinized the wheel tracks, estimating the speed at which the last vehicle to pass had been traveling. The blurred hoofmarks of the horses warned him they had been driven hard. "We're behind 'em, boys," he declared promptly, "an' their gait says they're taking no chances." Further down the trail one of the troopers answered him: "There's four saddle horses with 'em," he said thoughtfully. "Two shod, and two shod on the forefeet only. Guess, with the teamster, that makes five men. Prairie toughs, I'd guess." The sergeant concurred, while they continued their examination. Then the third man exclaimed sharply-- "Here!" he cried, picking something up at the side of the trail. The others joined him at once. He was quietly tearing open a half-burned cigarette, the tobacco inside of which was still moist. "Prairie toughs don't smoke _made_ cigarettes around here. It's a Caporal. Get it? That's bought in a town." "Ay," said McBain quickly. "Rocky Springs, I'd say. It's the Rocky Springs gang, sure as hell. It's the foulest hole of crime in the northwest. Come on, boys. We need to get busy." Two minutes later a moving cloud of dust marked their progress down the trail in the direction of Rocky Springs. Presently, however, the dust subsided. The astute riders of the plains were giving no chances away; they had left the tell-tale trail and rode on over the grass at its edge. * * * * * The westering sun was low on the horizon. The air was still. Not a cloud was visible anywhere in the sky. The world was silent. The drowsing birds, even, had finished their evensong. Low bush-grown hills lined the trail where it entered the wide valley of Leaping Creek, which, six miles further on, ran through the heart of the hamlet of Rocky Springs. It was a beauty spot of no mean order. The smaller hills were broken and profuse, with dark woodland gorges splitting them in every direction, crowded with such a density of foliage as to be almost impassable. Farther on, as the valley widened and deepened, its aspect became more rugged. The land rose to greater heights, the lighter vegetation gave way to heavier growths of spruce and blue gum and maple. These too, in turn, became sprinkled with the darker and taller pines. Then, as the distance gained, a still further change met the eye. Vast patches of virgin pine woods, with their mournful, tattered crowns, toned the brighter greens to the somber grandeur of more mountainous regions. The breathless hush of evening lay upon the valley. There was even a sense of awe in the silence. It was peace, a wonderful natural peace, when all nature seems at rest, nor could the chastened atmosphere of a cloister have conveyed more perfectly the sense of repose. But the human contradiction lay in the heart of the valley. It was the abiding place of the hamlet of Rocky Springs, and Rocky Springs was accredited with being the very breeding ground of prairie crime. Just now, however, the chastened atmosphere was perfect. Rocky Springs, so far away, was powerless to affect it. Even the song of the tumbling creek, which coursed through the heart of the valley, was powerless to awaken discordant echoes. Its music was low and soft. It was like the drone of the stirring insects, part of that which went to make up the atmosphere of perfect peace. The sun dropped lower in the western sky. A velvet twilight seemed to rise out of the heart of the valley. Slowly the glowing light vanished behind a bluff of woodland. In a few minutes the trees and undergrowth were lit up as though a mighty conflagration were devouring them. Then the fire died down, and the sun sank. But as the sun sank, a low, deep note grew softly out of the distance. For a time it blended musically with the murmuring of the bustling creek and the wakeful insect life. Then it dominated both, and its music lessened. Its note changed rapidly, so rapidly that its softer tone was at once forgotten, and only the harshness it now assumed remained in the mind. Louder and harsher it grew till from a mere rumble it jumped to a rattle and clatter which suggested speed, violence, and a dozen conflicting emotions. Almost immediately came a further change, and one which left no doubt remaining. The clatter broke up into distinct and separate sounds. The swift beat of speeding hoofs mingled with the fierce rattle of light wheels, racing over the surface of a hard road. All sense of peace vanished from the valley. Almost it seemed as if its very aspect had changed. A sense of human strife had suddenly possessed it, and left its painful mark indelibly set upon the whole scene. The climax was reached as a hard driven team and wagon, escorted by four mounted men, precipitated themselves into the picture. They came over the shoulder of the valley and plunged headlong down the dangerous slope, regardless of all consequences, regardless both of life and limb. The teamster was leaning forward in his seat, his arms outstretched, grasping a rein in each hand. He was urging his horses to their utmost. In his face was that stern, desperate expression that told of perfect cognizance of his position. It said as plainly as possible, however great the danger he saw before him, it must be chanced for the greater danger behind. Two of the horsemen detached themselves from the escort and remained hidden behind some bush at the shoulder of the hill. They were there to watch the approach to the valley. The others kept pace with the racing vehicle as the surefooted team tore down the slope. Rocking and swaying and skidding, the vehicle seemed literally to precipitate itself to the depths below, and, as the horses, with necks outstretched and mouths beginning to gape, with ears flattened and streaming flanks, reached the bottom, the desperate nature of the journey became even more apparent. There was neither wavering nor mercy in the eyes of the teamster and his escort as they pressed on down the valley. One of the escort called sharply to the teamster. "Can we make it?" he shouted. "Got to," came back the answer through clenched jaws. "If we got twenty minutes on the gorl darned p'lice they won't see us for dust. Heh!" The man's final exclamation came as one of his horses stumbled. But he kept the straining beast on its legs by the sheer physical strength of his hands upon the reins. The check was barely an instant, but he picked up the rawhide whip lying in the wagon and plied it mercilessly. The exhausted beasts responded and the vehicle flew down the trail, swaying and yawing the whole breadth of the road. The dust in its wake rose up in a dense cloud. Into this the escort plunged and quickly became lost to view behind the bush which lined the sharply twisting trail. Faster and faster the horses sped under the iron hand of the teamster, till distance took hold of the clatter and finally diminished it to a rumble. In a few minutes even the rising cloud of dust, like smoke above the tree tops, thinned and finally melted away, and so, once more, peace returned to the twilit valley. * * * * * A wagon was lumbering slowly toward Rocky Springs. It was less than a mile beyond the outskirts of the village, and already an occasional flash of white paint through the trees revealed the sides of some outlying house in the distance ahead. The horses were dejected-looking creatures, and their flanks were streaked with gray lines of caking sweat. They were walking, and the teamster on the wagon sat huddled down in the driving seat, an exquisite picture of unclean ease. He was a hard-faced, unwashed creature, whose swarthy features were ingrained with sweat and dirt. He was clad in typical prairie costume, his loose cotton shirt well matching the unclean condition of his face. One cheek was bulging with a big chew of tobacco, while the other sank in over the hollows left by absent back teeth. He certainly was unprepossessing. Even his contented smile only added to the evil of his expression. His contentment, however, was by no means his whole atmosphere. In fact, it was rather studied, for his eyes were alight and watchful with the furtive watchfulness so easy to detect in those of partial color. They suggested that his ears, too, were no less alert, and now and again this suggestion received confirmation in the quick turn of the head in a direction which said plainly he was listening for any unusual sound from behind him. One of these turns of the head remained longer than usual. Then, with quite a sharp movement of the body, he swung one of the great pistols hanging at his waist, so that its barrel rested across his thigh, and its butt was ready to his hand. Then, with a malicious chuckle, he took a firmer grip of his reins, and his jaded horses raised their drooping heads. The object of his change of attitude quickly became apparent, for, a few moments later, the distant sound of hoof-beats, far behind him, echoed through the still valley. He checked his horses still more, and it became evident that he wished those who were behind him to come up before he reached the village. The smile on his evil face became more humorous, and he spat out a stream of tobacco juice with great enjoyment. The sounds grew louder, and he turned about and peered down the darkening valley. There was nothing and no one in sight yet amid the woodland shadows. Only the clatter of hoofs was growing with each moment. He finally turned back and resettled himself. His attitude now became one of even more studied indifference, but his gun remained close to his hand. The sounds behind him were drawing nearer. His tired horses pricked their ears. They, too, seemed to become interested. The pursuers came on. They were less than a hundred yards behind. In a few moments they were directly behind. Then the man lazily turned his head. For some moments he stared stupidly at the three uniformed figures who had descended upon him. Then he suddenly sat up and brought his horses to a standstill. The policemen were surrounding his wagon. Sergeant McBain was abreast of him on one side, one trooper drew up his horse at the other side, while the third came to a halt at the rear of the wagon and peered into it. "Evenin', sergeant," cried the teamster, with deliberate cheeriness. "Makin' Rocky Springs?" McBain's hard blue eyes looked straight into the half-breed's face. He was endeavoring to fix and hold those dark, furtive eyes. But it was not easy. "Maybe," he said curtly. Then he glanced swiftly over the outfit. The sweat-streaked horses interested him. The nature of the wagon. Then, finally, the contents of the wagon covered with a light canvas protection against the dust. "Where you from?" he demanded peremptorily. "Just got through from Myrtle," replied the man, quite undisturbed by the other's manner. "Fourteen miles," said McBain sharply. "Guess your plugs sweated some. What's your name, and who do you work for?" "Guess I'm Pete Clancy, an' I'm Kate Seton's 'hired' man. Been across to Myrtle for fixin's for her." "Fixings?" The sergeant's eyes at last compelled the other's. There was something like insolence in the way Pete Clancy returned his stare. There was also humor. "Sure," he returned easily. "Guess you'll find 'em in the wagon ef you raise that cover. There's one of them fakes fer sewin' with. There's a deal o' fancy canned truck, an' say, the leddy's death on notions. Get a peek at the colors o' them silk duds. On'y keep dirty hands off'n 'em, or she'll cuss me to hell for a fust-class hog." McBain signed to the trooper at the rear of the wagon and the man stripped the cover off. The first thing the officer beheld was a sewing machine in its shining walnut case. Beside this was an open packing case filled with canned fruits and meats, and a large supply of groceries. In another box, packed under layers of paper, were materials for dressmaking, and a roll of white lawn for other articles of a woman's apparel. With obvious disgust he signed again to the trooper to replace the cover. Then Clancy broke in. "Say," he cried ironically, "ain't they dandy? I tell you, sergeant, when it comes to fancy things, women ha' got us skinned to death. Fancy us wearin' skirts an' things made o' them flimsies! We'd fall right through 'em an' break our dirty necks. An' the colors, too. Guess they'd shame a dago wench, an' set a three-year old stud bull shakin' his sides with a puffic tempest of indignation. But when it comes to canned truck, well, say, prairie hash ain't nothin' to it, an' if I hadn't been raised in a Bible class, an' had the feel o' the cold water o' righteousness in my bones, I'd never ha' hauled them all this way without gettin' a peek into them cans. I----" "Cut it out, man," cried the officer sharply. "I need a straight word with you. Get me? Straight. Your bluff'll do for other folks. You haven't been to Myrtle. You come from White Point, where you helped hold up a freight. You ran a big cargo of liquor in this wagon, which is why your plugs are tuckered out. You've cached that liquor in this valley, at the place you gathered up this truck. I don't say you aren't 'hired man' to Miss Seton in Rocky Springs, but you're playing a double game. You fetched her goods and dumped 'em at the cache, only to pick 'em up when you were through with your other game." The man laughed insolently. "Gee! I must be a ter'ble bad feller, sergeant," he cried. "Me, as was raised in a Bible class." His eyes twinkled as he went on. "An' I done all that? All that you sed, sergeant? Say, I'm a real bright feller. Guess I'll get a drink o' that liquor, won't I? It 'ud be a bum trick----" The sergeant's eyes snapped. "You'll get the penitentiary before we're through with you. You and the boys with you. We've followed your trail all the way, and that trail ends right here. We're wise to you----" "But you ain't wise where the liquor's cached," retorted the man with a chuckle. Then he looked straight into the officer's eyes. "Say," he cried with his big laugh. "You can talk penitentiary till you're sick. Ther' ain't no liquor in my wagon, an' if there ever has been any, as you kind o' fancy, it's right up to you to locate it, and spill it, an' not set right there keepin' me from my work." As he finished speaking, with elaborate display, he shook his reins and shouted at his horses, which promptly moved on. As the wagon rolled away he turned his head and spoke over his shoulder. "You can't spill canned truck an' sewin' machines, sergeant," he called back derisively. "That penitentiary racket don't fizz nothin'. Guess you best think again." The officer's chagrin was complete. It was the start the outlaws had had that had beaten him. This was the wagon; this was one of the men. Of these things he was convinced. There were others in it, too, but they----. He turned to his troopers. "I'd give a month's pay to get bracelets on that feller," he said with a grin that had no mirth in it. Then he added grimly, as he gazed after the receding wagon: "And I'm a Scotchman." CHAPTER VI THE MAN-HUNTERS The girl's handsome face was turned toward the valley below her. She was staring with eyes of dreaming, half regretful, yet not without a faint light of humor, at the nestling village in the lap of the woodlands, which crowded the heart of the valley, where the silvery thread of river wound its way. The wide foliage of the maple tree, beneath which she sat, sheltered her bare head from the burning noonday sun. And here, so high up on the shoulder of the valley, she felt there was at least air to breathe. The book on the ground beside her had only just been laid there; its pages, wide open, had been turned face downward upon the dry, grassless patch surrounding the tree trunk. Only a few feet away another girl, slight and fair-haired, was nimbly plying her needle upon a pile of white lawn, as to the object of which there could be small enough doubt. She was working with the care and obvious appreciation which most women display toward the manufacture of delicate underclothing. As her companion laid her book aside and turned toward the valley, the pretty needlewoman raised a pair of gray, speculative eyes. But almost at once they dropped again to her work. It was only for a moment, however. She reached the end of her seam and began to fold the material up, and, as she did so, her eyes were once more raised in the direction of her sister, only now they were full of laughter. "Kate," she said, in a tone in which mirth would not be denied, "do you know, it's five years to-day since we first came to Rocky Springs? Five years." She breathed a profound sigh, which was full of mockery. "You were twenty-three when we came. You are twenty-eight now, and I am twenty-two. We'll soon be old maids. The folks down there," she went on, nodding at the village below, "will soon be speaking of us as 'them two old guys,' or 'them funny old dears, the Seton sisters.' Isn't it awful to think of? We came out West to find husbands for ourselves, and here we are very nearly--old maids." Kate Seton's eyes wore a responsive twinkle, but she did not turn. "You're a bit of a joke, Hel," she replied, in the slow musical fashion of a deep contralto voice. "But I'm not a joke," protested the other, with pretended severity. "And I won't be called 'Hel,' just because my name's Helen. It--it sounds like the way Pete and Nick swear at each other when they've been spending their pay at Dirty O'Brien's. Besides, it doesn't alter facts at all. It won't take much more climbing to find ourselves right on the shelf, among the frying pans and other cooking utensils. I'm--I'm tired of it--I--really am. It's no use talking. I'm a woman, and I'd sooner see a pair of trousers walking around my house than another bunch of skirts--even if they belong to my beloved sister. Trousers go every time--with me." Kate withdrew her gaze from the village below and looked into her sister's pretty face with smiling, indulgent eyes. "Well?" she said. The other shook her fair head. Her eyes were still laughing, but their expression did not hide the seriousness which lay behind them. "It's not 'well' at all," she cried. She drew herself up from the ground into a kneeling position, which left her sitting on the heels of shoes that could never have been bought in Rocky Springs. "Now, listen to me," she went on, holding up a warning finger. "I'm just going to state my case right here and now, and--and you've got to listen to me. Five years ago, Kate Seton, aged twenty-three, and her sister, Helen Seton, were left orphans, with the sum of two thousand dollars equally divided between them. You get that?" Her sister nodded amusedly. "Well," the girl went on deliberately. "Kate Seton was no ordinary sort of girl. Oh, no. She was most _un_ordinary, as Nick would say. She was a sort of headstrong girl with an absurd notion of woman's independence. I--I don't mean she was masculine, or any horror like that. But she believed that when it came to doing the things she wanted to do she could do them just as well, and deliberately, as any man. That she could think as well as any man. In fact, she didn't believe in the superiority of the male sex over hers. The only superiority she did acknowledge was that a man could ask a woman to marry, while the privilege of asking a man was denied to Kate's sex. But even in acknowledging this she reserved to herself an alternative. She believed that every woman had the right to make a man ask her." The patient Kate mildly protested. "You're making me out a perfectly awful creature," she said, without the least umbrage. "Hadn't I better stand up for the--arraignment?" But her sister's mock seriousness remained quite undisturbed. "There's no necessity," she said, airily. "Besides, you'll be tired when I'm through. Now listen. Kate Seton is a very kind and lovable creature--really. Only--only she suffers from--notions." The dark-eyed Kate, with her handsome face so full of decision and character, eyed her sister with the indulgence of a mother. "You do talk, child," was all she said. Helen nodded. "I like talking. It makes me feel clever." "Ye--es. People are like that," returned the other ironically. "Go on." Helen folded her hands in her lap, and for a moment gazed speculatively at the sister she knew she adored. "Well," she went on presently. "Let us keep to the charge. Five years ago this spirit of independence and adventure was very strong in Kate Seton. Far, far stronger than it is now. That's by the way. Say, anyhow, it was so strong then that when these two found themselves alone in the world with their money, it was her idea to break through all convention, leave her little village in New England, go out west, and seek 'live' men and fortune on the rolling plains of Canada. The last part of that's put in for effect." The girl paused, watching her sister as she turned again toward the valley below. With a sigh of resignation Helen was forced to proceed. "That's five years--ago," she said. Then, dropping her voice to a note of pathos, and with the pretense of a sob: "Five long years ago two lonely girls, orphans, set out from their conventional home in a New England village, after having sold it out--the home, not the village--and turned wistful faces toward the wild green plains of the western wilderness, the home of the broncho, the gopher, and the merciless mosquito." "Oh, do get on," Kate's smile was good to see. "It's emotion," said Helen, pretending to dab her eyes. "It's emotion mussing up the whole blamed business, as Nick would say." "Never mind Nick," cried her sister. "Anyway, I don't think he swears nearly as much as you make out. I'll soon have to go and get the Meeting House ready for to-morrow's service. So----" "Ah, that's just it," broke in Helen, with a great display of triumph in her laughing eyes. "Five years ago Kate Seton would never have said that. She'd have said, 'bother the old Meeting House, and all the old cats who go there to slander each other in--in the name of religion.' That's what she'd have said. It's all different now. Gone is her love of adventure; gone is her defiance of convention; gone is--is her independence. What is she now? A mere farmer, a drudging female, spinster farmer, growing cabbages and things, and getting her manicured hands all mussed up, and freckles on her otherwise handsome face." "A successful--female, spinster farmer," put in Kate, in her deep, soft voice. Helen nodded, and there was a sort of helplessness in her admission. "Yes," she sighed, "and that's the worst of it. We came to find husbands--'live' husbands, and we only find--cabbages. The man-hunters. That's what we called ourselves. It sounded--uncommon, and so we used the expression." Suddenly she scrambled to her feet in undignified haste, and shook a small, clenched fist in her sister's direction. "Kate Seton," she cried, "you're a fraud. An unmitigated--fraud. Yes, you are. Don't glare at me. 'Live' men! Adventure! Poof! You're as tame as any village cat, and just as--dozy." Kate had risen, too. She was not glaring. She was laughing. Her dark, handsome face was alight with merriment at her sister's characteristic attack. She loved her irresponsible chatter, just as she loved the loyal heart that beat within the girl's slight, shapely body. Now she came over and laid a caressing hand upon the girl's shoulder. In a moment it dropped to the slim waist about which her arm was quickly placed. "I wish I could get cross with you, Helen," she said happily. "But I simply--can't. You know you get very near the mark in your funny fashion--in some things. Say, I wonder. Do you know we have more than our original capital in the bank? Our farm is a flourishing concern. We employ labor. Two creatures that call themselves men, and who possess the characters of--hogs, or tigers, or something pretty dreadful. We can afford to buy our clothes direct from New York or Montreal. Think of that. Isn't that due to independence? I admit the villagy business. I seem to love Rocky Springs. It's such a whited sepulcher, and its inhabitants are such blackguards with great big hearts. Yes, I love even the unconventional conventions of the place. But the spirit of adventure. Well, somehow I don't think that has really gone." "Just got mired--among the cabbages," said Helen, slyly. Then she released herself from her sister's embrace and stood off at arm's length, assuming an absurdly accusing air. "But wait a moment, Kate Seton. This is all wrong. I'm making the charge, and you're doing all the talking. There's no defense in the case. You've--you've just got to listen, and--accept the sentence. Guess this isn't a court of men--just women. Now, we're man-hunters. That's how we started, and that's what I am--still. We've been five years at it, with what result? I'll just tell you. I've been proposed to by everything available in trousers in the village--generally when the 'thing' is drunk. The only objects that haven't asked me to marry are our two hired men, Nick and Pete, and that's only because their wages aren't sufficient to get them drunk enough. As for you, most of the boys sort of stand in awe of you, wouldn't dare talk marrying to you even in the height of delirium tremens. The only men who have ever had courage to make any display in that direction are Inspector Fyles, when his duty brings him in the neighborhood of Rocky Springs, and a dypsomaniac rancher and artist, to wit, Charlie Bryant. And how do you take it? You--a man-hunter? Why, you run like a rabbit from Fyles. Courage? Oh, dear. The mention of his name is enough to send you into convulsions of trepidation and maidenly confusion. And all the time you secretly admire him. As for the other, you have turned yourself into a sort of hospital nurse and temperance reformer. You've taken him up as a sort of hobby, until, in his lucid intervals, he takes advantage of your reforming process to acquire the added disease of love, which has reduced him to a condition of imbecile infatuation with your charming self." Kate was about to break in with a laughing protest, but Helen stayed her with a gesture of denial. "Wait," she cried, grandly. "Hear the whole charge. Look at your village life, which you plead guilty to. You, a high-spirited woman of independence and daring. You are no better than a sort of hired cleaner to a Meeting House you have adopted, and which is otherwise run by a lot of cut-throats and pirates, whose wives and offspring are no better than themselves. You attend the village social functions with as much appreciation of them as any village mother with an unwashed but growing family. You gossip with them and scandalize as badly as any of them, and, in your friendliness and charity toward them, I verily believe, for two cents, you'd go among the said unwashed offspring with a scrub-brush. What--what is coming to you, Kate? You--a man-hunter? No--no," she went on, with a hopeless shake of her pretty head, "'tis no use talking. The big, big spirit of early womanhood has somehow failed you. It's failed us both. We are no longer man-hunters. The soaring Kate, bearing her less brave sister in her arms, has fallen. They have both tumbled to the ground. The early seed, so full of promise, has germinated and grown--but it's come up cabbages. And--and they're getting old. There you are, I can't help it. I've tripped over the agricultural furrow we've ploughed, and----. There!" She flung out an arm dramatically, pointing down at the slight figure of a man coming toward them, slowly toiling up the slope of the valley. "There he is," she cried. "Your artist-patient. Your dypsomaniac rancher. A symbol, a symbol of the bonds which are crushing the brave spirits of our--ahem!--young hearts." But Kate ignored the approaching man. She had eyes only for the bright face before her. "You're a great child," she declared warmly. "I ought to be angry. I ought to be just mad with you. I believe I really am. But--but the cabbage business has broken up the storm of my feelings. Cabbage? Oh, dear." She laughed softly. "You, with your soft, wavy hair, dressed as though we had a New York hairdresser in the village. You, with your great gray eyes, your charming little nose and cupid mouth. You, with your beautiful new frock, only arrived from New York two days ago, and which, by the way, I don't think you ought to wear sprawling upon dusty ground. You--a cabbage! It just robs all you've said of, I won't say truth, but--sense. There, child, you've said your say. But you needn't worry about me. I'm not changed--really. Maybe I do many things that seem strange to you, but--but--I know what I'm doing. Poor old Charlie. Look at him. I often wonder what'll be the end of him." Kate Seton sighed. It seemed as though there were a great depth of motherly tenderness in her heart, and just now that tenderness was directed toward the man approaching them. But the lighter-minded Helen was less easily stirred. She smiled amusedly in her sister's direction. Then her bright eyes glanced swiftly down at the man. "If all we hear is true, his end will be the penitentiary," she declared with decision. Kate glanced round quickly, and her eyes suddenly became quite hard. "Penitentiary?" she questioned sharply. Helen shrugged. "Everybody says he's the biggest whisky smuggler in the country, and--and his habits don't make things look much--different. Say, Kate, O'Brien told me the other day that the police had him marked down. They were only waiting to get him--red-handed." The hardness abruptly died out of Kate's eyes. A faint sigh, perhaps of relief, escaped her. "They'll never do that," she declared firmly. "Everybody's making a mistake about Charlie. I'm--sure. With all his failings Charlie's no whisky-runner. He's too gentle. He's too--too honest to descend to such a traffic." Suddenly her eyes lit. She came close to Helen, and one firm hand grasped the soft flesh of the girl's arm, and closed tightly upon it. "Say, child," she went on, in a deep, thrilling tone, "do you know what these whisky-runners risk? Do you? No. Of course you don't. They risk life as well as liberty. They're threatened every moment of their lives. The penalty is heavy, and when a man becomes a whisky-runner he has no intention of being taken--alive. Think of all that, and see where your imagination carries you. Then think of Charlie--as we know him. An artist. A warm-hearted, gentle creature, whose only sins are--against himself." But the younger girl's face displayed skepticism. "Yes--as we know him," she replied quickly. "I've thought of it while he's been giving me lessons in painting, when I've watched him with you, with that wonderful look of dog-like devotion in his eyes, while hanging on every word you uttered. I've thought of it all. And always running through my mind was the title of a book I once read--'Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.' You are sure, and I--I only wonder." Kate's hand relaxed its hold upon her sister's arm. Her whole expression changed with a suddenness which, had she observed it, must have startled the other. Her eyes were cold, very cold, as she surveyed the sister to whom she was so devoted, and who could find it in her heart to think so harshly of one whom she regarded as a sick and ailing creature, needing the utmost support from natures morally stronger than his own. "You must think as you will, Helen," she said coldly. "I know. I know Charlie. I understand the gentle heart that guides his every action, and I warn you you are wrong--utterly wrong. Everybody is wrong, the police--everybody." She turned away and moved a few steps down the slope toward the approaching figure. CHAPTER VII CHARLIE BRYANT As Kate stood out from the shadow of the trees, the man approaching, looking up, beheld her, and his dark eyes gladdened with a smile of delight. His greeting came up to her on the still air in a tone thrilling with warmth and deep feeling. "Ho, Kate," he cried, in his deeply musical voice. "I saw you and Helen making this way, and guessed I'd just get around." He was breathing hard as he came up the hill, his slight figure was bending forward with the effort of his climb. Kate watched him, much as an anxious mother might watch, with doubtful eyes, some effort of her ailing child. He reached her level and stood breathing heavily before her. "I was around watching the boys at work down there on the new church," he went on. His handsome boyish face was flushing. The delicate, smooth, whiskerless skin was almost womanish in its texture, and betrayed almost every emotion stirring behind it. "Allan Dy came along with my mail. When I'd read it I felt I had to come and tell you the news right away. You see, I had to tell someone, and wanted you--two to be the first to hear it." Kate's eyes were full of a smiling tender amusement at the ingenuousness of the man. Helen was looking on with less tenderness than amusement. He had not come to tell her the news--only Kate. The Kate whom she knew he worshipped, and who was the only rival in his life to his passionate craving for drink. She surveyed the man now with searching eyes. What was it that inspired in her such mixed feeling? She knew she had a dislike and liking for him, all in the same moment. There was something fascinating about him. Yes, there certainly was. He was darkly handsome. Unusually so. He had big, soft, almost womanish eyes, full of passionate possibilities. The delicate moulding of his features was certainly beautiful. They were too delicate. Ah, that was it. They were womanish. Yes, he was womanish, and nothing womanish in a man could ever appeal to the essentially feminine heart of Helen. His figure was slight, but perfectly proportioned, and quite lacking in any suggestion of mannish strength. Again the thought of it brought Helen a feeling of repugnance. She hated effeminacy in a man. And yet, how could she associate effeminacy with a man of his known character? Was he not the most lawless of this lawless village? Then there was his outward seeming of gentleness. Yes, she had never known him otherwise, even in his moments of dreadful drunkenness, and she had witnessed those frequently enough during the past few years. The whole personality of the man was an enigma to her. Nor was it altogether a pleasant enigma. She felt that somehow there was an ugly streak in him which her sister had utterly missed, and she only half guessed at. Furthermore, somehow in the back of her mind, she knew that she was not without fear of him. In spite of Kate's denial, when the man came under discussion between them, her conviction always remained. She knew she liked him, and she knew she disliked him. She knew she despised him, and she knew she feared him. And through it all she looked on with eyes of amusement at the absurd, dog-like devotion he yielded to her strong, reliant, big-hearted, handsome sister. "What's your news, Charlie?" she demanded, as Kate remained silent, waiting for him to continue. "Good, I'll bet five dollars, or you wouldn't come rushing to us." The man turned to her as though it were an effort to withdraw his gaze from the face of the woman he loved. "Good? Why, yes," he said quickly. "I'd surely hate to bring you two anything but good news." Then a shadow of doubt crossed his smiling features. "Maybe it won't be of much account to you, though," he went on, almost apologetically. "You see, it's just my brother. My big brother Bill. He's coming along out here to--to join me. He--he wants to ranch, so--he's coming here, and going to put all his money into my ranch, and suggests we run it together." Then he laughed shortly. "He says I've got experience and he's got dollars, and between us we ought to make things hum. He's a hustler, is Bill. Say, he's as much sense as a two-year-old bull, and just about as much strength. He can't see the difference between a sharp and a saint. They're all the same to him. He just loves everybody to death, till they kick him on the shins, then he hits out, and something's going to break. He's just the bulliest feller this side of life." Kate was still smiling at the man's enthusiasm, but she had no answer for him. It was Helen who did the talking now, as she generally did, while Kate listened. "Oh, Charlie," Helen cried impulsively, "you will let me see him, won't you? He's big--and--and manly? Is he good looking? But then he must be if he's your--I'm just dying to see this Big Brother Bill," she added hastily. Charlie shook his head, laughing in his silent fashion. "Oh, you'll see him all right. This village'll just be filled right up with him." Then his dark eyes became serious, and a hopeless shadow crept into them. "I'm glad he's coming," he went on, adding simply, "maybe he'll keep me straight." Kate's smile died out in an instant. "Don't talk like that Charlie," she cried almost sharply. "Do you know what your words imply? Oh, it's too dreadful, and--and I won't have it. You don't need anybody's support. You can fight yourself. You can conquer yourself. I know it." The man's eyes came back to the face he loved, and, for a moment, they looked into it as though he would read all that which lay hidden behind. "You think so?" he questioned presently. "I'm sure; sure as--as Fate," Kate cried impulsively. "You think that all--all weakness can be conquered?" Kate nodded. "If the desire to conquer lies behind it." "Ah, yes." The man's eyes had become even more thoughtful. There was a look in them which suggested to Helen that he was not wholly thinking of the thing Kate had in her mind. "If the desire to conquer is there," he went on, "I suppose the habits--diseases of years, even--could be beaten. But--but----" "But what?" Kate's demand came almost roughly. Charlie shrugged his slim shoulders. "Nothing," he said. "I--I was just thinking. That's all." "But it isn't all," cried Kate, in real distress. Helen saw Charlie smile in a half-hearted fashion. For some moments his patience remained. Then, as Kate still waited for him to speak, his eyes abruptly lit with the deep fire of passion. "Why? Why?" he cried suddenly. "Why must we conquer and fight with ourselves? Why beat down the nature given to us by a power beyond our control? Why not indulge the senses that demand indulgence, when, in such indulgence, we injure no one else? Oh, I argue it all with myself, and I try to reason, too. I try to see it all from the wholesome point of view from which you look at it, Kate. And I can't see it. I just can't see it. All I know is that the only thing that makes me attempt to deny myself is that I want your good opinion. Did I not want that I should slide down the road to hell, which I am told I am on, with all the delight of a child on a toboggan slide. Yes, I would. I surely would, Kate. I'm a drunkard, I know. A drunkard by nature. I have not the smallest desire to be otherwise, from any moral scruple. It's you that makes me want to straighten up, and you only. When I'm sober I'd be glad if I weren't. And when I'm not sober I'd hate being otherwise. Why should I be sober, when in such moments I suffer agonies of craving? Is it worth it? What does it matter if drink eases the craving, and lends me moments of peace which I am otherwise denied? These are the things I think all the time, and these are the thoughts which send me tumbling headlong--sometimes. But I know--yes, I know I am all wrong. I know that I would rather suffer all the tortures of hell than forfeit your--good will." Kate sighed. She had no answer. She knew all that lay behind the man's passionate appeal. She knew, too, that he spoke the truth. She knew that the only reason he made any effort at all was because his devotion to herself was something just a shade stronger than this awful disease with which he was afflicted. The hopelessness of the position for a moment almost overwhelmed her. She knew that she had no love--love such as he required--to give him in return. And when that finally became patent to him away would go the last vestige of self-restraint, and his fall would be headlong. She knew his early story, and it was a pitiful one. She knew he was born of good parents, rich parents, in New York, that he was well educated. He had been brought up to become an artist, and therein had lain the secret of his fall. In Paris, and Rome, and other European cities, he had first tasted the dregs of youthful debauchery, and disaster had promptly set in. Then, after his student days, had come the final break. His parents abandoned him as a ne'er-do-well, and, setting him up as a rancher in a small way, had sent him out west, another victim of that over-indulgence which helps to populate the fringes of civilization. The moment was a painful one, and Helen was quick to perceive her sister's distress. She came to her rescue with an effort at lightness. But her pretty eyes had become very gentle. She turned to the man who had just taken a letter from his pocket. "Tell us some more about Big Brother Bill," she said, with the pretense of a sigh. Then, with a little daring in her manner: "Do you think he'll like me? Because if he don't I'll sure go into mourning, and order my coffin, and bury me on the hillside with my face to the beautiful east--where I come from." The man's moment of passionate discontent had passed, and he smiled into the girl's questioning eyes in his gentle fashion. "He'll just be crazy about you, Helen," he said. "Say, when he gets his big, silly blue eyes on to you in that swell suit, why, he'll just hustle you right off to the parson, and you'll be married before you get a notion there's such a whirlwind around Rocky Springs." "Is he--such a whirlwind?" the girl demanded with appreciation. "He surely is," the man asserted definitely. Helen sighed with relief. "I'm glad," she said. "You see, a whirlwind's a sort of summer storm. All sunshine--and--and well, a whirlwind don't suggest the cold, vicious, stormy gales of the folks in this village, nor the dozy summer zephyrs of the women in this valley. Yes, I'd like a whirlwind. His eyes are blue, and--silly?" Charlie smiled more broadly as he nodded again. "His eyes are blue. And big. The other's a sort of term of endearment. You see, he's my big brother Bill, and I'm kind of fond of him." Helen laughed joyously. "I'm real glad he's not silly," she cried. "Let's see. He's big. He's got blue eyes. He's good looking. He's--he's like a whirlwind. He's got lots of money." She counted the attractions off on her fingers. "Guess I'll sure have to marry him," she finished up with a little nod of finality. Kate turned a flushed face in her direction. "For goodness sake, Helen!" she cried in horror. Helen's gray eyes opened to their fullest extent. "Why, whatever's the matter, Kate?" she exclaimed. "Of course, I'll have to marry Big Brother Bill. Why, his very name appeals to me. May I, Charlie?" she went on, turning to the smiling man. "Would you like me for--a--a sister? I'm not a bad sort, am I, Kate?" she appealed mischievously. "I can sew, and cook, and--and darn. No, I don't mean curse words. I leave that to Kate's hired men. They're just dreadful. Really, I wasn't thinking of anything worse than Big Brother Bill's socks. When'll he be getting around? Oh, dear, I hope it won't be long. 'Specially if he's a--whirlwind." Charlie was scanning the open pages of his letter. "No. Guess he won't be long," he said, amusedly. "He says he'll be right along here the 16th. That's the day after to-morrow." Helen ran to her sister's side, and shook her by the arm. "Say, Kate," she cried, her eyes sparkling with pretended excitement. "Isn't that just great? Big Brother Bill's coming along day after to-morrow. Isn't it lucky I've just got my new suits? They'll last me three months, and by the time I have to get my fall suits he'll have to marry me." Then the dancing light in her eyes sobered. "Now, where shall we live?" she went on, with a pretense of deep consideration. "Shall we go east, or--or shall we live at Charlie's ranch? Oh, dear. It's so important not to make any mistake. And yet--you see, Charlie's ranch wants some one _capable_ to look after it, doesn't it? It's kind of mousy. Big Brother Bill is sure to be particular--coming from the east." Her audience were smiling broadly. Kate understood now that her irresponsible sister was simply letting her bubbling spirits overflow. Charlie had no other feelings than frank amusement at the girl's gaiety. "Oh, he's most particular," he said readily. "You see, he's accustomed to Broadway restaurants." Helen pulled a long face. "I'm afraid your shack wouldn't make much of a Broadway restaurant." She shook her head with quaint solemnity. "Guess I never could get you right. Here you run a ranch, and make quite big with it, yet you never eat off a china plate, or spread your table with anything better than a newspaper. True, Charlie, you've got me beaten to death. Why, how you manage to run a ranch and make it pay is a riddle that 'ud put the poor old Sphinx's nose plump out of joint. I----" Kate suddenly turned a pair of darkly frowning eyes upon her sister. "You're talking a whole heap of nonsense," she declared severely. "What has the care of a home to do with making a ranch pay?" Helen's eyes opened wide with mischief. "Say, Kate," she cried with a great air of patronage, "you have a whole heap to learn. Big Brother Bill's coming right along from Broadway, with money and--notions. He's just bursting with them. Charlie's a prosperous rancher. What does B. B. B. expect? Why, he'll get around with fancy clothes and suitcases and trunks. He'll dream of rides over the boundless plains, of cow-punchers with guns and things. He'll have visions of big shoots, and any old sport, of a well-appointed ranch house, with proper fixings, and baths, and swell dinners and servants. But they're all visions. He'll blow in to Rocky Springs--he's a whirlwind, mind--and he'll find a prosperous rancher living in a tumbled-down shanty that hasn't been swept this side of five years, a blanket-covered bunk, and a table made of packing cases with the remains of last week's meals on it. That's what he'll find. Prosperous rancher, indeed. Say, Charlie," she finished up with fine scorn, "you know as much about living as Kate's two hired men, and dear knows they only exist." Suddenly she broke out into a rippling laugh. "And this is what my future husband is coming to. It's--it's an insult to me." The girl paused, looking from one to the other with dancing eyes. But the more sober-minded Kate slipped her arm about her waist and began to move down the hill. "Come along, dear," she said. "I must get right on down to the Meeting House. I--have work to do. You would chatter on all day if I let you." In a moment Helen was all indignant protest. "I like that. Say, did you hear, Charlie? She's accusing me, and all the time it's you doing the talking. But there, I'm always misjudged--always. She'll accuse me of trying to trap your brother--next. Anyway, I've got work to do, too. I've got to be at Mrs. John's for the new church meeting. So Kate isn't everybody. Come along." Helen's laughter was good to hear as she dashed off in an attempt to drag her elder sister down the hill at a run. The man looked on happily as he kept pace with them. Helen was always privileged. Her sister adored her, and the whole village of Rocky Springs yielded her a measure of popularity which made her its greatest favorite. Even the women had nothing but smiles for her merry irresponsibility, and, as for the men, there was not one who would not willingly have sacrificed even his crooked ways for her smile. Halfway down to the village Charlie again reverted to his news. "Helen put the rest of it out of my head," he said, and his manner of speaking had lost the enjoyment of his earlier announcement. "It's about the police. They're going to set a station here. A corporal and two men. Fyles is coming, too. Inspector Fyles." His eyes were studying Kate's face as he made the announcement. Helen, too, was looking at her with quizzical eyes. "It's over that whisky-running a week ago. They're going to clean the place up. Fyles has sworn to do it. O'Brien told me this morning." For some moments after his announcement neither of the women spoke. Kate was thinking deeply. Nor, from her expression, would it have been possible to have guessed the trend of her thoughts. Helen, watching her, was far more expressive. She was thinking of her sister's admiration for the officer. She was speculating as to what might happen with Fyles stationed here in Rocky Springs. Would her beautiful sister finally yield to his very evident admiration, or would she still keep that barrier of aloofness against him? She wondered. And, wondering, there came the memory of what Fyles's coming would mean to Charlie Bryant. To her mind there was no doubt but that the law would quickly direct its energies against him. But she was also wondering what would happen to him should time, and a man's persistence, finally succeed in breaking down the barrier Kate had set up against the officer. Quite suddenly this belated news assumed proportions far more significant than the coming of Big Brother Bill. Her tongue could not remain silent for long, however. Something of her doubt had to find an outlet. "I knew it would come sooner or later," she declared hopelessly. She glanced quickly at Charlie, across her sister, beside whom he was walking. The man was staring out down at the village with gloomy eyes. She read into his expression a great dread of this officer's coming to Rocky Springs. She knew she was witnessing the outward signs of a guilty conscience. Suddenly she made up her mind. "What--ever is to be done?" she cried, half eagerly, half fearfully. "Say, I just can't bear to think of it. All these men, men we've known, men we've got accustomed to, even--men we like, to be herded to the penitentiary. It's awful. There's some I shouldn't be sorry to see put away. They're scallywags, anyway. They aren't clean, and they chew tobacco, and--and curse like railroaders. But they aren't all like--that--are they, Kate?" She paused. Then, in a desperate appeal, "Kate, I'd fire your two boys, Nick and Pete. They're mixed up in whisky-running, I know. When Stanley Fyles gets around they'll be corralled, sure, and I'd hate him to think we employed such men. Don't you think that, Charlie?" she demanded, turning sharply and looking into the man's serious face. Then, quite suddenly, she changed her tone and relapsed into her less responsible manner, and laughed as though something humorous had presented itself to her cheerful fancy. "Guess I'd have to laugh seeing those two boys doing the chores around a penitentiary for--five years. They'd be cleaner then. Guess they get bathed once a week. Then the funny striped clothes they wear. Can't you see Nick, with his long black hair all cut short, and his vulture neck sticking out of the top end of his clothes, like--like a thread of sewing cotton in a darning needle? Wouldn't he look queer? And the work, too! Say, it would just break his heart. My, but they get most killed by the warders. And then for drink. Five years without tasting a drop of liquor. No--they'd go mad. Anybody would. And all for the sake of making a few odd dollars against the law. I wouldn't do it. I wouldn't do it, not if I'd got to starve--else." The man made no answer. His eyes remained upon the village below, and their expression had become lost to the anxious Helen. She was talking at him. But she was thinking not of him so much as her sister. She knew how much it would mean to Kate if Charlie Bryant were brought into direct conflict with the police. So she was offering her warning. Kate turned to her quietly. She ignored the reference to her hired men. She knew at whom her sister's remarks were directed. She shook her head. "Why worry about things, Sis?" she said, in her deliberate fashion. "Lawbreakers need to be cleverer folks than those who live within the law. I guess there won't be much whisky run into Rocky Springs with Fyles around, and the police can do nothing unless they catch the boys at it. You're too nervous about things." She laughed quietly. "Why, the sight of a red coat scares you worse than getting chased by a mouse." The sound of Kate's voice seemed to rouse Charlie from his gloomy contemplation of the village. He turned his eyes on the woman at his side--and encountered the half-satirical smile of hers--which were as dark as his own. "Maybe Helen's right, though," he said. "Maybe you'd do well to fire your boys." He spoke deliberately, but with a shade of anxiety in his voice. "They're known whisky-runners." Kate drew Helen to her side as though for moral support. "And what of the other folks who are known--or believed--to be whisky-runners--with whom we associate. Are they to be turned down, too? No, Charlie," she went on determinedly, "I stand by my boys. I'll stand by my friends, too. Maybe they'll need all the help I can give them. Then it's up to me to give it them. Fyles must do his duty as he sees it. Our duty is by our friends here, in Rocky Springs. Whatever happens in the crusade against this place, I am against Fyles. I'm only a woman, and, maybe, women don't count much with the police," she said, with a confident smile, "but such as I am, I am loyal to all those who have helped me in my life here in Rocky Springs, and to my--friends." The man drew a deep breath. Nor was it easy to fathom its meaning. Helen, eyeing her well-loved sister, could have thrown her young arms about her neck in enthusiasm. This was the bold sister whom she had so willingly followed to the western wilds. This was the spirit she had deplored the waning of. All her apprehensions for Charlie Bryant vanished, merged in a newly awakened confidence, since her brave sister was ready to help and defend him. She felt that Fyles's coming to Rocky Springs was no longer to be feared. Only was it a source of excitement and interest. She felt that though, perhaps, he might never have met his match during the long years of his duties as a police officer, he had yet to pit himself against Rocky Springs--with her wonderful sister living in the village. CHAPTER VIII THE SOUL-SAVERS Helen parted from her sister at the little old Meeting House. But first she characteristically admonished her for offering herself a sacrifice on the altar of the moral welfare of a village which reveled in every form of iniquity within its reach. Furthermore, she threw in a brief homily on the subject of the outrageous absurdity of turning herself into a sort of "hired woman" in the interests of a sepulcher whose whitewash was so obviously besmirched. With the departure of the easy-going Kate, Charlie Bryant suddenly awoke to the claims of the work at his ranch. He must return at once, or disaster would surely follow. Helen smiled at his sudden access of zeal, and welcomed his going without protest. Truth to tell, she never failed to experience a measure of relief at the avoidance of being alone with him. Left to herself she moved on down toward the village without haste. Her enthusiasm for the new church meeting at the house of Mrs. John Day, who was the leading woman in the village, and, incidentally, the wife of its chief citizen, who also owned a small lumber yard, was of a lukewarm character. She had much more interest in the building itself, and the motley collection of individuals in whose hands its practical construction lay. She possessed none of her sister's interest in Rocky Springs. Her humor denied her serious contemplation of anything in it but the opposite sex. And even here it frequently trapped her into pitfalls which demanded the utmost exercise of her ready wit to extricate her from. No, serious contemplation of her surroundings would have certainly bored her, had it been possible to shadow her sunny nature. Fortunately, the latter was beyond the reach of the sordid life in the midst of which she found herself, and she never failed to laugh her merry way to those plains of delight belonging to an essentially happy disposition. As she walked down the narrow trail, with the depths of green woods lining it upon either hand, she remembered how beautiful the valley really was. Of course, it was beautiful. She knew it. Was she not always being told it? She was never allowed to forget it. Sometimes she wished she could. Down the trail a perfect vista of riotous foliage opened out before her eyes. There, too, in the distance, peeping through the trees, were scattered profiles of oddly designed houses, possessing a wonderful picturesqueness to which they had no real claims. They borrowed their beauty from the wealth of the valley, she told herself. Like the people who lived in them, they had no claims to anything bordering on the refinements or virtues of life. No, they were mockeries, just as was the pretense of virtue which inspired the building of the new church by a gathering of men and women, who, if they had their deserts, would be attending divine service within the four walls of the penitentiary. She laughed. Really it was absurdly laughable. Life in this wonderful valley was something in the nature of a tragic farce. The worst thing was that the farce of it all could only be detected by the looker-on. There was no real farce in these people, only tragedy--a very painful and hideous tragedy. On her way down she passed the great pine which for years had served as a beacon marking the village. It was higher up on the slope of the valley, but its vast trunk and towering crest would not be denied. Helen gazed up at it, wondering, as many times she had gazed and wondered before. It was a marvelous survival of primæval life. It was so vast, so forbidding. Its torn crown, so sparse and weary looking, its barren trunk, too, dark and forbidding against the dwarfed surroundings of green, were they not a fit beacon for the village below? It suggested to her imagination a giant, mouldering skeleton of some dreadfully evil creature. How could virtue maintain in its vicinity? She laughed again as she thought. She knew there was some weird old legend associated with it, some old Indian folklore. But that left no impression of awe upon her laughter-loving nature. Farther on the new church came into view. It was in the course of construction, and at once her attention became absorbed. Here was a scene which thoroughly appealed to her. Here was movement, and--life. Here was food for her most appreciative observation. It was a Church. Not a Meeting House. Not even a Chapel. She felt quite sure, had the villagers had their way, it would have been called a Cathedral. There was nothing half-hearted about these people. They recognized the necessity of giving their souls a lift up, with a view to an after life, and they meant to do it thoroughly. They had no intention of mending their ways. They had no thought of abandoning any of their pursuits or pleasures, be they never so deplorable. But they felt that something had better be done toward assurance of their futures. A Meeting House suggested something too inadequate to meet their special case. It was right enough as far as it went, but it didn't go far enough. They realized the journey might be very long and the ultimate destination uncertain. A Chapel had its claims in their minds, but Church seemed much stronger, bigger, more powerful to help them in those realms of darkness to which they must all eventually descend. Of course, Cathedral would have been _the_ thing. With a cathedral in Rocky Springs they would have felt certain of their hereafter. But the difficulties of laying hands on a bishop, and claiming him for their own, seemed too overwhelming. So they accepted Church as being the best they could do under the circumstances. Quite a number of men were standing idly around the structure, watching others at work. It was a weakness of the citizens of Rocky Springs to watch others work. They had no desire to help. They rarely were beset with any desire to help anybody. They simply clustered together in small groups, chewing tobacco, or smoking, and, to a man, their hands were indolently thrust into the tops of their trousers, which, in every case, were girdled with a well-laden ammunition belt, from which was suspended at least one considerable revolver. There was no doubt in Helen's mind but that these weapons were loaded in every chamber, and the thought set her merry eyes dancing again. These men wanted a church, and were there to see they had it. Woe betide--but, was there ever such a gathering of unclean, unholy humanity? She thought not. Helen knew that every man and woman in the village had had some voice in the erection of the new church. There was not a citizen--they all possessed the courtesy title of "citizens"--in Rocky Springs, who had not contributed something toward it. Those who had wherewithal to give in money or kind, had given. Those who had nothing else to give gave their labor. She guessed the present onlookers had already done their share of giving, and were now there to see that their less fortunate brethren did not attempt to shirk their responsibilities. For a moment, as the girl drew near, she abandoned her study of the men for a rapid survey of the building itself, and, in a way, it held her flattering attention. As yet there was no roof on it, but the walls were up, and the picturesqueness of the design of the building was fully apparent. Then she remembered that Charlie Bryant had designed the building, and somehow the thought lessened her interest. The whole thing was constructed of lateral, raw pine logs, carefully dovetailed, with the ends protruding at the angles. There was no great originality of design, merely the delightful picturesqueness which unstripped logs never fail to yield. She knew that every detail of the building was to be carried out in the same way. The roof, the spire, the porches, even the fence which was ultimately to enclose the churchyard. Then the inside was to be lined throughout with polished red pine. There was not a brick or stone to be used in the whole construction, except in the granite foundations, which did not appear above ground. The lumber was hewn in the valley and milled in John Day's yard. The entire labor of hauling and building was to be done by the citizens of Rocky Springs. The draperies, necessary for the interior, would be made by the busy needles of the women of the village, and the materials would be supplied by Billy Unguin, the dry goods storekeeper. As for the stipend of the officiating parson, that would be scrambled together in cash and kind from similar sources. The church was to be a monument, a tribute to a holy zeal, which the methods of life in Rocky Springs denied. Its erection was an attempt to steal absolution for the sins of its citizens. It was the pouring of a flood of oil upon the turbulent waters of an after life which Rocky Springs knew was waiting to engulf its little craft laden with tattered souls. It was a practical bribe to the Deity its people had so long outraged, were still outraging, and had every intention of continuing to outrage. Helen's merry eyes glanced from group to group of the men, until they finally came to rest upon an individual standing apart from the rest. She walked on toward him. He was a forbidding-looking creature, with a hard face, divided in its expression between evil thoughts and a malicious humor. His general appearance was much that of the rest of the men, with the exception that he made no display of offensive weapons. It was not this, however, that drew Helen in his direction, for she well enough knew that, in fact, he was a perfect gunpark of concealed firearms. She liked him because he never failed to amuse her. "Good morning, Dirty," she greeted him cheerfully, as she came up, smiling into his bearded face. Dirty O'Brien turned. In a moment his wicked eyes were smiling. With an adept twist of the tongue his chew of tobacco ceased to bulge one cheek, and promptly distended the other. "Howdy," he retorted, with as much amiability as it was possible for him to display. The girl nodded in the direction of the other onlookers. "It's wonderful the interest you all take in the building of this church." "Int'rest?" The man's eyes opened wide. Then a gleam of scorn replaced the surprise in them. "Guess you'd be mighty int'rested if you was sittin' on a roof with the house afire under you, an' you just got a peek of a ladder wagon comin' along, an' was guessin' if it 'ud get around in time." Helen's eyes twinkled. "I s'pose I should," she admitted. "S'pose nuthin'." The saloonkeeper laughed a short, hard laugh. "It's dead sure. But most of them boys are feelin' mighty good. You see, the ladders mostly fixed for 'em. I'd say they reckon that fire's as good as out." The interest of the onlookers was purely passive. They displayed none of the enthusiasm one might have expected in men who considered that the safety of their souls was assured. Helen remarked upon the fact. "Their enthusiasm's wonderful," she declared, with a satirical laugh. "Do you think they'll ever be able to use swear words again?" Dirty O'Brien grinned till his discolored teeth parted the hair upon his face. "Say, I don't reckon to set myself up as a prophet at most things," he replied, "but I'd like to say right here, the fixin' of that all-fired chu'ch is jest about the limit fer the morals of this doggone city. Standin' right here I seem to sort o' see a vision o' things comin' on like a pernicious fever. I seem to see all them boys--good boys, mind you, as far as they go--only they don't travel more'n 'bout an inch--lyin', an' slanderin', an' thievin', an' shootin', an'--an' committin' every blamed sin ever invented since Pharo's daughter got busy makin' up fairy yarns 'bout them bulrushes----" "I don't think you ought to talk like that," Helen protested hastily. "There's no necessity to make----" But Dirty O'Brien was not to be denied. He promptly cut her short without the least scruple. "No necessity?" he cried, with a sarcasm that left the girl speechless. "How in hell would you have me talk standin' around a swell chu'ch like that? I tell you what, Miss Helen, you ain't got this thing right. Within a month this durned city'll all be that mussed up with itself an' religion, the folks'll grow a crop o' wings enough to stock a chicken farm, an' the boys'll get scratchin' around for worms, same as any other feathered fowl. They'll get that out o' hand with their own glory, they'll get shootin' up creation in the name of religion by way o' pastime, and robbin' the stages an' smugglin' liquor fer the fun o' gettin' around this blamed church an' braggin' of it to the parson. Say, if I know anything o' the boys, in a week they'll be shootin' craps with the parson fer his wages, an', in a month, they'll set up tables around in the body o' the chu'ch so they ken play 'draw' while the old man argues the shortest cut to everlastin' glory. You ain't got the boys in this city right, miss. Indeed, you ain't. Chu'ch? Why they got as much notion how to act around a chu'ch as an unborn babe has of shellin' peanuts. Folks needs eddicatin' to a chu'ch like that. Eddicatin'? An' that's a word as ain't a cuss word, and as the boys of this yer city ain't wise to." "It seems rather hopeless, doesn't it?" said Helen, stifling a violent inclination to laugh outright. Dirty O'Brien was less scrupulous. He laughed with a vicious snort. "Hopeless?--well, say, hopeless ain't a circumstance. Guess you've never seen a 'Jonah-man' buckin' a faro bank run by a Chinaman sharp?" Helen shook her head while the saloonkeeper spat out his chew of tobacco with all the violence of his outraged feelings. "He surely is a gilt-edged winner beside it," he finally admitted impressively, before clipping off a fresh chew from his plug with his strong teeth. Helen turned away, partly to hide the laugh that would no longer be denied, and partly to watch the approach of a team of horses hauling a load of logs. In a moment swift anger shone in her pretty eyes. "Why!" she cried, pointing at them. "Look, Dirty! That's our team; and Pete Clancy is driving it." The man followed the direction in which she was pointing. "Sure," he agreed indifferently. "Sure? Of course it's sure," retorted Helen sharply; "but what--what--impertinence!" Dirty O'Brien saw nothing remarkable in the matter, and his face displayed a waning interest. "Don't he most gener'ly drive your team?" he inquired without enthusiasm. "Of course he does. But he's s'posed to be right out in the hay sloughs--cutting. I heard Kate tell him this morning." O'Brien's eyes twinkled, and a deep chuckle came from somewhere in the depths of his beard. "Ken you beat it?" he inquired, with cordial appreciation. "Do you get his play?" "Play?" The girl turned a pair of angry, bewildered eyes upon her companion. "Impertinence!" The man nodded significantly. "Sure. Them two scallywags of yours ain't got nothin' to give to the building of the chu'ch. Which means they'll need to get busy workin' on it. Guess work never did come welcome to Mister Peter Clancy and Nick. They hate work worse'n washin'--an' that's some. Guess they borrowed your team to do a bit o' haulin', which--kind o' squares their account. They're bright boys." "Bright? They're impertinent rascals and--and--oh!" Helen's exasperation left her almost speechless. "Which is mighty nigh a compliment to them," observed the man. But Helen's sense of humor utterly failed her now. "It's--too bad, Dirty," she cried. "And poor Kate thinks they're out cutting our winter hay. I begged of her only this morning to 'fire' them both. I'm--I'm sure they're going to get us into trouble when--when the police come here. I hate the sight of them both. Last time Pete got drunk he--he very nearly asked me to marry him. I believe he would have, only I had a bucket of boiling water in my hand." Again came the man's curious chuckle. "It won't be you folks they get into trouble," he declared enigmatically. "An' I guess it ain't goin' to be 'emselves, neither. But when the p'lice get hot after 'em, why, they'll shift the scent--sure." Helen's eyes had suddenly become anxious. "You mean--Charlie Bryant," she half whispered. The man nodded. "Sure. An' anybody else, so--_they_ get clear." O'Brien's eyes hardened as they contemplated the distant teamster. "Say," he went on, after a brief pause, "there are some low-down bums in this city. There's Shorty Solon, the Jew boy. He's wanted across the border fer shootin' up a bank manager, and gettin' off with the cash. Ther's Crank Heufer, the squarehead stage robber, shot up more folks, women, too, in Montana than 'ud populate a full-sized city. Ther's Kid Blaney, the faro sharp, who broke penitentiary in Dakota twelve months back. Ther's Macaddo, the train 'hold-up,' mighty badly wanted in Minnesota. Ther's Stormy Longton, full of scalps to his gun, a bad man by nature. Ther's Holy Dick, over there," he went on, pointing at a gray-bearded, mild-looking man, sitting on a log beside a small group of lounging spectators. "He owes the States Government seven good years for robbing a church. Ther's Danny Jarvis and Fighting Mike, both of 'em dodgin' the law, an' would shoot their own fathers up fer fi' cents. It's a dandy tally of crooks, but they ain't a circumstance beside them two boys of yours. They're bred bad 'uns, an' they couldn't play even the crook's game right. I'd sure say they'd be a fortune to Fyles, when he gets busy cleaning up this place. They'd give Satan away if they see things gettin' busy their way." The anxiety deepened in Helen's eyes as the man denounced the two men who were her sister's hired help. She knew that all he said of them was true. She had known it for months. Now she was thinking of Charlie Bryant and Kate. If Fyles ever got hold of Charlie it would break poor Kate's heart. "You think they'd give--any one away?" The man shook his head. "I don't think. Guess I know." Then, after a pause, he went on, speaking rapidly and earnestly. "See here, Miss Helen, I don't hold no brief fer nobody but myself, an' I guess that brief needs a hell of a piece of studyin' right. There's things in it I don't need to shout about, and anyway I don't fancy Fyles's long nose smudging the ink on it. You an' Miss Kate are jest about two o' the most wholesome bits o' women in this township, an' there ain't many of us as wouldn't fix ourselves up clean an' neat to pay our respec's to either of you. Wal, Miss Kate's got a hell of a notion for that drunken bum, Charlie Bryant. That bein' so, tell her to keep a swift eye on her two boys. They're in with him, sure, an' they'll put him away if it suits 'em. Savee? Tell her I said so--since Fyles is goin' to butt in around here. I don't want to see Charlie Bryant in a stripe soot, penitentiary way. I need him. An' I need the liquor he runs." The man turned away abruptly. He had broken the unwritten law of Rocky Springs, where it was understood that no man spoke of another man's past, or questioned his present doings, or even admitted knowledge of them. But like all the rest of the male portion of Rocky Springs, he possessed a soft spot in his vicious heart for the two sisters, who, in the mire of iniquity which flooded the township, contrived a clean, wholesome living out of the soil, and were womanly enough to find interest, and even pleasure, in their sordid surroundings. Now, he hurried off down to his saloon, much in the manner of a man who fears the consequences of feelings which have been allowed to run away with him. Left to herself, Helen only remained long enough to pass a few cheery greetings with the rest of the onlookers; then she, too, took her departure. For some moments she certainly was troubled by the direct warning of a man like Dirty O'Brien. With all the many criminal attainments of the other citizens of Rocky Springs, she knew him to be the shrewdest man in the place. A warning from him was more than significant. What should she do? Tell her sister? Certainly she would do that, but she felt it to be well-nigh useless. Kate was the gentlest soul in the world. She was the essence of kindliness, of sympathy, of loyalty to her friends, but she was determined to a degree. She saw always with her own eyes, and would go the way she saw. Had she not warned her herself before? Had she not endeavored to persuade her a dozen times? It was all quite useless. Kate was something of an enigma, a contradiction. For all her gentleness Helen knew she could be as hard as iron. Finally, with a sigh, she dismissed the matter from her mind until such time as opportunity served. Meanwhile she must put in an appearance at Mrs. John Day's house. Mrs. John Day was the social pivot of Rocky Springs, and, to disobey her summons, Helen knew would be to risk a displeasure which would find reflection in every woman in the place. That was a catastrophe she had no desire to face. It was enough for her to remember that she had imprisoned herself in such a place. She had no desire to earn the ill-will of the wardresses. She laughed to herself. But she really felt that it was very dreadful that her life must be passed among these people. She wanted to be free--to live all these good years of her life. She wanted to attend parties, and--and dances among those people amid whom she had been brought up. She craved for the society of cultured folks--of men. Yes, she admitted it, she wanted all those things which make a young girl's life enjoyable--theatres, dances, skating, hockey and--and, yes, flirtations. Instead of those things what had she--what was she? That was it. What was she? She had been planted in the furrows of life a decorative flower, and some terrible botanical disaster had brought her up a--cabbage. She laughed outright, and in the midst of her laugh, looking out across the valley, she beheld her sister leaving the Meeting House, which stood almost in the shadow of the great pine, far up on the distant slope. Her laugh sobered. Her thoughts passed from herself to Kate with a feeling which was almost resentment. Her high-spirited, adventure-loving, handsome sister. What of her? It was terrible. So full of promise, so full of possibilities. Look at her. She was clad in a big gingham apron. No doubt her beautiful, artistic hands were all messed up with the stains of scrubbing out a Meeting House, which, in turn, right back to the miserable Indian days, had served the purposes of saloon, a trader's store, the home of a bloodthirsty badman, and before that goodness knows what. Now it was a house of worship for people, beside whom the scum of the earth was as the froth of whipped cream. It was--outrageous. It was so terrible to her that she felt as if she must cry, or--or laugh. The issue remained in doubt for some moments. Then, just as she reached the pretentious portals of Mrs. John Day's home, her real nature asserted itself, and a radiant smile lit her pretty face as she passed within. CHAPTER IX THE "STRAY"-HUNTER The real man is nearest the surface after a long period of idle solitude. So it was with Stanley Fyles, riding over the even, sandy trail of the prairies which stretched away south of the Assiniboine River. His sunburnt face was sternly reposeful, and in his usually keen gray eyes was that open staring light which belongs to the man who gropes his way over Nature's trackless wastes, and whose mind is ever asking the question of direction. But there was no question of such a nature in his mind now. His look was the look of habit, when the call of the trail is heard. He sat his horse with the easy grace of a man whose life is mostly spent in the saddle. His loose shoulders and powerful frame swayed with that magical rhythm which gives most ease to both horse and rider. His was the seat of a horseman whose poise is the poise of perfect balance rather than the set attitude of the riding school. The bit hung lightly in the horse's mouth, but lightly as the reins were held in the man's hand there was a firmness and decision in the feeling of them that communicated the necessary confidence between horse and rider. Stanley Fyles was as nearly a perfect horseman as the prairie could produce. Just now the man beneath the officer's habit was revealed. His military training was set aside, perhaps all thought of it had been left behind with his uniform, and just the "man" was reassumed with the simple prairie kit he had adopted for the work in hand. To look at him now he might have been a ranch hand out on the work of the spring round-up. He was dressed in plain leather chapps over his black cloth riding breeches, and, from his waist up, his clothing was a gray flannel shirt, over which he wore an open waistcoat of ordinary civilian make. About his neck was tied a silk handkerchief of modest hue, and about his waist was strapped a revolver belt. The only visible detail that could have marked him as a police officer was the glimpse of military spurs beneath his chapps. His thoughts and feelings as he covered the dreary miles of grass were of a conflicting nature, and, roaming at will, they centered, as thoughts so roaming will center, chiefly upon those things which concerned his most cherished ambitions. At first a feeling of something bordering on anxious resentment pretty fully occupied him. There was still in his mind the memory of an interview he had had with his immediate superior, Superintendent Jason, just before the time of his setting out. It had been an uncomfortable half-hour spent listening to the sharp criticisms of his chief, whose mind was saturated with the spirit of his official capacity, almost to the exclusion of common sense. Superintendent Jason was still angry at the manner in which the great whisky-running coup had been effected, and of the manner in which the perpetrators of it had slipped through the official fingers. He blamed everybody, and particularly Inspector Fyles, in whose hands the case had been placed. Nor had he been wholly appeased by the inspector's final offer. Goaded by the merciless pin-prick of his superior's tongue, Fyles had finally offered to set out for Rocky Springs, the place, both were fully agreed, whence the trouble emanated, and bring all those concerned in the smuggling to book. At first Jason had been inclined to sneer, nor was it until Fyles unfolded something of his scheme that he began to take it seriously. Finally, however, the younger man had had his way, and the necessary permission was granted. Then the superintendent dealt with the matter as the cold discipline of police methods demanded. Fyles remembered his words well. They meant far more to him than they expressed. They were full of a cold threat, which, to a man of his experience, could not be mistaken. The picture remained in his mind for many a long day. It was doubtful if he would ever forget it. It was a moment of crisis in his official life, a crisis when it became necessary to back himself against all odds--or ultimately sacrifice his position. He was standing beside the superintendent, and both men were bending over one of those secret official charts of the district surrounding Rocky Springs. They were alone in Jason's bare, even mean office. Fyles's long, firm forefinger was pointing along a trail, and his sharp, incisive words were explaining something of his convictions as his finger moved. The other was listening without interruption. At last, as the quiet, confident tones ceased, the superintendent straightened himself up, and his small, quick-moving, dark eyes shot their gleam of cold authority into his companion's. "It's up to you," he said, with a callous upraising of his shoulders. "You've talked a good deal to me here, and you've made your talk sound right. But talk doesn't put these men in the penitentiary. You've made a mess of this job so far. Guess it's up to you to make good. You've got your chance now. See you don't miss it. The authorities don't stand for two mistakes on one job, not even when they're made by Inspector Fyles. You get me? You've _got_ to make good." Fyles left the office fully aware that sentence had been passed on him, just as surely as though he had stood before the Commissioner, a prisoner. Thus, at the outset of his journey, his feelings had been scarcely pleasant, but, as the distance between him and headquarters increased, his confidence and sense of responsibility returned, and the shadow of threat retreated into the background. His plans were carefully laid, and all the support he could need was arranged for. This time the work before him was no mere capture of whisky-runners, but to make all whisky-running, as associated with Rocky Springs, impossible, and to break up the gang who had for so long defied the law. Yes, he felt confident in the result, and, as the long miles were put behind him, his thoughts wandered into more pleasant channels. Rocky Springs certainly offered him inducement. And curiously enough he found himself wondering how much he was influenced by that inducement in accepting the odds against him in cleaning up the place, and dusting the cobwebs of crime from its corners. Kate Seton. He had not seen her for something running into weeks. The thought that he was to renew an acquaintance, which, though almost slight, still had extraordinary power to hold him, was a delightful one. Sometimes he had found himself wondering at the phenomenon of her attraction for him. But he was incapable of analyzing his feelings closely. His life had been spent on these fringes of civilization so long, and the generality of the women he had come into contact with had been so much a part of the life of the country, that their appeal had been weakened almost to the vanishing point. Then here, in Rocky Springs, where he might reasonably expect to find only the dregs of society, he suddenly discovered a woman obviously belonging to an utterly different and more cultured life. A woman of uncommon beauty and distinction; a woman, who, to his mind, fulfilled some essentially mannish ideal, an ideal that, in idle moments, had stolen in upon a wholly reposeful mind. A woman who---- But the thread of his pleasant reflections was suddenly broken, and his mechanically watchful eyes warned him that a horseman was riding along the trail ahead of him, and that he was rapidly overtaking this stranger. In a moment all other interests were forgotten. To the solitary rider of the plains a fellow-creature ever becomes a matter of considerable moment. In Fyles's case he possessed the added interest of a possible giver of information. As he gently urged his horse to lengthen its stride, his keen eyes took in the details of the man's figure, and the points of the horse he was riding. The man was of unusual stature, so unusual, in fact, that his horse, although a big raking creature, became dwarfed under him. Even from that distance the officer obtained a suggestion of fair hair beneath the brim of the prairie hat, which was tilted forward at an unusual angle. The great square shoulders of the stranger were clad in a tweed jacket, and, from what he could make out, he wore no chapps. Just for a moment Fyles guessed he might be some farmer, and the tweed jacket suggested he was out to pay a visit to friends. Then, quite abruptly, he changed his mind, and further increased his pace. He had detected the city-fashioned top-boots the man was wearing. Without further speculation he pressed on to overtake the stranger, whom, presently, he saw turn round and look back. Evidently he had become aware of the approach. Equally evidently he either welcomed or resented the intrusion upon his solitude. For he reined in his horse, and waited for the officer to come up. The greeting between the men was widely different. The stranger's face was abeam with smiling good nature. His big blue eyes were wide with frank welcome. "I've been just bursting with a painful longing for the sight of a living man with two arms and two legs, and anything else that goes to make up a human companion," he said delightedly. "Say, how far do you guess a fellow could ride by himself without needing to be sent into a home to be looked after?" Fyles's manner was more guarded. The police officer was uppermost in him now, but he smiled a certain cordiality at the other's frankly unconventional greeting. "That mostly depends on how many things there are chasing around in his brain-box to keep the works busy," he said gently. The stranger's smile broadened into a laugh. "That don't offer much hope," he replied dryly. "I've been riding around this eternal grass for nigh a week. God knows where I haven't been during that time. Nobody ever did brag about the ideas I've got in my head, not even my mother, and any I have got have just been chewed right up to death till there isn't a blamed thing left to chew. For the past ten miles I've been reviewing the attractions of every nursing home I've ever heard of, with a view to becoming an inmate. I think I've almost decided on one I know of in Toronto. You see there are a few human beings there." Fyles's eyes had taken in the stranger from head to foot. Even the horse did not escape his closest attention. He recognized this man as being a stranger in the country. He was obviously direct from some eastern city, though not aggressively so. Furthermore, the beautiful chestnut horse he was riding was no prairie-bred animal, and suggested, in combination with the man's general get-up, the possession of ample means. "A week riding about--trying to find yourself?" Fyles's question was one of amused speculation. "Sure," the man nodded, with a buoyant amusement in his eyes. "That, and finding some forgotten hole of a place called Rocky Springs." Fyles lifted his reins and his horse moved on. "We'd best ride together. I'm going to Rocky Springs, and--you've certainly hit the trail at last." The fair-haired giant jumped at the suggestion, and even his horse seemed to welcome the companionship, for it ambled on in the friendliest manner by the side of the police horse. "How did you manage to--lose yourself?" Fyles inquired presently. "Did you start out from Amberley?" The stranger's look of chagrin was almost comical. He shook his head. "That's where I ought to've started from," he said. Then he shrugged his great shoulders. "Here, I'll tell you. I come from down East, and I'm on my way to join a brother of mine at Rocky Springs. He's a rancher. Sort of artist, too. His name's Charlie Bryant. My name's Bill--Bill Bryant. Well, I ought to have got off at Black Cross, and changed trains for the Amberley branch. Instead of that I was sleeping peacefully in the car and went right on to a place called Moosemin. Well, some torn fool told me if I got off at Moosemin I would get across country to Amberley, and thus get on to the Rocky Springs road. Maybe he was right enough, if the feller getting off had got any horse sense. But I guess they forgot to hand any out my way. Anyhow, I kind of took to the idea. Guessed I'd make a break that way and get used to the country. So I just bought the best horse I could find in the town from the worst thief that ever dodged penitentiary, and since then have spent seven whole days getting on intimate terms with every blade of grass in the country, and trying to convince various settlers that I wasn't a murderer or horse thief, and didn't want to shoot 'em in their beds, but just needed food and sleep, all of which I was ready to pay for at any fancy prices they liked to ask. How I eventually got here I don't know, and haven't a desire to know, and I'll stake my oath you won't find any two people in the country with the same ideas of direction. And I want to say that I hate grass worse than poison, and as for sun it's an abomination. Horse riding's overrated, and tailors don't know a thing about making pants that are comfortable riding. I could write a book on the subject of boils and saddle chafes, and when I get off this blamed saddle I don't intend to sit down for a week. I think a rancher's life is just the dandiest thing to read about I ever knew, and beans--those things the shape of an immature egg and as hard as rocks--are most nourishing; and I don't think I shall need nourishing ever again. Also the West is the greatest country ever forgotten by God or men, but the remark applies only to its size. The best thing I know of, just now, is a full-sized human being going the same way I am." Bill Bryant finished up with a great laugh of the happiest good nature, which quite robbed Fyles of his last shadow of aloofness. No one could have looked into the man's humorously smiling eyes, or listened to the frank admissions of his own blundering, and felt it necessary to entertain the least question as to his perfect honesty. Fyles accepted the introduction in the spirit in which it was made. "My name's Fyles--Stanley Fyles," he said cordially. "Glad to meet you, Mr. Bryant." "Bill Bryant," corrected the other, grasping and wringing the policeman's proffered hand with painful cordiality. "That's a good name--Fyles," he went on, releasing the other's hand. "Suggests all sorts of things--nails, chisels--something in the hardware line. Good name for this country, too." Then his big blue eyes scanned the officer's outfit. "Rancher?" he suggested. Fyles smiled, shaking his head. "Hardly a--rancher," he deprecated. "Ah. I know. Cowpuncher. You're dressed that way. I've read about 'em. Chasing cattle. Rounding 'em up. Branding, and all that sort of thing. Fine. Exciting." Fyles shook his head again. "My job's not just that, either," he said, his smile broadening. "You see, I just round up 'strays,' and send 'em to their right homes. I'm out after 'strays' now." Bill nodded with ready understanding. "I get it," he cried. "They just break out in spring, and go chasing after fancy grass. Then they get lost, or mussed up with ether cattle, and--and need sorting out. Must be a mighty lonesome job--always hunting 'strays.'" Inspector Fyles's eyes twinkled, but his sunburned face remained serious. "Yes, I'd say it's lonesome--at times. You see, it isn't easy locating their tracks. And when you do locate 'em maybe you've got a long piece to travel before you come up with 'em. They get mighty wild running loose that way, and, hate being rounded up. Some of 'em show fight, and things get busy. No, it's not dead easy--and it doesn't do making mistakes. Guess a mistake is liable to snuff your light out when you're up against 'strays.'" A sudden enthusiasm lit Bill Bryant's interested eyes. "That sounds better than ranching," he said quickly. "You see, I've lived a soft sort of life, and it kind of seems good to get upsides with things. I've got a notion that it's better to hand a feller a nasty bunch of knuckles, square on the most prominent part of his face, than taking dollars out of him to pay legal chin waggers. That's how I've always felt, but living in luxury in a city makes you act otherwise. I've quit it though, now, and, in consequence, I'm just busting to hand some fellow that bunch of knuckles." He raised one great clenched fist and examined it with a sort of mild enthusiasm. "I'm going to ranch," he went on simply, while the police officer surveyed him as he might some big, boisterous child. "My brother's got a ranch at Rocky Springs. He's done pretty well, I guess--for an artist fellow. He's making money--oh, yes, he's making good money, and seems to like the life. "The fact is," he went on eagerly, "Charlie was a bit of a bad boy--he's a dandy good fellow, really he is; but I guess he got gay when he was an art student, and the old man got rattled over it and sent him along out here to raise cattle and wheat. Well, when dad died he left me most of his dollars. There were plenty, and it's made me feel sick he forgot Charlie's existence. So I took a big think over things. You see it makes a fellow think, when he finds himself with a lot of dollars that ought to be shared with another fellow. "Well, I don't often think hard," he went on ingenuously. "But I did that time, and it's queer how easy it is to think right when you really try--hard. Guess you don't need to think much in your work--but maybe sometimes you'll have to, and then you'll find how easy it comes." He turned abruptly in the saddle and looked straight into the officer's interested face. His eyes were alight, and he emitted a deep-throated guffaw. "Say," he went on, "it came to me all of a sudden. It was in the middle of the night. I woke up thinking it. I was saying it to myself. Why not go out West? Join Charlie. Put all your money into his ranch. Turn it into a swell affair, and run it together. That way it'll seem as if you were doing it for yourself. That way Charlie'll never know you're handing him a fortune. Can you beat it?" he finished up triumphantly. Stanley Fyles had not often met men in the course of his sordid work with whom he really wanted to shake hands. But somehow this great, soft-hearted, simple giant made him feel as he had never felt before. He abruptly thrust out a hand, forgetful of the previous handshakes he had endured, and, in a moment, it was seized in a second vice-like grip. "It's fine," he said. Then as an afterthought: "No, you can't beat it." The unconscious Bill beamed his satisfaction. "That's how I thought," he said enthusiastically. "And I'll be mighty useful to him, myself, too--in a way. Don't guess I know much about wheat or cattle, but I can ride anything with hair on it, and I've never seen the feller I couldn't pound to a mush with the gloves on. That's useful, seeing Charlie's sort of small, and--and mild." Suddenly he pointed out ahead. "What's that standing right up there? See, over there. A tree--or--something." Fyles abruptly awoke to their whereabouts. Bill Bryant was pointing at the great pine marking Rocky Springs. "That's the landmark of Rocky Springs," he told him. This stranger had so interested and amused him that he had quite lost reckoning of the distance they had ridden together. "I don't see any town," complained his companion. "It's in the valley. You see, that tree is on the shoulder of the valley of Leaping Creek." Bill's eyes widened. "Oh, that's a valley, eh? And Charlie's ranch is down below. I see." The man's eyes became thoughtful, and he relapsed into silence as they drew on toward the aged signpost. He was thinking--perhaps hard--of that brother whom he had not seen for years. Maybe, now that the time had come for the meeting, some feeling of nervousness was growing. Perhaps he was wondering if he would be as welcome as he hoped. Had Charlie changed much? Would his coming be deemed an impertinence? Charlie had not answered his letter. He forgot his brother had not had time to answer his impulsive epistle. As they drew near the valley his eyes lost their enthusiastic light. His great, honest face was grave, almost to the point of anxiety. Fyles, watching him furtively, observed every change of expression, and the meaning of each was plain enough to him. He, too, was wondering about that meeting. It would have interested him to have witnessed it. He was thinking about that brother in Rocky Springs. He knew him slightly, and knew his reputation better, and, in consequence, the two words "drunkard" and "crook" drifted through his mind, and left him regretfully wondering. Somehow he felt sorry, inexpressibly sorry, for this great big babe of a man whom he found himself unusually glad to have met. CHAPTER X THE BROTHERS The valley of Leaping Creek gaped at Bill Bryant's feet and the man's ready delight bubbled over. "Say," he demanded of his guide, "and this is where my brother's ranch is? Gee," he went on, while Fyles nodded a smiling affirmative, "it surely is the dandiest ditch this side of creation. It makes me want to holler." As Fyles offered no further comment they rode on down the hill in silence, while Bill Bryant's shining eyes drank in the beauties which opened out in every direction. The police officer, by virtue of his knowledge of the valley, led the way. Nor was he altogether sorry to do so. He felt that the moment for answering questions had passed. Any form of cross-examination now might lead him into imparting information that might hurt this stranger, and he had no desire to be the one to cast a shadow upon his introduction to the country he intended to make his home. However, beyond this first expression of delight, Bill Bryant made no further attempt at speech. Once more doubt had settled upon his mind, and he was thinking--hard. Ten minutes later the village came into view. Then it was that Bill was abruptly aroused from his somewhat troubled thought. They were just approaching the site of the new church, and sounds of activity broke the sylvan peace of the valley. But these things were of a lesser interest. A pedestrian, evidently leaving the neighborhood of the new building, was coming toward them along the trail. It was a girl--a girl clad in a smart tailored costume, which caught and held the stranger's most ardent attention. She came on, and as they drew abreast of her, just for one brief instant the girl's smiling gray eyes were raised to the face of the stranger. The smile was probably unconscious, but it was nevertheless pronounced. In a moment, off came Bill's hat in a respectful salute, and only by the greatest effort could he refrain from a verbal greeting. Then, in another moment, as she passed like a ray of April sun, he had drawn up beside his guide. "Say," he cried, with a deep breath of enthusiasm, "did you get that pretty girl?" Then with a burst of impetuosity: "Are they all like that in--this place? If so, I'm surely up to my neck in the valley of Leaping Creek. Who is she? How did she get here? I'll bet a thousand dollars to a bad nickel this place didn't raise her." The officer's reply to the volley of questions came with characteristic directness. "That's Miss Seton, Miss Helen Seton, sister of the one they call--Kate. They're sort of farmers, in a small way. Been here five years." "Farmers?" Bill's scorn was tremendous. "Why, that girl might have stepped off Broadway, New York, yesterday. Farmers!" "Nevertheless they _are_ farmers," replied Fyles, "and they've been farming here five years." "Five years! They've been here five years, and that girl--with her pretty face and dandy eyes--not married? Say, the boys of this place need seeing to. They ought to be lynched plumb out of hand." Fyles smiled as he drew his horse up at the point where the trail merged into the main road of the village. "Maybe it's not--their fault," he said dryly. But Bill's indignation was sweeping him on. "Then I'd like to know whose it is." Fyles laughed aloud. "Maybe she's particular. Maybe she knows them. They surely do need lynching--most of 'em--but not for that. When you know 'em better you'll understand." He shrugged his shoulders and pointed down the trail, away from the village. "That's your way," he went on, "along west. Just keep right along the trail for nearly half a mile till you come to a cattle track on the right, going up the hill again." Then he shifted the direction of his pointing finger to a distant house on the hillside, which stood in full view. "The track'll take you to that shanty there, with the veranda facing this way. That's Charlie Bryant's place, and, unless I'm mistaken, that's your brother standing right there on the veranda looking out this way. For a rancher--he don't seem busy. Guess I'm going right on down to the saloon. I'll see you again some time. So long." The police officer swung his horse round, and set off at a sharp canter before Bill could give expression to any of the dozen questions which leaped to his lips. The truth was Fyles had anticipated them, and wished to avoid them. * * * * * Charlie Bryant was standing on the veranda of his little house up on the hillside. He was watching with eyes of anxious longing for the sight of a familiar figure emerging from a house, almost as diminutive as his own, standing across the river on the far side of the valley. There was never any question as to the longing in his dark eyes when they were turned upon the house of Kate Seton, but the anxiety in them now was less understandable. It was his almost constant habit to watch for her appearance leaving her home each morning. But to-day she had remained invisible. He wondered why. It was her custom to be abroad early, and here it was long past mid-day, and, so far, there had been no sign of her going. He wondered was she ill. Helen had long since made her appearance. He knew well enough that the new church building, and the many other small activities of the village, usually claimed Helen's morning. That was the difference, one of the many differences between the sisters. Helen must always be a looker on at life--the village life. Kate--Kate was part of it. He sighed, and a look of almost desperate worry crossed his dark, good-looking face. His thoughts seemed to disturb him painfully. Ever since he had heard of Inspector Fyles's coming to the village a sort of depression had settled like a cloud upon him--a depression he could not shake off. Fyles was the last man he wished to see in Rocky Springs--for several reasons. He was reluctantly about to turn away, and pass on down to his corrals, which were situated on the slope beside the house. There was work to be done there, some repairs, which he had intended to start early that morning. They had been neglected so long, as were many things to do with his ranch. With this intention he moved toward the end of the veranda, but his progress was abruptly arrested by the sight of two horsemen in the distance making their way down toward the village. For awhile he only caught odd glimpses of them through the trees, but at last they reached the main road of the village, and halted in full, though somewhat distant, view of his house. In a moment the identity of one of the men became certain in his mind. In spite of the man's civilian clothing he recognized the easy poise in the saddle of Inspector Fyles. He had seen him so many times at comparatively close range that he was sure he could not be mistaken. The sight of the police officer banished all his interest in the identity of the second horseman. A dark look of bitter, anxious resentment crept into his eyes, and all the mildness, all the gentleness vanished out of his expressive features. They had suddenly grown hard and cold. He knew that trouble was knocking at the door of Rocky Springs. He knew that his own peace of mind could never be restored so long as the shadow of Stanley Fyles hovered over the village. Presently he saw the two horsemen part. Fyles rode on down toward the village while the other turned westwards, but the now hot eyes of the watching man followed only the figure of the unwelcome policeman until it was lost to view beyond the intervening bush. As the officer disappeared the rancher made a gesture of fierce anger. "Kate, Kate," he cried, raising his clenched fists as though about to strike the unconscious horseman, "if I lose you through him, I'll--I'll kill him." Now he hurried away down to the corrals with the air of a man who is endeavoring to escape from himself. He suddenly realized the necessity of a vent for his feelings. But his work had yet to suffer a further delay. He had scarcely reached the scene of operations when the sound of galloping hoofs caught and held his attention. He had quite forgotten the second horseman in his bitter interest in the policeman. Now he remembered that he had turned westward, which was in the direction of his ranch. The sounds were rapidly approaching up the track toward him. His eyes grew cold and almost vicious as he thought. Was this another of the police force? The force to which Fyles belonged? He stood waiting at the head of the trail. And the look in his eyes augured ill for the welcome of the newcomer. The sounds grew louder. Then he heard a voice, a somewhat familiar voice. It was big, and cheerful, and full of a cordial good humor. "By Judas! he was a thief, and an outrageous robber, but you can go, my four-footed monument to a blasted rogue's perfidy. Five hundred good dollars--now, at it for a final spurt." Charlie Bryant understood. The man was talking to his horse. Had he needed evidence it came forthwith, for, with a rush, at a headlong gallop, a horseman dashed from amid the bushes and drew up with a jolt almost on top of him. "Charlie!" "Bill! Good old--Bill!" The greetings came simultaneously. The next instant Big Brother Bill flung out of the saddle, and stood wringing his brother's hand with great force. "Gee! It's good to see you, Charlie," he cried joyously. "Good? Why, it's great, and--and I took you for one of the damned p'lice." Charlie's face was wreathed in such a smile of welcome and relief, that all Big Brother Bill's doubts in that direction were flung pell-mell to the winds. Charlie caught something of the other's beaming enthusiasm. "Why, I've been expecting you for days, old boy. Thought maybe you'd changed your mind. Say, where's your baggage? Coming on behind? You haven't lost it?" he added anxiously, as Bill's face suddenly fell. "I forgot. Say, was there ever such a tom-fool trick?" Bill cried, with a great laugh at his own folly. "Why, I left it checked at Moosemin--without instructions." Charlie's smiling eyes suddenly widened. "Moosemin? What in the name of all that's----?" "I'll have to tell you about it later," Bill broke in hastily. "I've had one awful journey. If it hadn't been for a feller I met on the road I don't know when I'd have landed here." Charlie nodded, and the smile died out of his eyes. "I saw him. You certainly were traveling in good company." Bill nodded, towering like some good-natured St. Bernard over a mild-eyed water spaniel. "Good company's a specialty with me. But I didn't come alongside any of it, since I set out to make here 'cross country from Moosemin on the advice of the only bigger fool than myself I've ever met, until I ran into him. Say, Charlie, I s'pose its necessary to have a deal of grass around to run a ranch on?" Charlie's eyes lit with the warmest amusement. This great brother of his was the brightest landmark in his memory of the world he had said good-bye to years ago. "You can't graze cattle on bare ground," he replied watchfully. "Why?" Bill's shoulders went up to the accompaniment of a chuckle. "Nothing--only I hate grass. I seem to have gone over as much grass in the last week as a boarding-house spring lamb. But for that feller, I surely guess I'd still be chasing over it, like those 'strays' he spends his life rounding-up." A quick look of inquiry flashed in the rancher's eyes. "Strays?" he inquired. Bill nodded gravely. "Yes, he's something in the ranching line. Rounds up 'strays,' and herds 'em to their right homes. His name's Fyles--Stanley Fyles." Just for an instant Charlie's face struggled with the more bitter feelings Fyles's name inspired. Then he gave way to the appeal of a sort of desperate humor, and broke into an uncontrolled fit of laughter. Bill looked on wondering, his great blue eyes widely open. Then he caught the infection, and began to laugh, too, but without knowing why. After some moments, however, Charlie sobered and choked back a final gurgle. "Oh, dear!" he exclaimed. "You've done me a heap of good, Bill. That's the best laugh I've had in weeks. That fellow a rancher? Fyles--Stanley Fyles a--rancher? Well, p'raps you're right. That's his job all right--rounding up 'strays,' and herding 'em to their right homes. But the 'strays' are 'crooks,' and their homes the penitentiary. That's Inspector Stanley Fyles, of the Mounted Police, and just about the smartest man in the force. He's come out here to start his ranching operations on Rocky Springs, which has the reputation of being the busiest hive of crooks in Western Canada. You're going to see things hum, Bill--you've just got around in time." CHAPTER XI THE UNREGENERATE Later in the afternoon the two brothers found themselves seated on the veranda talking together, as only devoted relationship will permit after years of separation. They had just returned from a brief inspection of the little ranch for Bill's edification. The big man's enthusiasm had demanded immediate satisfaction. His headlong nature impelled him to the earliest possible digestion of the life he was about to enter. So he had insisted on a tour of inspection. The inspection was of necessity brief. There was so little to be seen in the way of an outward display of the prosperity his elder brother claimed. In consequence, as it proceeded, the newcomer's spirits fell. His radiant dreams of a rancher's life tumbled about his big unfortunate head, and, for the moment, left him staggered. His first visit was to the barn, where Kid Blaney, his brother's ranchman, was rubbing down two well saddle-marked cow-ponies, after his morning out on the fences. It was a crazy sort of a shanty, built of sod walls with a still more crazy door frame, and a thatched roof more than a foot thick. It was half a dug-out on the hillside, and suggested as much care as a hog pen. The floor was a mire of accumulations of manure and rotted bedding, and the low roof gave the place a hovelish suggestion such as Bill could never have imagined in the breezy life of a rancher, as he understood it. There were one or two other buildings of a similar nature. One was used for a few unhealthy looking fowls; another, by the smell and noise that emanated therefrom, housed a number of pigs. Then there was a small grain storehouse. These were the buildings which comprised the ranch. They were just dotted about in the neighborhood of the house, at points most convenient for their primitive construction. The corrals, further down the slope, offered more hope. There were three of them, all well enough built and roomy. There was one with a branding "pinch," outside which stood a small hand forge and a number of branding irons. At the sight of these things Bill's spirit improved. When questioned as to pastures and grazing, Charlie led him along a cattle track, through the bush up the slope, to the prairie level above. Here there were three big pastures running into a hundred acres or more, all well fenced, and the wire in perfect order. Bill's improving spirits received a further fillip. The grazing, Charlie told him, lay behind these limits upon the open plains, over which the newcomer had spent so much time riding. "You see, Bill," he said, half apologetically, "I'm only a very small rancher. The land I own is this on which the house stands, and these pastures, and another pasture or two further up the valley. For grazing, I simply rent rights from the Government. It answers well enough, and I only have to keep one regular boy in consequence. Spring and fall I hire extra hands for round-up. It pays me better that way." Bill nodded with increasing understanding. His original dreams had received a bad jolt, but he was beginning a readjustment of focus. Besides, his simple mind was already formulating fresh plans, and he began to talk of them with that whole-hearted enthusiasm which seemed to be the foundation of his nature. "Sure," he said cordially. "And--and you've done a big heap, Charlie. Say, how much did dad start you out with? Five thousand dollars? Yes, I remember, five thousand, and our mother gave you another two thousand five hundred. It was all she had. She'd saved it up in years. It wasn't much to turn bare land into a money-making proposition, specially when you'd had no experience. But we're going to alter all that. We're going to own our grazing, if it can be bought. Yes, sir, we're going to own a lot more, and I've got nearly one hundred thousand dollars to do it with. We're going to turn these barns into barns, and we're going to run horses as well as cattle. We're going to grow wheat, too. That's the coming game. All the boys say so down East--that is, the real bright boys. We're just going to get busy, you and me, Charlie. We're going to have a deed of partnership drawn up all square and legal, and I'm going to blow my stuff in it against what you've got already, and what you know. That's what I'm here for." By the aid of his big voice and aggressive bulk Bill strove to conceal his obvious desire to benefit his brother under an exterior of strong business methods. And he felt the result to be all he could desire. He told himself that a man of Charlie's unbusiness-like nature was quite easy to impress. When it came to a proper understanding of business he was much his brother's superior. Charlie, however, was in no way deceived, but such was his regard for this simple-minded creature that his protest was of the mildest. "Of course we could do a great deal with your money, Bill, but--but it's all you've got, and----" His protest was hastily thrust aside. "See here, Charlie, boy, that's right up to me," Bill cried, with a buoyant laugh. "I'm out here to ranch. That's what I've come for, that's what I've worn my skin to the bone for on the most outrageously uncomfortable saddle I've ever thrown a leg over. That's why I took the trouble to keep on chasing up this place when my brain got plumb addled at the sight of so much grass. That's why I didn't go back to find the feller--and shoot him--for advising me to get off at Moosemin instead of hitting back on my tracks for the right place to change trains. You see, maybe I haven't all the horse sense in some things you have, but I've got my back teeth into the idea of this ranching racket, and my dollars are going to talk all they know. I tell you, when my mind's made up, I can't be budged an inch. It's no use your trying. I know you, Charlie. You're scared to death I'll lose my money--well, I'm ready to lose it, if things go that way. Meanwhile, I've a commercial proposition. I'm out to make good, and I'm looking for you to help me." Charlie looked into the earnest, good-natured face with eyes that read deep down into the open heart beneath. A great regret lay behind them, a regret which made him hate and despise himself in a way he had never felt before. He was thinking whither his own follies had driven him; he was thinking of his own utter failure as a man, a strong, big-principled man. He was wondering, too, what this kindly soul would think and feel when he realized how little he was changed from the contemptible creature his father had turned out of doors, and when he finally learned of the horrors of degradation his life really concealed. He had no alternative but to acquiesce before the strong determination of his brother, and though his words were cordial, his fears, his qualms of conscience underlying them, were none the less. So they came back to the house, and finally foregathered on two uncomfortable, rawhide-seated, home-made chairs, while Bill enlarged upon his plans. It was not until these were completely exhausted that their talk drifted to more personal matters. Then it was that Charlie himself opened up the way, with a bitter reference to the reasons that saved him from completely going under when their father shipped him out to this forlorn spot to regenerate. He talked earnestly, leaning forward in his chair. His delicate hands were tightly clasped, as his eyes gazed out across the valley at a spot where Kate Seton's house stood beyond the river. Bill sat listening. He wanted Charlie to talk. He wanted to learn all those little things, sometimes even very big things, which can only be read between the lines when the tongue runs on unguardedly. He knew his brother's many weaknesses, and it was his ardent desire to discover those signs of betterment and strengthening he fondly hoped had taken place in the passing of years. He lolled back with the luxury of an utterly saddle-weary man. His heavy bent pipe hung loosely from the corner of his mouth. His big blue eyes were steady and earnest. "Yes," Charlie went on, after a moment's thought, "I'm glad, mighty glad, I came here when I did." He gave a short mirthless laugh. "I doubt if my satisfaction is inspired by any moral scruple," he added hastily, as the other nodded. "Say, can you understand how I feel when I say I believe all moral scruple has somehow decayed, rotted, died in me? I don't mean that I don't want to be decent. I do; but that's because decency appeals to me from some sort of artistic feelings which have survived the wreck I made of life years ago. No, moral scruples were killed stone dead when I was chasing through Europe hunting Art, searching for it with eyes too young to gaze upon anything more beautiful than a harsh life of strict discipline. "Now I have to follow inclinations that have somehow got the better of all the best qualities in me. That's how I'm fixed now. And, queer as it may seem, that's been my salvation--if you can call it salvation. When I first came here I was ready to drift any old way. I did drift into every muck-hole that appealed to me. I didn't care. As I said, moral scruples were dead in me. Then this same self-indulgence did me a good turn. The only good turn it's ever done me." The eyes gazing across the valley grew very soft. "Say, Bill," he began again, after a brief, reflective pause, "I came here, and--and found a woman. The greatest, the best woman God ever created. She was strong, big-spirited, beautiful. She'd come out here to earn a living with her sister. She'd left the East for no better reason than her big spirit of independence, and a desire to live beyond the narrow confines of convention. Say, I think I went crazy about that woman." The man was smiling very softly. All Bill's senses were alert. His slow brain was groping for the subtle comprehension which he felt was needed for a full understanding. "That woman came near to saving me--from myself," Charlie went on, with a tenderness he was unaware of. "And it was through that very weakness of self-indulgence. I love her that bad it's bigger than anything else in my life. Say, I'd rather have her good opinion, and--and liking--than anything in life. It's more to me than any of those desires that have always claimed me. But there are times when even her influence isn't quite big enough. There are times when even she can't hold me up. There are things back of my head I can't beat--even through her--at times. That's why I say she's come near saving me. Not quite--but near. "Bill, guess you can't understand. Guess no one can. I fight, fight, fight. She fights, too. She fights without knowing it, too, because always in my mind is a picture of her handsome face, and eyes of disapproval. That picture wins most times--but not always. Wait till you see Kate, Bill, then you'll understand. I just love her to death--and that's all there is to it. She only likes me. She'll never feel for me same as I do for her. How can she?--I'm--but I guess you know what I am. Everybody who knows me knows that I'm a hopeless drunkard." The man's final admission came without any self-pity or bitterness. It is doubtful if there was any shame in him at the acknowledgment. Bill marveled. He could not understand. He tried to picture himself making such an admission, and to estimate his feelings at it. Shame, unutterable shame, was all he could think of, and his good-natured face flushed with shame for his brother, who had somehow so squandered all his better feelings. Charlie saw the flush, and the tenderness died out of his eyes. He shook his head. "Don't feel that way about it," he cried bitterly. "I'm not worth it. Besides, I can't stand it from--you. Only--from Kate. I know what you're thinking. You're bound to think that way. You were born with a man's body--a big, strong man's body. I was born weak and puny. I was born all wrong. I don't say it in excuse. I merely state a fact. Look at me beside you, both children of the same parents. I'm like a woman, I can't even grow the hair of a man on my face. My mother reveled in what she regarded as the artistic beauty of my features, my hands"--he held out his thin hands with their long tapering fingers--"and my love for all those softer things of life that should only be found in female nature. She gloried in those things and fostered them. She did her best, all unknowingly, bless her, to kill the last vestige of manhood in me. And all the time it was crying out, crying out bitterly. It was growing stronger and stronger, as my physique remained undeveloped. Finally it became too great to withstand. Then, when it turned loose, I was without power to check it. My moral strength was not equal to the tide, and all my passions swayed me whithersoever they chose. Again I say this is no excuse; it is merely fact as I see it. I was powerless to resist temptation. The woman who once looses her hold on her moral nature can never recover herself. That is nature--her nature--and, by the curse of fate, it is also mine." For the moment Bill had no answer. He sat with his eyes averted. All his affection for his erring brother was uppermost, all his sympathy and pity. But he dared not display them. All that Charlie had said was true. His whole appearance was effeminate. He was a man without the physical support belonging to his sex. As he said, he was left powerless by nature and upbringing to fight a man's battle on the plains of moral integrity. His fall had been drink, with its accompanying vices, and Bill realized now, after five years' absence, how hopeless his brother's reformation had become. If his love for this woman could not save him, then surely nothing on earth could. For Bill, in his simple fashion, believed that such an appeal was above all in its claims upon any real man. He groped for something to say, for something that might show Charlie that his affection remained utterly unaltered, but he had no great cleverness, and the right thing refused to come to his aid. As the silence lengthened between them his groping thoughts took their own course, which led him to the name, "Kate," which the other had used. He remembered he had heard it that day once before. "Kate?" he inquired lamely. "Kate--who?" "Kate Seton." In an instant Bill's whole attitude underwent a change. He sat up, and, removing his pipe, dashed the charred ashes from its bowl. "Why, that's the sister of--Helen Seton." Charlie nodded, his eyes lighting with a sharp question. "Sure. But--you don't know--Helen?" Bill's face beamed. "Met her on the trail," he cried triumphantly. "No end of a pretty girl. Gray eyes and fair hair. Might have been walking on Broadway, New York--from her style. Fyles told me about her." "Fyles?" Charlie's eyes suddenly darkened with resentment. He rose abruptly from his chair, and began to pace the veranda. Then he halted, and looked coldly down into his brother's eyes. "What did he say?" he demanded shortly. Bill's eyes answered him with question for question. "Just told me who Helen was. Said she had a sister--Kate. Said they were farmers--of a sort. Said they'd been here five years. Why?" Charlie ignored the question. "That's all?" he demanded. "Sure." Bill nodded. Then the hardness died out of Charlie's eyes to be replaced once more by his usual gentle smile. "I'm glad. You see, I don't want him--around Kate. Say----" he hesitated. Then he moved toward the door of the house. "Guess I'll get supper. I forgot, you must be starving." * * * * * Kate Seton had spent the whole morning at home. The work of her little farm had claimed her. She had been out with her two disreputable boys around the grain, now rapidly turning from its fresh green to that delicate tint of yellow so welcome to the farmer. It was a comparatively anxious time, for the cattle grazing at large upon the prairie loved the sweet flavor of the growing grain, and had no scruples at breaking their way through the carelessly constructed barbed wire fencing, and wrecking all that came within their reach. The fences needed "top railing," and Kate could not trust the work to her two men without supervision. So she spent the morning in their company. After the mid-day meal, as soon as Helen had left the house on a journey to Billy Unguin's drapery store, she sat herself down at a small bureau in their kitchen-parlor and drew a couple of books, suspiciously like account books, from one of its locked drawers, and settled herself for an hour's work upon them. The room, though not large, was comfortable. It was full of odd, feminine knick-knacks contrived by Helen's busy hands. The walls were dotted with a number of unframed water colors, also the work of the younger of the two women. There were three comfortable rockers, so dear to the heart of the women of the country. Besides these, there was a biggish dining table, and, in one corner of the room, beside a china and store cupboard, a square iron cook stove stood out, on which a tin kettle of water was pleasantly simmering. It was a homely room which had been gradually furnished into its present atmosphere of comfort by two pairs of busy hands, and both Kate and Helen loved it far more, in consequence, than if it had borne the hall-mark of lavish expenditure. But Kate, as she sat before her bureau, had no thought of these things just now. She was anxious to complete her work before Helen returned. It was always impossible to deal with figures while her sister was in the room. And her figures now needed careful attention. She opened her books, and soon her busy pen was at work. From a pocket in her underskirt she drew a number of papers, and these she carefully sorted out. Having arranged them to her satisfaction the task of entering figures in her book was resumed. Finally she performed the operation of many sums, the accurate working out of which took considerable time and pains. Then, from the same pocket, she drew a bundle of notes which she carefully counted and checked by the figures in the books. This work completed she sat back idly in her chair with a thoughtful, ironical smile in her dark eyes, and the holder of her pen poised in the grip of her even white teeth. She was thinking pleasantly, with a half humorous vein running through her thought. She was dreaming, day-dreaming, of many things dear to her woman's heart. Now and again her look changed. Now a quick flash leaped into her slumberous eyes, only to die out almost immediately, hidden under that softer gleam which had so much humor in it. At another time a grave look replaced all other expression; then, again, a quick frown would occasionally mar the fair, smooth brow. But always the dominating note of humorous thoughtfulness would return, as if this were her chief characteristic. Her day-dreaming did not last long, however. It was abruptly dispelled, as such moods generally are. The sound of hurrying feet brought a quick look that was one almost of anxiety into her usually confident eyes. With one comprehensive movement she scrambled her books and papers together and heaped them into the still open drawer. Then she gathered up the money, and flung it in after the other things. As the door burst open and Helen ran into the room, her eyes bright with excitement, and her breathing hurried and short from her run, Kate was in the act of locking the drawer. Helen halted as she came abreast of the table, and her dancing eyes challenged her sister. "At your Bluebeard's chamber again, Kate?" she cried, in mock reproval. Then she raised a warning finger. "One of these days--mind, one of these days, I surely will have a duplicate key made and get a peek into that drawer, which you never open in my presence. I believe you're carrying on an intrigue with some man. Maybe it's full of letters from--Dirty O'Brien." Kate straightened herself up laughing. "Dirty O'Brien? Well, he's all sorts of a sport anyway, and I like 'sports,'" she said lightly. Helen took up the challenge. "'Sports'? Why, yes, there are plenty of 'sports'--of a kind--in this place. I'll have to see if I can find one who can make skeleton keys. I'd surely say that sort of 'sport' should be going round the village all right, all right." She nodded her threat at her sister, who was in no way disconcerted. She only laughed. "What's brought you back on the run?" she inquired. "Why, what d'you s'pose?" Kate shrugged, still smiling. "I'd say the only thing that could fix you that way was a--man." "Right. Right in once. A man, Kate, not a mouse," Helen declared, "although I allow they're both motive forces calculated to set me running. The only thing is, one attracts, and the other repels. This is distinctly a matter of attraction." "Who's the man?" demanded the practical Kate, with a look of real interest in her handsome eyes. "Why, Big Brother Bill, of course, the man I promised you all I'd marry." Helen suddenly dashed at her sister and caught her by the arm in pretended excitement. "I've seen him, Kate, seen him!" she cried. "And--and he raised his hat to me. He's big--ever so big, and he's got the loveliest, most foolish blue eyes I've ever seen. That's how I knew him. Say, and when I saw him with Inspector Fyles, I remembered what Charlie said about him having no sense, and I had to laugh, and I think he thought I was grinning at him, and that's why he raised his hat to me. It seemed so comical--looked just as if he was being brought in charge of a policeman for fear he'd lose himself, and would never find himself again. He's surely a real live man, and I've fallen in love with him right away, and, if you don't find something to send me up to see Charlie about right away, I'll--I'll go crazy--or--or faint, or do something equally foolish." Kate's amusement culminated in a peal of laughter. She knew Helen so well, and was so used to her wild outbursts of enthusiasm, which generally lasted for five minutes, finally dying out in some whimsical admission of her own irresponsibility. She promptly entered into the spirit of the thing. "Let's see," she cried, gazing thoughtfully about the room, while Helen still clung to her arm. "An excuse--an excuse." "No, no," cried the impetuous Helen. "Not an excuse. I never make any excuse for wanting to be in a man's company. Besides----" "Hush, child," retorted Kate. "How can I think with you chattering? I've got to find you an excuse for going across to Charlie's place. Now what shall it be? I know," she cried, suddenly darting across the room, followed by the clinging Helen. "I've got it." "Got what?" cried the other, with difficulty retaining her hold. "Why, the excuse, of course," cried Kate, grabbing up two books from a chair under the window. "Here, I promised to send these to Charlie days ago. That's it," she went on. "Take these, and," she added mischievously, "I'll write a note telling him to be sure and introduce you to Big Brother Bill, as you're dying to--to make love to him!" "Don't you dare, Kate Seton, don't you ever dare," cried Helen threateningly. "I'll shoot you clean up to death with one of your own big guns if you do. I never heard such a thing, never. How dare you say I want to make love to him? I--I don't think I even want to see him now--I'm sure I don't. Still, I'll take the books up if you--really want Charlie to have them. You see, I sure don't mind what I do to--to help you out." Kate's eyes opened wide. Then, in a moment, she stood convulsed. "Well, of all the sauce," she cried. "Helen, you're a perfect--imp. Now for your pains you shan't take those books till after supper." Helen's merry eyes sobered, and her face fell. "Kate--I----" "No," returned the other, with pretended severity. "It's no use apologizing. It's too late. After supper." Helen promptly left her side, and, with a laugh, ran to the wall where a pair of revolvers were hanging suspended from an ammunition belt. She seized one of the weapons by the butt, and was about to withdraw it from its holster. But, in a flash, Kate was at her side. "Don't Helen!" she cried, in real alarm. "Let go of that gun. They're both loaded." Helen withdrew her hand in a panic, her pretty face blanching. "My, Kate!" she cried horrified. "They're--loaded?" The other nodded. "Whatever do you keep them loaded for? I--I never knew. You--you wouldn't dare to--use them?" Kate's dark eyes were smiling, but the smile was forced. "Wouldn't I?" she said, with a curious set to her firm lips. Then she added in a lighter tone: "They're all that stand between us and--the ruffians of Rocky Springs." For a moment Helen looked into her sister's eyes as though searching for something she had lost. "I--I thought you'd changed, Kate," she said at last, almost apologetically. "I thought you'd forgotten all--that. I--thought you'd become a sort of 'hired girl' in this village. Guess I'll have to wait until after supper--seeing you want me to." CHAPTER XII THE DISCOMFITURE OF HELEN It was well past six o'clock in the evening when the two brothers completed the discussion of their future plans. It had been a great day for Bill. A day such as one may look forward to in long anticipatory moments of dreaming, but the ultimate realization of which often falls so desperately short of the anticipation. In the present instance, however, no such calamity had befallen. He felt that his weary journeyings, with their many discomforts and trials, had not proved vain. Many of his hopes had been fully realized. The unselfishness of the man was supreme. He wanted nothing for himself, but the delight of sharing in the life of his less fortunate brother, and changing the course of that fortune into the happier channels wherein his own lay. And Charlie seemed to accept the position. He certainly offered no opposition, and, if his manner of acceptance was undemonstrative, even to an excess of reserve, at least it was sufficiently cordial to satisfy the unsuspicious mind of Big Brother Bill. Had the big man's wide, blue eyes been less ready to accept all they beheld, had his mind been more versed in the study of human nature, and those shadowy, inexpressible feelings glancing furtively out of eyes intended only to express carefully controlled thoughts, then Bill must have detected reluctance in his brother. There were moments, too, when only a half-heartedness found vent in the man's verbal acceptance of his brother's proposals, which should have been significant, and certainly invited investigation. But even if he observed these things Bill undoubtedly misread them. He had no reason to doubt that his presence, and all his enthusiastic plans were welcome, and so he was left blinded to any other feelings on the part of his brother than those which he verbally expressed. That Charlie delighted in his presence there could be no doubt, but as to those other things, well, a close observer might well have been forgiven had he felt sorry for the bigger man's single-minded generosity. To the end Bill felt confident, and remained quite undisturbed. There were still fully two hours of daylight left when Charlie finally rose from his seat upon the veranda. He smiled down at the big figure of the brother he so affectionately regarded. "We'll need to set about getting your baggage sent through from Moosemin to-morrow," he said. Then he added with a quizzical gleam in his eyes: "Guess you've got the checks all right?" Bill nodded with profound gravity, and dived into one of his pockets. "Sure," he replied, dragging forth a bunch of metal discs on a strap. "Five pieces." "Good." Charlie nodded. His brother's unconsciousness amused him. Then, after a moment, his gaze drifted across the valley, and came to rest on the little home of the Setons, and he went on reflectively, "I need to get around a piece before dark," he said. Then with an unmistakable question in his dark eyes: "Maybe you'll fancy a walk around--meantime?" Bill's eyes lit good humoredly. "Which means I'm not wanted," he said with a laugh. Then he, too, rose. He stretched himself like some great contented dog. "I've a notion to get a peek at the village," he said. "I'll call along down at the saloon and hunt Fyles up. Guess I owe him a drink for--finding me." At the mention of Fyles's name a curious look changed the expression of his brother's regard. A short laugh that had no mirth in it was the prompt reply. "You can't buy Fyles a drink in Rocky Springs," Charlie exclaimed. "Maybe you can buy all the drink _you_ want. But there's not a saloonkeeper in the Northwest Territories would hand you one for Fyles. This is prohibition territory, and I guess Fyles is hated to death--hereabouts." For a moment Bill's eyes looked absurdly serious. "I see," he demurred. "You--hate him--too?" Charlie nodded. "For--that?" suggested Bill. Charlie shrugged. "I certainly have no use for Inspector Fyles," he declared. "Maybe it's for his work, maybe it isn't. It don't matter either way." The manner of Charlie's reply reminded his brother that his question had been unnecessarily pointed, and he hastened to make amends. "I'm kind of sorry, Charlie," he said, his face flushing with contrition. "I didn't think. You see, I hadn't----" But the other waved his regret aside. "Don't worry," he said quickly. "Guess you can't hurt me that way. I was thinking on other lines. What does matter, and matters pretty badly, is that some day, if you stop around Rocky Springs, you'll find it up to you to take sides between Fyles and----" "And?" Bill's interest had become suddenly absorbed as his brother paused, his gaze once more drifting away beyond the river. Finally, Charlie turned back to him. "Me," he said quietly. And the two stood facing each other, eye to eye. It was some moments before Bill's slow-moving wit came to his aid. He was so startled that it was even slower than usual. "You and--Fyles?" he said at last, his eyes full of absurd wonder. "I don't understand. You--you are not against the law?" Bill's wonder had changed to apprehension, and the sight of it distracted his brother's more serious mood. "Does a fellow always need to be against the law to get up against a police officer?" he inquired, with a smile of amusement. Then his smile died out, and he went on enigmatically. "Men can scrap about most anything," he said slowly. "Men who _are_ men. I may be a poor example, but----Say, when Fyles takes hold of things in Rocky Springs, I guess he isn't likely to feel kindly disposed my way. That being so, you'll surely be fixed one way or the other. Get me, Bill?" Bill nodded dubiously. "I get that, but--I don't understand----" he began. But Charlie gave him no time to finish. "Don't worry to," he said quickly. Then he gripped the other's muscular arm affectionately. "See you later," he added, smiling whimsically up into the troubled blue eyes as he moved off the veranda. Bill was left puzzled. He was thinking very hard and very slowly as he looked after the departing man. He watched him till he reached the barn and disappeared within it to get his horse. Then he, too, moved away, but it was in the direction of the trail which led ultimately to the village. Bill's nature was too recklessly happy to long remain a prey to disquieting thoughts. Once the avenue of spruce trees swallowed him up he abandoned all further contemplation of his disquietude, and gave himself up to the full enjoyment of his new surroundings. * * * * * It was in the gayest possible mood and highest spirits that Helen, with her "two-book" excuse tucked under her arm, set out for Charlie Bryant's ranch. When she appeared at supper time Kate's dark eyes shone with admiration and a lurking mischief. At the sight of Helen she clapped her hands delightedly. The younger girl's smart, tailored suit had made way for the daintiest of summer frocks, diaphanous, seductive, and wholly fascinating. "A vision of fluffy whiteness," cried Kate delightedly, as Helen sat down at the table. "Helen," she went on, mischievously, "as a man hunter you are just too dreadful. Poor Big Brother Bill, why, he hasn't the chance of a rat in a corner. He surely is as good as engaged, married, and--done for." Helen's eyebrows went up in lofty resentment. "Katherine Seton, I--don't understand you--thank goodness. If I did I should want to box your ears," she added, in mild scorn. "You're a perfectly ridiculous woman, and of no account at all." Kate's amusement was good to see. "Oh, Hel----" she cried. But her sister cut her short. "Don't use bad language, please. My name's 'Helen'--unless you've got something pleasant to say." Kate poured out the coffee, and helped herself to cold meat. The supper was the characteristic evening meal of the village. Cakes, and sweets, and cold meat. "How could I have anything but something pleasant to say, with you looking such a vision?" Kate went on, quite undisturbed. "Why, I hadn't a notion you had such a pretty frock." Helen's attitude modified, as she helped herself to home-made scones and butter. "I've been saving it up," she deigned to explain. "Do I look all right? How's my hair?" She beamed on her sister, waiting for an expected compliment. "Lovely!" exclaimed Kate. Then with added mischief: "And your hair is simply as fluffy as--as a feather duster." Helen laughed. Her eyes were dancing with that merriment she could never long restrain. "I--I simply hate you, Kate," she cried. "I'm so upset I can't eat a thing. Feather duster indeed. Well, it's better than the mop Pete swabs up the floors with. If you'd said that, I'd sure have gone straight off into a trance, and--and got buried alive. But your appetite's awful, Kate, and I can't sit here forever. I'd say food's mighty important, but it's nothing beside a _man_ waiting for you somewhere, and you don't know where. Guess I'll have something to eat before I go to bed. Please, Kate--please may I go?" The humility of the final request was quite too much for Kate, who laughed immoderately while she gave the required permission. "Yes, off with you, bless your heart," she cried joyously. "And don't you dare come back here without bringing your future husband with you. Remember, I want to see him, too, and--and if you're not mighty good, and nice to me, I'll see what I can do cutting you out. Remember, too, I'm not quite on the shelf yet--in spite of what folks may say. Off with you!" Helen needed no second bidding. She snatched up her books, took a swift glance at herself in the small mirror on the wall, and hastened out of the house. "So long, Kitty," she cried lightly; "my nets are spread for the big fish, my dear. He's there, slumbering peacefully in the shady pool, waiting to be caught. Do you think he's ever been fished before? I hope he's not wily. You see, I'm so out of practice. That's the worst of living in a place where men have to get drunk before they have the courage to become attentive. And, Kitty, dear----" "Off with you, you man hunter," cried Kate, from her place at the table, "and don't you dare ever to call me 'Kitty' again. I----" But the door was closed, and further expostulation was useless. The next moment Kate beheld a waving hand through the window. She responded, and, a moment later, as her sister passed from view, the smile died out of her eyes. She sat on at the table, although her meal was finished. And somehow all her gaiety had dropped like a mask from her face, leaving her handsome eyes strangely thoughtful and something hard. * * * * * Meanwhile Helen crossed the river by the quaint log footbridge which had been one of the first efforts at construction upon which Kate had embarked on arrival at Rocky Springs. It was stout, and, from a distance, picturesque. Close to it was a trap for the unwary. For the two sisters, and their hired men, it was a simple matter for negotiation. They were used to its pitfalls, which increased with every spring flood. Beyond this the track wound through the bush on its way to the village main trail, but Helen had no thought of adopting such a circuitous route when the bush offered her a far more direct one. She vanished into the wood like a flitting shadow, nor did she reappear until half the slope up to Charlie Bryant's house had been negotiated. Her reappearance was in the midst of a small clearing, whence she had an uninterrupted view of Charlie's house, and a less clear view of the winding track leading up to it. Somehow, by the time she reached this spot, a marked change had come over her. Her pretty, even brows were slightly drawn together in an odd, thoughtful pucker. Her usually merry eyes were watchful and sober. It may have been the gradient of the hills, but somehow her gait had lost something of its buoyancy. Her steps were lagging, even hesitating, and, when she finally halted, it was almost with an air of relief. There were several fallen tree trunks about, and, though they must have been sufficiently inviting if she were weary with her effort, she quite ignored them. She stood quite still, looking first ahead at her goal, and then back over the valley toward the little house where her sister was probably still watching her. Her eyes slowly became expressive of doubt and indecision. It seemed as though she found it hard to make up her mind about something. After a moment or two she removed the two books from under her arm, and idly read their titles. She knew them quite well, and promptly returned them to their place with an impatient sigh. Again her look had changed. Now her cheeks suddenly flushed a burning, shamefaced crimson. Then they paled, and something like a panic grew in her eyes. But this, too, passed, all but the panic, and, with a little vicious stamp of her foot, she half determinedly faced the ranch house on the hill. Her determination, however, was evidently insufficient, for she did not move on, and, presently, she laughed a short mirthless laugh. It was her belated sense of humor mocking her. Her courage, she knew, had failed her. She could not live up to her boasted claims as a man hunter. But her laugh died almost at its birth. Something moving down the hill among the trees caught her troubled eyes. Then, too, the sound of a whistle reached her. Some one was approaching from the direction of Charlie's house, whistling a tune which somehow seemed familiar. She promptly warned herself it could not be Charlie. She never remembered to have heard Charlie whistling so blithe an air. Now she distinctly heard the sound of heavy, rapid footsteps drawing nearer. The panic in her eyes deepened. They were staring intently at the surrounding bush, searching for a definite sight of the intruder. Nor had she to wait long. The path was just beyond the clearing, and she had fixed her gaze upon a narrow gap in the foliage. She felt almost safe in doing so, for the stranger must pass that way if he were on the path, and the gap was so narrow that it would probably escape his notice. The whistling came nearer, so, too, the rapid footsteps. Then followed realization. A figure passed the gap. She saw it quite plainly. The big, broad-shouldered figure of a man with fair hair and blue eyes. It was Big Brother Bill. Instinctively she drew back, entirely forgetful of the fallen tree trunks. Then tragedy came upon her. How it happened she didn't know. She afterward felt she never wanted to know. Something seemed to hit her sharply at the back of the knees. She remembered that they bent under her. Then, in a second, she found herself sitting upon the ground with her feet sticking up in the air in a perfectly ridiculous manner, and, by some horribly mysterious means, with the support of a fallen sapling pine holding them there. At the moment of impact she was too paralyzed with fear to move, then as a sharp exclamation in a man's deep voice reached her, a wild terror seized upon her, and, with a violent effort she rolled herself clear of the log, scrambled to her feet, her dainty frock stained and torn with her tumble, and fled for dear life down the hill. Faster and faster she ran, breaking her way through all obstructing foliage utterly regardless of the rents she was making in the soft material of her frock. She felt she dared not pause for anything with that man behind her. She felt that she hated him worse than anybody in the world. To think that he must have witnessed her discomfiture, and worse than all her two absurd feet sticking up in the air like--like signposts. It was too awful to contemplate. She did not pause for breath until she reached the footbridge. Then a fresh panic set in. She had left the books behind. They were at the place where she had fallen. Oh dear, oh dear! He would find them. He would find her name in them. He would take them back to Charlie, and her last hope would be gone. She would undoubtedly be recognized! She wanted to burst into tears, then and there, but something inside her would not permit her such relief. Instead a whimsical humor came to her aid and she laughed. At first her laugh was pathetically near to tears, but the moment of doubt passed, and the whole humor of the situation took hold of her. She hurried on home, laughing as she went; and, desperately near hysterics, she at last burst into her sister's presence. Kate was on her feet in an instant. "Oh, Kate," she cried, with a wild sort of laughter. "Behold the man hunter--hunted!" Then she flung herself into a chair, gasping for breath. Kate's anxious eyes took in something of the situation at a glance. "Stop that laughing," she cried severely. Helen's laugh died out, and she sighed deeply. The next moment she stood up, and began to smooth out her tattered frock. "I'm--all right now--Kate," she said almost humbly. "But----" Again Kate took charge of the situation. "Go and change your frock before you tell me anything," she said decidedly. Helen was about to protest, but the quiet command of her sister had its effect. She moved toward the door, and Kate's serious tones further composed her. "Take your time," she said. "You can tell me later." Helen left the room, and Kate remained gazing after her at the closed door. But it was only for a few moments. The sound of footsteps approaching the house startled her. She remembered the torn condition of her sister's dress. The poor girl had been on the verge of hysterics. "The man hunter hunted!" she had cried. Kate glanced at her revolvers hanging on the wall. Then, with a shrug, she flung open the door. Big Brother Bill was standing outside it. He had removed his hat, and the evening light was shining on his good-looking fair head. His wide blue eyes were smiling their most persuasive smile as he held two books out toward her. "I'm fearfully sorry to trouble you, but I was just coming along down from up there," he pointed back across the river, "and saw a--a lady suddenly jump up as though she was scared some, and run on down the hill toward this house. I guessed it must have been a--a rattler or--or maybe a bear, or something had scared her, so I jumped in to--to find it. I was too late, however. Couldn't find it. Only found these two books instead. I just followed the lady on down here, and--well, I brought 'em along." The man's manner was so frankly ingenuous, and his whole air so hopelessly that of a tenderfoot that Kate recognized him at once. Instantly she held out her hand with a smile. "Thanks, Mr. Bryant. They're my sister's. She was taking them up to your brother. It's very kind of you to take so much trouble. Won't you come in, and let her thank you herself? You see, we're great friends of your brother's. I am Kate Seton, and--the lady you so gallantly sought to help is my sister--Helen." CHAPTER XIII LIGHT-HEARTED SOULS A pair of gray eyes were struggling to glare coldly into a pair of amiably smiling blue eyes. It was a battle of one against an opponent who had no idea battle was intended. From the vantage ground of only partial understanding a pair of dark eyes looked on, smiling with the wisdom which is ever the claim of the onlooker. "This is my sister, Helen, Mr. Bryant," Kate said, with quiet enjoyment, as her sister, perfectly composed once more, but still angry with the world in general, abruptly entered the room from that part of the house where her bedroom was situated. As the words fell upon her ears, and she looked into the good-looking, cheerful face of the man, all Helen's feelings underwent a shock, as though a mighty seismological upheaval were going on inside her. The man who had witnessed her discomfiture--the man who had dared to be within one hundred miles of her when her daintily shod feet, with a display of diaphanous stocking, had been waving in the air like two wobbly semaphores celebrating Dominion Day or the Fourth of July, or--or something. Those silly looking prying eyes had seen. How dared he? What right had he to be walking down that particular trail at that particular moment? How dared he whistle, any way? What right had he in Rocky Springs? Why--why was he on earth at all? At that moment Helen felt that if there was one combination in the world she disliked more than another it was blue eyes and fair hair. Yes, and long noses were hateful, too; they were always poking themselves into other people's business. Big men were always clumsy. If this man hadn't been clumsy he--he--wouldn't have been there to see. Yes, she hated this man, and she hated her sister for standing there looking on, grinning like--like a Cheshire cat. She didn't know what a Cheshire cat was like, but she was certain it resembled Kate at that moment. "How d'you do?" The frigidity of Helen's greeting was a source of dismay to the man, who had suddenly become aware that she was again dressed in the tailored suit which had so caught his fancy earlier in the day. His dismay became evident to Kate, the onlooker. Helen, too, noted the effect in his sobering eyes, and was resentfully glad. "It was a lucky chance my coming along," Bill blundered. "You see, if the dew had got on these books they'd have got all mussed. Must have been a sort of fate about my being around, and--and finding 'em for you." "Fate?" sniffed Helen, with the light of battle in her eyes, while Kate began to laugh. "Why, sure," said Bill eagerly. "Don't you believe in fate? I do. Say," he went on, gaining confidence from the sound of his own voice, "it was like this. Charlie and I had been talking a piece, and then he had to go off, and didn't want me. If he had, I should have gone with him. Instead, I set off by myself, making toward the village. Being a sort of feller who never sees much but what's straight ahead of him, it didn't occur to me to look around at things. That's how it was I didn't see you till I caught sight of your----" "You needn't go into details," broke in Helen icily. "I just think it was hateful your standing there looking on while I fell over that tree trunk." Bill's eyes took on a sudden blank look of bewilderment, which raised a belated hope in Helen's broken heart, and set Kate chuckling audibly. "Tree trunk?" he exclaimed. "Did you fall? Say, I'm real sorry, Miss Helen. I surely am. You see, I just caught sight of"--again came Helen's warning glance, but the man went on without understanding--"somebody in white, disappearing through the bushes, on the run. I guessed a rattler, or a bear, or--or something had got busy scaring you to death. So I jumped right in to fix him. That's how I found these books," he finished up rather regretfully. "And I was just feeling good enough to scrap a--a house." A thaw had abruptly set in in Helen's frozen feelings. The memory of those unfortunate feet of hers no longer waved before her mind's eye. It was fading--fading rapidly. _He had not seen--them._ And as the frozen particles melted, she could not help noticing what splendidly cut features the man really had. His nose was really beautifully shaped. She was glad, too, that his eyes were blue; it was her favorite color, and went so well with fair hair, especially when it was slightly wavy. She smiled. "Won't you sit down awhile?" she inquired, with a sudden access of graciousness. "You see, we're very unconventional here, and your brother's a great friend of ours." Then, out of the corners of her eyes she detected Kate's satirically smiling eyes. She promptly resolved to get even with her. "Especially Kate's, and--I'll let you into a secret. A great secret, mind. We knew you were coming to-day--had arrived, in fact--and Kate's been dying to see you all day. Said she really couldn't rest till she'd seen Charlie's brother. Truth." Bill lumbered heavily into an ample rocker, and Helen propped herself upon the table, while Kate, upon whom had descended an avalanche of displeasure, suddenly bestirred herself. "How dare you, Helen?" she cried, in an outraged tone. "You--mustn't take any notice of her, Mr. Bryant. You see, she isn't altogether--responsible. She has a naturally truth-loving nature, but she has somehow become corrupted by contamination with this--this dreadful village. I--I feel very sorry for her at times," she added, laughing. "But really it can't be helped. She keeps awful company." "Well, I like that," protested Helen, now thoroughly restored to good humor by the conviction that Big Brother Bill had not witnessed her shameful trouble. "Mr. Bryant will soon know which of us to believe, after a statement like that." "I always believe everybody." The man laughed heartily. "It saves an awful lot of trouble." "Does it?" inquired Kate, as she slipped quietly into the other rocker. Helen shook her head decidedly. "Not when you're living in this 'dump' of a village. Say, Mr. Bryant, you've heard of Mr. Ananias in the Bible? If you haven't you ought to have. Well, the people who wrote about him never guessed there was such a place as Rocky Springs, or they'd sure have choked rather than have written about such a milk-and-water sort of liar as Mr. Ananias. Truth, he's not a--circumstance. All you need to believe in Rocky Springs is what you come up against, and then you don't need to be too sure you haven't got--visions." "Yes, and generally mighty unpleasant--visions," chimed in Kate, with a laugh. Bill's smiling eyes refused to become serious under the portent of these warnings. "Guess I've been around Rocky Springs about five hours, and the visions I've had, so far, don't seem to worry me a thing," he said. Helen smiled. She remembered her first meeting with this man. "What were you doing with Fyles to-day?" she inquired unguardedly. Bill suddenly brought his fist down on the arm of his rocker. "There," he cried, as though he had suddenly made a great discovery. "I knew it was you I saw on the trail. Why," he added, with guileful simplicity, "you were wearing that very suit you have on now. Say, was there ever such a fool, not recognizing you before?" Helen was deceived--and so easily. "I didn't think you really saw me," she said, without the least shame. "You were so busy with the--sights." Bill nodded. "Yes, we'd just come along down past that mighty big pine. Fyles had told me it was the landmark. I--I was just thinking about things." "Thinking about the old pine?" inquired Helen. "Well, not exactly," replied Bill. "Though it's worth it. I mean thinking about----. You see, a fellow like me don't need to waste many big thinks. Guess I haven't got 'em to waste," he added deprecatingly. Helen shook her head, but her laughing eyes belied the seriousness of her denial. "That's not a bit fair to--yourself," she said. "I just don't believe you haven't got any big 'thinks.'" Bill's manner warmed. "Say, that makes me feel sort of glad, Miss Helen. You see, I'm not such a duffer really. I think an awful lot, and it don't come hard either. But folks have always told me I'm such a fool, that I've kind of got into the way of believing it. Now, when I saw that pine and the valley I felt sort of queer. It struck me then it was sort of mysterious. Just as though the hand of Fate was groping around and trying to grab me." He reached out one big hand to illustrate his words, and significantly pawed the air. Helen's face wreathed itself in smiles. "I know," she declared. "You felt your fate was somehow linked with it all." Kate was gently rocking herself, listening to the light-hearted inconsequent talk of these two. Now she checked the movement of the rocker and leaned forward. Her eyes were smiling, but her manner was half serious. "It's not at all strange to me that that old pine inspired you with--superstitious feelings," she said. "It has the same effect on most folks--right back to the old Indian days. You know, there's a legend attached to it. I don't know where it comes from. Maybe it's really Indian. Maybe it belongs to the time when King Fisher used to live in the old Meeting House, before it was a--saloon. I don't know." Helen suddenly raised herself to a seat upon the table. Her eyes lit, and Big Brother Bill, watching her, reveled in the picture she made. Now he knew her, his first feelings at sight of her on the trail had received ample confirmation. She surely was one of the most delightful creatures he had ever met. "Oh, Kate, a legend," cried the girl, as she settled herself on the table. "However did you know about it? You--you never told me." Kate shook her head indulgently. "I don't tell you everything," she said with mock severity. "You're too imaginative, too young--too altogether irresponsible. Besides, you might have nightmare. Anyway most folk know it in the village." "Oh, Kate!" "Say, tell us, Miss Seton," cried Bill, his big eyes alight with interest. "If there's one thing I'm crazy on it is legends. I just love 'em to death." "I don't think I ought to tell it in front of Helen," Kate said mischievously. "She's----" Helen sprang from her seat and stood threateningly before her sister. "Kate Seton," she cried, "I demand your story." Then she went on melodramatically, "You've said too much or too little. You've got to tell it right here and now, or--or I'll never speak to you again--never," she finished up feebly. Kate smiled. "What a dreadful threat!" Then she turned to Bill. "Mr. Bryant, I s'pose I'll have to tell her. You don't know what an awful tempered woman it is. I really believe it would actually carry out its threat for--five minutes." Bill's good-natured guffaw came readily. "I'll back Miss Helen up," he declared promptly. "If you don't tell us we'll both refrain from speech for--five minutes." Kate sighed. "Oh, dear. Then I'll have to tell. It's bullying. That's what it is. But--here goes." Helen beamed upon Bill, and the man's blue eyes beamed back again. While he settled himself in his chair Helen returned to her less dignified seat upon the table. "Let's see," began Kate thoughtfully. "Now, just where does it begin? Oh, I know. There's a longish rhyme about it, but I can't remember that. The story of it goes like this. "Somewhere away back, a young chief broke away from his tribe with a number of braves. The young chief had fallen in love with the squaw of the chief of the tribe, and she with him. Well, they decided to elope together, and the young chief's followers decided to go with them, taking their squaws with them, too. It was decided at their council that they would break away from the old chief and form themselves into a sort of nomadic tribe, and wander over the plains, fighting their way through, until they conquered enough territory on which to settle, and found a new great race. "Well, I guess the young chief was a great warrior, and so were his braves, and, for awhile, wherever they went they were victorious, devastating the country by massacre too terrible to think of. But the chief of the tribe, from which these warriors had broken away, was also a great and savage warrior, and when he discovered that his wife was faithless and had eloped with another, stealing all his best war paint and fancy bead work, he rose up and used dreadful language, and gathered his braves together. They set out in pursuit of the absconders, determined to kill both the wife and her paramour. "To follow the young chief's trail was an easy matter, for it was a trail of blood and fire, and, after long days of desperate riding, the pursuers came within striking distance. Then came the first pitched battle. Both sides lost heavily, but the fight was indecisive. The result of it, however, showed the pursuers that they had no light task before them. The chief harangued his braves, and prepared to follow up the attack next day. The fugitives, though their losses had been only proportionate with those of their pursuers, were not in such good case. Their original numbers were less than half of their opponents. "However, they were great fighters, and took no heed, but got ready at once for more battle. The young chief, however, had a streak of caution in him. Maybe he saw what the braves all missed. If in a fight he lost as many men as his opponents, and the opponents persisted, why, by the process of elimination, he would be quietly but surely wiped out. "Now, it so happened, he had long since made up his mind to make his permanent home in the valley of Leaping Creek. He knew it by repute, and where it lay, and he felt that once in the dense bush of the valley he would have a great advantage over the attacks of all pursuers. "Therefore, all that night, leaving his dead and wounded upon the plains, he and his men rode hard for the valley. At daybreak he saw the great pine that stood up on the horizon, and he knew that he was within sight of his goal, and, in consequence, he and his men felt good. "But daybreak showed him something else, not so pleasant. He had by no means stolen a march upon his pursuers. They, too, had traveled all night, and the second battle began at sunrise. "Again was the fight indecisive, and the young chief was buoyant, and full of hope. He told himself that that night should see him and his squaw and his braves safely housed in the sheltering bush of the valley. But when he came to count up his survivors he was not so pleased. He had lost nearly three-quarters of his original numbers, and still there seemed to be hordes of the pursuers. "However, with the remnant of his followers, he set out for the final ride to the valley that night. Hard on his heels came the pursuers. Then came the tragedy. Daylight showed them the elusive pine still far away on the horizon, and his men and horses were exhausted. He was too great a warrior not to realize what this meant. There were his pursuers making ready for the attack, seemingly hundreds of them. Disaster was hard upon him. "So, before the battle began, he took his paramour, and, before all eyes, he slew her so that his enemy should not wholly triumph, and incidentally torture her. Then he rose up, and, in a loud voice, cursed the pine and the valley of the pine. He called down his gods and spirits to witness that never, so long as the pine stood, should there be peace in the valley. Forever it should be the emblem of crime and disaster beneath its shadow. There should be no happiness, no prosperity, no peace. So, too, with its final fall should go the lives of many of those who lived beneath its shadow, and only with their blood should the valley be purified and its people washed clean. "By the time his curse was finished his enemies had performed a great enveloping movement. When the circle was duly completed, then, like vultures swooping down upon their prey, the attacking Indians fell upon their victims and completed the massacre. "There!" Kate exclaimed. "That's about as I remember it. And a pretty parlor story it is, isn't it?" "I like that feller," declared Bill, with wholesome appreciation. "He was good grit. A bit of a mean cuss--but good grit." But Helen promptly crushed him. "I don't think he was at all nice," she cried scornfully. "He deserved all he got, and--and the woman, too. And anyway, I don't think his curse amounts to small peas. A man like that--not even his heathen gods would take any notice of." Kate rose from her chair laughing. "Tell the boys of this village that. Ask them what they think of the pine." "I've heard Dirty O'Brien say he loves it," protested Helen obstinately. "Doesn't know how he could get on without it." "There, Mr. Bryant, didn't I tell you she kept bad company? Dirty O'Brien! What a name." Kate looked at the clock. "Good gracious, it's nearly eight o'clock, and I have--to go out." Bill was on his feet in a moment. "And all the time I'm supposed to be investigating the village and making the acquaintance of this very Dirty O'Brien," he said. "You see, Charlie had to go out, as I told you. He didn't say when he'd get back. So----." He held out his hand to the elder sister. "Did Charlie say--where he was going?" she inquired quickly, as she shook hands. Bill laughed, and shook his head. "No," he replied. "And somehow he didn't invite me to ask--either." Helen had slid herself off the table. "That's what I never can understand about men. If Kate were going out--and told me she was going, why--I should just demand to know where, when, how, and why, and every other old thing a curious feminine mind could think of in the way of cross-examination. But there, men surely are queer folks." "Good-bye, Mr. Bryant," said Kate. She had suddenly lost something of her lightness. Her dark eyes had become very thoughtful. Helen, on the contrary, was bubbling over with high spirits, and was loath to part from their new acquaintance. "I hated your coming, Mr. Bryant," she explained radiantly. "I tell you so frankly. Some day, when I know you a heap better, I'll tell you why," she added mysteriously. "But I'm glad now you came. And thank you for bringing the books. You'll like Dirty O'Brien. He's an awful scallywag, but he's--well, he's so quaint. I like him--and his language is simply awful. Good night." "Good night." Bill held the girl's hand a moment or two longer than was necessary. It was such a little brown hand, and seemed almost swamped in his great palm. He released it at last, however, and smiled into her sunny gray eyes. "I'm glad you feel that way. You know I have a sort of sneaking regard for the feller who can forget good talk, and--and explode a bit. I--I can do it myself--at times." Helen stood at the door as the man took his departure. The evening was still quite light, and Bill, looking back to wave a farewell, fell further as a victim to the picture she made in the framing of the doorway. Helen turned back as he passed from view. "You going out, Kate, dear?" she asked quickly. Kate nodded. "Where?" "Out." And somehow Helen forgot all the other inquiries she might have made. CHAPTER XIV THE HOUSE OF DIRTY O'BRIEN It was late at night. The yellow lamplight left hard faces almost repulsive under the fantastic shadows it so fitfully impressed upon them. The low-ceiled room, too, gained in its sordid aspect. An atmosphere of moral degradation looked out from every shadowy corner, claiming the features of everybody who came within the dull radiance of the two cheap oil lamps swinging from the rafters. Dirty O'Brien's saloon was a fitting setting for a proprietor with such a name. Crime of every sort was suggested in its atmosphere at all time; but at night, when the two oil lamps, with their smoky chimneys, were burning, when drink was flowing, when the room was full of rough bechapped men belonging to the valley, with their long hair, their unwashed skins, their frowsy garments, and the firearms adorning their persons, when strident voices kept up an almost continual babel of coarse oaths, interlarded with rough laughter, or deadly quarrelings, when the permeation of alcohol had done its work and left its victims in a condition when self-control, at all times weak enough in these untamed citizens, was at its lowest ebb, then indeed the stranger, unaccustomed to such sights and sounds, might well feel that at last a cesspool of civilization had been reached. The room was large in floor space, but the bark-covered rafters, frowsy with cobwebs, were scarcely more than two feet above the head of a six-foot man. The roof was on a gradual, flat slope from the bar to the front door, which was flanked by windows on either side of it. So low were the latter set, and so small were they, that a well-grown man must have stooped low to peer through the befouled glass panes. The walls of the building were of heavy lateral logs bare as the day they were set up, except for a coating of whitewash which must have stood the wear of at least ten years. The evening had been a long and noisy one; longer and noisier than usual. For a note of alarm had swept through the town--an alarm which, in natures as savage and unscrupulous as those of the citizens of the valley, promptly aroused the desperate fighting spirit always pretty near the surface. The gathering was pretty well representative of the place. The bar had been crowded all night. Some of the men were plain townsmen belonging to the purely commercial side of the place, and these were clad as became citizens of any little western township. But they were the very small minority, and had no particularly elevating effect upon the aspect of the gathering. Far and away the majority were of the prairie, men from outlying farms and ranches, whose hard, bronzed features and toil-stained kits, marked them out as legitimate workers who found their recreation in the foul purlieus of this drinking booth merely from lack of anything more enticing. Then, too, a few dusky-visaged, lank-haired creatures wearing the semi-barbaric costume of the prairie half-breed found a place in the gathering. But none of these were the loud-voiced, hard-swearing complainants. That was left to a section of the citizens of the town who had everything in the world to lose by the coming of the police. As the evening wore on these gradually drew everybody's interest in the matter, until the stirring of passions raised the babel of tongues to an almost intolerable clamor. Dirty O'Brien, sinister and cynical, stood behind his bar serving every customer with a rapidity and nonchalance which the presence of the police in the place could never disturb. But the situation was well within his grasp. On this particular night his mandate had gone forth, and, in his own bar, he was an absolute autocrat. Each drink served must be devoured at once, and the empty glass promptly passed back across the counter. These were hastily borne off by an assistant to an adjoining room, where, in secret cupboards let into the sod partition wall, the kegs of smuggled spirit were secreted. All drinks were poured out in this room, and, on the first alarm, the secret cupboards could be hidden up, and all sign of the traffic concealed. Then there was nothing left to be seen but the musty display of temperance drinks on the shelves behind the bar, and a barrel of four per cent. beer, for the dispensing of which the existence of these prohibition saloons was tolerated and licensed by the Government. Dirty O'Brien knew the law to the last word. He only came up against it when caught in the act of selling spirits. This was scarcely likely to happen. He was far too astute. His only danger was a trap customer, and the difficulties and dangers of attempting such a course, even the most foolhardy would scarcely dare to risk in a place as untamed as Rocky Springs. Even the wildest spirits, however, were bound to reach their limit of protest against this new move of the authorities, and by midnight the majority of the customers had taken their departure from Dirty O'Brien's booth. Thus, when the small hours crept on, only a trifling gathering of his regular patrons still remained behind. The air of the place was utterly foul. The stench of tobacco smoke blending with the fumes of liquor left it nauseating. In the farthest corner of the room, just beside one of the windows, a group of four men were playing draw poker, and with these were Kate's two hired men, Nick Devereux, with his vulture head and long lean neck, and Pete Clancy, the half-breed, whose cadaverous cheeks and furtive eye marked him out as a man of desperate purpose. At another table Kid Blaney was amusing himself with a pack of cards, betting on the turn-up with the well-known badman, Stormy Longton. For the rest there was a group of citizens lounging against the bar, still discussing with the proprietor the possibilities of the newly created situation. These were the postmaster, Allan Dy, and Billy Unguin, the dry-goods man, and the patriarch church robber known as Holy Dick. The only other occupant of the bar was Charlie Bryant. He had come there earlier in the evening for no other purpose than to hear how the town was taking the arrival of the police, and to glean, if possible, any news of the contemplated movements of Stanley Fyles. This had been his purpose, and for some time he had resisted all other temptation. Nor, apart from his weakness, was he without considerable added temptation. Dirty O'Brien displayed a marked geniality toward him the moment he came in, and, by every consummate art of which he was master, sought to break through the man's resolve. Charlie fell. Of course he fell, as in the end O'Brien knew he would. And, once having fallen, he lingered on and on, drinking all that came his way with that insatiable craving, which, once indulged, never left him a moment's peace. Now, silent, resentful, but only partially under the influence of liquor, he was sitting upon the edge of the wooden coal box which stood against the wall at the end of the counter. His legs were outspread along the top of its side, and his back was resting against the counter itself. His eyes were bright with that peculiar luster inspired by a brain artificially stimulated. They were slightly puffed, but otherwise his boyish features bore no sign of his libations. One peculiarity, however, suggested a change in him. The womanish delicacy of his lips had somehow gone, and now they protruded sensually as he sucked at a cheap cigarette. Although these were only slight changes in Charlie's appearance, they nevertheless possessed a strangely brutalizing effect upon the refinement of his handsome face. And, added to them was an air of moroseness, of cold reserve, that suggested nothing so much as impotent resentment at the conditions under which he found himself. Without any appearance of interest he was listening to the talk of those at the bar. And somehow, though his back was turned toward him, O'Brien, judging by the frequency with which his quick-moving eyes flashed in his direction, was aware of his real interest, and was looking for some sign whereby he might draw him into the talk. But the sign did not come, and the saloonkeeper was left without the least encouragement. Finally, however, O'Brien made a direct attempt. He was standing a round of drinks and included in his invitation the man on the coal box. He passed him a glass of whisky. "Have another," he said, in his short way. Then he added: "On me." Charlie thanked him curtly, and took the drink. He drank it at a gulp and passed the glass back. But his general attitude underwent no change. His eyes remained morosely fixed upon the poker players. Billy Unguin winked significantly at O'Brien and glanced at Charlie. "Queer cuss," he said, under his breath. Then he turned to Allen Dy, as though imparting news: "Drinks alone--always alone." Dy nodded comprehendingly. "Sure sign of a drunkard," he returned wisely, in a similar undertone. O'Brien smiled. He was about to give vent to one of his coldest cynicisms, when Nick Devereux looked over from the card table and claimed him. "Say, Dirty," he drawled, in his rather musical southern accent, "wher' in hell is Fyles located anyhow? There's been a mighty piece of big talk goin' on, but none of us ain't seen him. Big talk makes me sick." He spat on the floor as though to emphasize his disgust. "He's around anyways," O'Brien returned coldly. "I've seen him right here. After that he rode east. One of the boys see him pick up Sergeant McBain an' two troopers. Will that do you?" he inquired sarcastically. Nick picked up a fresh hand of cards. "Have to--till I see him," he said savagely. "Oh, you'll see him all right--all right," O'Brien returned with a laugh, while the men at the bar grinned over at the card players. "Guess you boys'll see him later--all you need." Then his eyes flashed in Charlie's direction, and he winked at those near him. "Maybe some folks around here'll hate the sight of him before long." Pete looked up, turning his cruel eyes with a malicious grin on O'Brien. "Guess there's more than us boys goin' to see him if there's trouble busy. Say, I don't guess there's a heap of folk 'ud fancy Fyles sittin' around their winter stoves in this city." "Or summer stoves either," chuckled Holy Dick, craning round so that his gray hair revealed the dirty collar on his soft shirt. Stormy Longton glanced over quickly, while the kid shuffled the cards. "Who cares a curse for red-coats?" he snorted fiercely, his keen, scarred face flushing violently, his steel-gray eyes shining like silver tinsel. "If Fyles and his boys butt in there'll be a dandy bunch of lead flying around Rocky Springs. Maybe it won't drop from the sky neither. There's fools who reckon when it comes to shooting that fair play's a jewel. Wal, when I'm up against police butters-in, or any vermin like that, I leave my jewelry right home." O'Brien chuckled voicelessly. "Gas," he cried, in his cutting way. "Hot air, an'--gas. I tell you right here, Fyles and his crowd have got crooks beat to death in this country. I'll tell you more, it's only because this country's so mighty wide and big, crooks have got any chance of dodging the penitentiary at all. I tell you, you folks ain't got an eye open at all, if you can't see how things are. If I was handing advice, I'd say to crooks, quit your ways an' run straight awhiles, if you don't fancy a striped suit. The red-coats are jest runnin' this country through a sieve, and when they're done they'll grab the odd rock, which are the crooks, and hide 'em away a few years. You can't beat 'em, and Fyles is the daddy of the outfit. No, sir, crooks are beat--beat to death." Then his eyes shot a furtive look in Charlie's direction. "The sharps ain't in such bad case," he went on. "I'd say it's the sharps are worrying the p'lice about now. The prohibition law has got 'em plumb on edge. The other things are dead easy to 'em. You see, a feller shoots up another and they're after him, red hot on his trail. They'll get him sure--in the end, because he's wanted at any time or place. It's different running whisky. They got to get the fellow in the act o' running it. They can't touch him five minutes after he's cached it safe--not if they know he's run it. If they find his cache they can spill the liquor, but still they can't touch him. That's where the sharps ha' got Fyles beat." He chuckled sardonically. "Guess I'd sooner be a whisky-running sharp than be a crook with Fyles on my trail," he added as an afterthought. "An' he's after the sharps most now," suggested Holy Dick, with a contemplative eye on Charlie. A laugh came from the poker table. Holy Dick glanced round as a harsh voice commented---- "Feelin' glad, ain't you, Holy?" it said. Holy Dick spat. "I'd feel gladder, Pete Clancy, if I could put him wise to some o' the whisky sharps," said the old man vindictively. "Maybe it would sheer him off Rocky Springs." The man's eyes were snapping for all the mildness of his words. O'Brien replied before Pete could summon his angry retort. "There's a good many sharps in the game in this town, and I don't guess it would be a gay day for the feller that put any of 'em away. Not that I think anybody could, by reason of the feller that runs the gang. Look at that train 'hold-up' at White Point. Was there ever such a bright play? I tell you, whoever runs that gang is a wise guy. He's ten points flyer than Master Stanley Fyles. Say, Fyles was waiting for that cargo at Amberley, and here are you boys, drinking some of it right here, and with him around the town, too. Say, the boss of that gang is a bright boy." He sighed as though regretful that so much cleverness should have passed him by in favor of another, and again his gaze wandered in Charlie's direction. "Well, I'm glad I'm not a--sharp," said Billy Unguin, preparing to depart. "Come on, Allan," he went on to the postmaster. "It's past midnight and----" O'Brien chuckled. "There's the old woman waiting." Billy nodded good-naturedly, and the two passed out with a brief "good night." When they had gone Holy Dick leaned across the bar confidentially. "Who'd _you_ guess is the boss of the gang?" he inquired. O'Brien shook his head. "Can't say," he said, with a knowing wink. "All I know is I can lay hands on all the liquor I need right here in this town, and I'm dealing direct with the boss. When the money's up right, the liquor's laid any place you select. He don't give himself away to any customer. He's the smartest guy this side of hell. He's right here all the time, jest one of the boys, and we don't know who he is." "No one's ever seen him--except his gang," murmured Holy, with a smile. "Guess they wouldn't give him away neither." Stormy Longton and the Kid arose from their table and demanded a final drink. O'Brien served them and they took their departure. "I sort of fancy I saw him once," said O'Brien, in answer to Holy Dick's remark. He spoke loudly, and his eyes again took in the silent Charlie in their roving glance. At that instant the poker game broke up, and the men gathered at the bar. "What's he like?" demanded Nick derisively. "Guess he's a hell of a man," laughed Pete sarcastically. O'Brien eyed his interlocutors coldly. He had no liking for men with color in them. They always roused the worst side of his none too easy nature. "Wal," he said frigidly, "I ain't sure. But, if I'm right, he ain't such a hell of a feller. He ain't a giant. Kind o' small. All his smartness wrapped in a little bundle. Sort o' refined-looking. Make a dandy fine angel--to look at. Bit of a swell sharp. Got education bad. But he ain't got swells around him. Not by a sight. His gang are the lowest down bums I ever heard tell of. Say, they're that low I'd hate to drink out of the same glass as any one of them." He picked up Pete's glass and dipped it in water, and began to wipe it. "It 'ud need to be mighty well cleaned first--like I'm doing this one." His manner and action were a studied insult, which neither Pete nor Nick attempted to take up. But Holy Dick's grin drew threatening glances. Somehow, however, even in his direction neither made any more aggressive movement. Toughs as they were, these two men fully appreciated the company they were in. Holy Dick was one of the most desperate men in Rocky Springs, and, as for O'Brien, well, no one had ever been known to get "gay" with Dirty O'Brien and come off best. Pete strove to grin the insult aside. "Wal," he said, with a yawn, "I guess Fyles has 'some' feller to handle, if your yarn's right, Dirty. Blankets fer mine and--right now. Comin', Nick? An' you boys? Nick an' me are hayin' bright an' early to-morrer mornin'," he added with a laugh, as he moved toward the door. The others slouched after him and with them went the cold voice of O'Brien. "You an' Nick hayin' is good--mighty good," he said, with a sneer. "Nigh as good as Satin poppin' corn at a Sunday School tea." "Or Dirty O'Brien handin' out scripture readin's in the same layout," retorted Pete, as he followed his companions out of the door. Holy Dick ordered a "night-cap." "Them two fellers make me hot as hell," cried O'Brien fiercely, as he dashed the whisky into Holy's glass from a bottle under the counter. "Ther', Holy, drink up, and git. I'm quittin' right now," he added. "Say, I'm just sick to death handin' out drinks this day." Holy Dick grinned, his bloodshot eyes twinkling with an evil leer, which was never far from their expression. "With things sportin' busy as they done to-day, guess you won't need to keep at it long. Say, Fyles has brought you dollars an' dollars." The old rascal gulped down his drink and slouched out of the bar chuckling. He was always an amiable villain--until roused. As the door closed behind him O'Brien leaned on his bar, and looked over at the back view of the still recumbent figure of Charlie Bryant. "I was thinkin' of closin' down, Charlie," he said quietly. Charlie looked around. Then, when he became aware that the room was entirely empty, he sprang up with a sudden start. He looked dazed. But, after a moment, his confusion slowly faded out, and he looked into the grinning eyes of probably the shrewdest man in the valley. "Feelin' good?" suggested the saloonkeeper. "Have a 'night-cap'?" Charlie raised one delicate hand and passed it wearily across his forehead. As it passed once more that eager craving lit his eyes. His reply came almost roughly. "Hell--yes," he cried. Then he laughed idiotically. O'Brien poured out a double drink and passed it across to him. He took a drink himself. He watched the other as he greedily swallowed the spirit. Then he drank his more slowly. It was only the second drink he had taken that day. "Say, I'm runnin' out of rye and brandy," he said, setting his glass in the bucket under the counter, and picking up Charlie's. "Guess I need 10 brandy and 20 rye--right away." He was wiping the glasses deliberately, and paused as though in some doubt before he went on. But Charlie made no effort to encourage him. Only in his eyes was a faint, growing smile, the meaning of which was not quite apparent. "I left the order--with the dollars--same place," O'Brien went on presently. "Same old spot," he added with a grin. Charlie's smile had broadened. A whimsical humor was peeping out of his half-drunken eyes. "Sure," he nodded. "Same old spot." O'Brien set his glasses aside. "I need it right away. I'd like it laid in my barn, 'stead of the--usual spot. I wrote that on my order. Makes it easier--with Fyles around." Again Charlie nodded. "Sure," he agreed briefly. O'Brien found himself responding to the other's smile. These whisky-runners meant everything to him, and he felt it incumbent upon him to display his most amiable side. "Say," he chuckled, "the bark of the old tree's held some dollars of mine in its time. It's a hell of a good thing that tree has a yarn to it. The folks 'ud sure fetch it down for the new church if it hadn't. I'd say it would be awkward. We'd need a new cache for our orders and--dollars." Charlie shook his head. "Guess they won't cut it down," he said easily. "They're scared of the superstition." O'Brien abandoned his smile and became confidential. "Ain't you--worried some, Fyles gettin' around?" For a moment Charlie made no answer. The smile abruptly died out of his eyes, and a marked change came over his whole expression. He suddenly seemed to be making an effort to throw off the effects of the whisky he had consumed. He straightened himself up, and his mouth hardened. The cigarette lolling between his lips became firmly gripped. O'Brien, watching the change in him, suddenly saw his hands clench at his sides, and understood the sudden access of resentment which the mention of Fyles's name stirred in the man. He read into what he beheld something of the real character of the "sharp," as he understood it. Charlie's reply came at last. It came briefly and coldly, and O'Brien felt the sting of the rebuff. "Guess I can look after myself," he said. Then, without another word, he turned away, and walked out of the saloon. CHAPTER XV ADVENTURES IN THE NIGHT Big Brother Bill changed his mind after all. He did not go to O'Brien's saloon. At least not when he left the Seton's house. Truth to tell, his unanticipated visit to Helen Seton's home had inspired him with a distaste for exploring the less savory corners of this beautiful valley. For the time, at least, it had become a sort of Garden of Eden, in which he had discovered his Eve, and he had no desire to dispel the illusion by unnecessary contact with a grade of creatures whose existence therein could only mar the beauties and delights of his dream. So, instead of carrying out his original intention, full of pleasant dreaming, he made his way back toward his brother's home, hoping to find him returned so that he could pour out his enthusiastic feelings for the benefit of ears he felt would be sympathetic. As he came to the clearing where he had first discovered Helen, however, his purpose underwent a further modification. His sentimental feelings getting the better of him, he sat down upon the very log over which the girl had fallen, and turned his face toward where the little home of the girls, with its single twinkling light, was rapidly losing itself in the deep of the gathering twilight. He had no thought for the elder girl as he sat there. Her bolder beauty had no attraction for him, her big, dark eyes, so full of reliant spirit were scarcely the type he admired. She might be everything a woman should be, strong, sympathetic, generous, big in spirit, and of unusual courage; she might be all these and more, but, even so, she was incomparable to the fair delight of Helen's bright, inconsequent prettiness. No, serious-minded people did not appeal to him, and, in his blundering way, he told himself that life itself was far too serious to be taken seriously. Now Helen was full to the brim of a flippant, girlish humor that appealed to him monstrously. He felt that it was a man's place to think seriously, if serious thought were needed. And he intended when he married to do the thinking. His wife must be wholly delightful and feminine, in fact, just as Helen was. Pretty, laughing, smartly dressed, and always preferring to lean on his decisions rather than indulge in the manufacture of wrinkles on her pretty forehead striving to find them for herself. He felt sure that Helen would make a perfect wife for a man like himself. Particularly now, as she was used to the life of the valley. And, furthermore, he felt that a wife such as she would be essential to him, since he had definitely come to live as a rancher. She certainly would be an ideal rancher's wife. He could picture her quite well mounted upon a high-spirited prairie-bred horse, riding over the plains, or round the fences, since that seemed necessary, at his side. He would listen to her merry chatter as he inspected the work that was going forward, while she, simply bubbling with the joy of living, looked on with a perfect sense of humor for those things which her more sober-minded sister would have regarded as matters only for serious consideration. Thus he went on dreaming, his eyes fixed upon the distant, lamp-lit window, all utterly regardless of the fall of night, and the passing of the hours. Nor was it until he suddenly awoke to the chill of the falling dew that he remembered that he was on his way home to tell Charlie of all his pleasant adventures. Stirring with that swift impulse which always seemed to actuate him, he rose from his seat on the log and stumbled across the clearing, floundering among the fallen logs with a desperate energy that cost him many more bruises than were necessary, even in the profound darkness of the, as yet, moonless night. Finally, however, he reached the track which led up to the house and hurried on. A few minutes later he was wandering through the house searching in the darkened rooms for his brother. It was characteristic of him that he did not confine his search to the house, but sought the missing man in every unlikely spot his vigorous and errant imagination could suggest. He visited the corrals, he visited the barn, he visited the hog pens and the chicken roosts. Then he brought up to a final halt upon the veranda and sought to solve the problem by thought. There was, of course, an obvious solution which did not occur to him. He might reasonably have sought his bed, and waited until morning--since Charlie had survived five years of life in the valley. That was not his way, however. Instead, a great inspiration came to him. It was an inspiration which he viewed with profound admiration. Of course, he ought to have gone at once to the village, as he had intended, and have visited O'Brien's saloon. Forthwith he once more set out, and this time, his purpose being really definite, after much unnecessary wandering he finally achieved it. He reached the saloon as O'Brien was in the act of turning out the two swing lamps. Already one of them was turned low, and the saloonkeeper, with distended cheeks, was in the act of putting an end to its flickering life when Bill flung open the door. O'Brien turned abruptly. He turned with that air which is never far from his class, living on the fringe of civilization. His whole look, his attitude, was a truculent demand, and had it found its equivalent in words he would have asked sharply: "What in hell d'you want here?" But the significance of his attitude quite passed Big Brother Bill by. Had he understood it, it would have made no difference to him whatever. But that was his way. He never saw much more than a single purpose ahead of him, and possessed an indestructible conviction of his ability to carry it out, even in the face of superlative or even overwhelming odds. He walked into the meanly lighted saloon, while O'Brien reluctantly turned up the light again. For a moment the saloonkeeper's shrewd eyes surveyed the newcomer, and, as they did so, a quiet, derisive contempt slowly curled his thin lips. "Wal?" he inquired, in the harsh drawl Bill was beginning to get accustomed to since he had traveled so far from his eastern home. Bill laughed. He always seemed ready to laugh. "Guess I don't seem to have come along at the best time," he said, glancing at the lamp above O'Brien. "Say, I'm sorry to have troubled you. I thought maybe my brother was down here. I'm Bill Bryant, and I'm looking for Charlie--my brother. Has--has he been along here to-night?" The man's big blue eyes glanced swiftly around the squalid, empty interior. It was the first time he had been inside a western saloon of this class, and he was interested. Meanwhile O'Brien had taken him in from head to foot, and the growing smile in his eyes expressed his opinion of what he beheld. "You're Charlie Bryant's brother, eh?" he said contemplatively. "Guess I sure heard you was around. Wal, since you're lookin' fer Charlie, you'd better go lookin' a bit farther. He was around, but he's quit half an hour since. I'd surely say ef you ain't built in the natur' of a cat, or you ain't a walkin' microscope, you best wait till daylight to find Charlie. There's more folks than you'd like to find Charlie at night, but most of 'em ain't gifted with second sight. Say, seein' you're his brother, an' ain't one of them other folk, I'll admit you're more likely to find him somewhere around the old pine just now than anywhere else. And, likewise, seein' you're his brother, you'd better not open your face wider than Providence makes necessary--till you've found him." O'Brien's manner rather pleased the simple easterner, for his unspoken contempt was beyond the reach of the latter's understanding. He smiled his perfect amiability. "Thanks," he cried readily. "I've got to go that way back, so I'll chase around there." He half turned away, as though about to depart, but turned again immediately. "It's that pine up on the side of the valley, isn't it?" he questioned doubtfully. "There's only one pine in this valley--yes." O'Brien's hand was again raised toward the lamp. "I see." Bill nodded. Then, "What's he doing there?" he asked sharply. A thought had occurred to him. It was one which contained a faint suspicion. The other looked him squarely in the eyes. Then a sort of voiceless chuckle shook his broad shoulders. "Doin'? Wal, I guess he ain't sparkin' any lady friend, and I don't calc'late he's holdin' any conversazione with Fyles and his crew." O'Brien's amusement had spread to his features, and Bill found himself wondering as to what internal trouble he was suffering from. "Charlie Bryant, bein' a rancher, guess he's roundin' up a bunch of 'strays.' Y'see, he's got a few greenback stock he's mighty pertickler about. They was last seen around that pine." Bill stared. "Greenbacked--cattle?" he exclaimed incredulously. O'Brien laughed outright, and Bill was no longer left in doubt as to his malady. "They're a fancy breed," the saloonkeeper declared, "and kind of rare hereabouts. They come from Ottawa way. The States breed 'em, too. Guess I'll say good night." Bill was left with no alternative but to take his departure, for O'Brien, with scant courtesy, extinguished the light overhead and crossed to the second lamp. His visitor made for the door, and, as he reached it, a flash of inspiration came to him. This man was making fun of him, of his inexperience. Of course. He was half inclined to get angry, but changed his mind, and, instead, turned with a good-natured laugh as he reached the door. "I see," he cried. "You mean dollars, eh? Charlie's collecting some dollars--some one owes him? For the moment I thought you were talking of cattle--greenbacked cattle. Guess you surely have the laugh on me." O'Brien nodded. "That's so," he admitted, and Bill closed the door behind him as the saloonkeeper extinguished the second lamp. Big Brother Bill hurried away in the darkness. He swung along with long, powerful strides that roused dull echoes as he moved down the wide, wood-lined trail. It seemed to him that he had been wandering around the village for hours, the place was growing so ridiculously familiar. Nor was it until he reached the spot where the trail divided that he realized what a perfect fool the saloonkeeper had made of him. It always took a long time for such things to filter through his good-natured brain. Now, however, he grew angry--really very angry, and, for a moment, even considered the advisability of turning back to tell the man what he thought of him. After a few moments' consideration better counsel prevailed, and he continued on his way, his thoughts filled with a great pity for a mind so small as to delight in such a cheap sort of humor. No doubt it was his own fault. Somehow or other he generally managed to impress people with the conviction that he was a fool. But he wasn't a fool by any means. No, not by any means. What was more, before he had done with Rocky Springs he would show some of them. He would show Mr. O'Brien. Greenbacked cattle! The thought thoroughly annoyed him. But, as he clambered up the hill toward the pine, his heat moderated, and his thoughts turned upon Charlie again. He remembered that he was collecting money, and quite suddenly it occurred to him as strange that he should be doing so as this time of night, and in the neighborhood of the pine. In the light of greenbacked cattle, that, too, seemed like perfect nonsense, unless, of course, some one were living in the neighborhood of the tree. He could not remember to have seen a house there. Wait a minute. Yes, there was. A smallish log building, not far from the new church. Of course. That was it. Why hadn't that fool O'Brien said so right out instead of leaving him guessing? Yes, he would call at that house on----. Hallo, what was that? A great dull yellow light was gleaming through the foliage ahead. A beautiful golden light. Bill laughed abruptly. It was the full moon just appearing on the horizon. For the moment he had not recognized it. Now it held his attention completely. What a beautiful scene it made, lighting up the shadowy foliage. His mind went back to the Biblical story of the burning bush. He found himself wondering if it were like that. Much brighter, of course. But how green it looked, and how intensely it threw the thinner foliage into relief. What a pity Helen Seton wasn't there to see it! It would appeal to her, he was sure. Pretty name, Helen Seton. From this point, as he toiled up the hill, his thoughts became engrossed with the girl who had been so angry with him at first. He wished he could find some excuse for seeing her again that night. But, of course, that was---- He suddenly stopped dead, and his train of thought ended. There was the great pine ahead of him right in the back of the moonlight. There, too, was the figure of a man standing silhouetted against the great ball of golden light as it rose slowly above the horizon. Charlie! Yes, of course it was Charlie. There could be no doubt. The slight figure was unmistakable. Even at that distance he was certain he could make out his dark hair. In a moment he was hailing the distant figure. "Ho, Charlie!" he cried. But his greeting met with an unexpected result. The figure vanished as if by magic, and he was left at a loss to understand. Then further astonishment came to him. There was a sharp rustling of bush, and breaking of twigs close by, and the sound of heavy, plodding hoofs. The next moment two horsemen broke from the dense cover about him, and flung out of the saddle. "Darnation take it, what in blazes are you shouting around for at this hour of the night?" Inspector Fyles stood confronting the astounded man. Beside him stood another man in uniform, with three gold stripes on his arm. It was Sergeant McBain. In spite of his recognition of the Inspector, Bill's anger rose swiftly, and his great muscles were set tingling at the man's words and tone. "'Struth!" he cried in exasperation. "This is a free country, isn't it? If I need to shout it's none of your damn business. What in the name of all that's holy has it got to do with you? I saw my brother ahead, and was hailing him. Well?" Bill's eyes were fiercely alight. He and Fyles stood eye to eye for a moment. Then the latter's resentment seemed to suddenly die out. "Say, I'm sorry, Mr. Bryant," he apologized. "I just didn't recognize you in the darkness. Guess I thought you were some tough from the saloon. That was your brother--ahead?" Fyles's calm, clean-cut features were in strong contrast to his subordinate's. He was smiling slightly, too. Sergeant McBain was wholly grim. Bill glanced from one to the other. "Of course it was my brother," he said, promptly, mollified by the officer's expression of regret. "I've been chasing him half the night. You see, O'Brien told me he was up this way, and when I sighted him yonder by the pine, I----" He broke off. He had suddenly remembered O'Brien's warning. He had an uncomfortable feeling that he had opened his mouth very wide. Far wider than Providence had made necessary. "You----?" Fyles was distinctly smiling as he urged him. But Bill had no intention of blundering further. He laughed, but without his usual buoyancy. "Say, what are _you_ doing up here?" he demanded, seeking to turn the tables on the officer. "Rounding up 'strays'?" At that moment a black cloud swept swiftly across the face of the moon. And though Fyles's smile had broadened at the other's clumsy attempt at subterfuge, it was quite lost upon Bill in the darkness. Fyles glanced quickly at the sky. "Storm," he said. Then he turned back to his questioner. "Why, I guess I'm always chasing 'strays.' They're toughs mostly--pretty bad 'uns, too." Then he laughed audibly. "Makes me laugh," he went on. "I've been tracking the fellow for quite a piece. And all the time he's your brother. You're sure?" Bill nodded. He was still feeling uncomfortable. "I'm glad you saw him," Fyles went on at once. "It's put us wise. We don't need to waste any more time. It's lucky, with a storm coming on. Guess we'll get right back, McBain," he added, turning to his companion. Fyles had no more difficulty in fooling the guileless Bill than O'Brien had. "Going home?" Bill inquired of the officer as the latter turned to his horse. "Sure." "Me, too." Fyles leaped into the saddle. McBain, too, had mounted. "Best hurry," said Fyles, with another quick glance at the sky. "We get sharpish storms hereabouts in summer. You'll be drowned else. So long." Bill moved away. "So long," he cried, relieved at the parting. "I haven't far to go, but since you reckon a storm's getting busy I'll take a cut through the bush. It'll be quicker that way." As he thrust his way into the bush he glanced back at the two policemen. They were both in the saddle watching him. Neither made any attempt at the hasty departure the Inspector had suggested. However, their attitudes gave him no uneasiness. Truth to tell, he did not realize any significance. The one thing that did concern him and trouble him was that he somehow felt convinced that he had committed the very indiscretion O'Brien had warned him against. The whole thing was very disquieting. An air of mystery seemed to have suddenly surrounded him, and he hated mystery. Why should there be any mystery? If there was one thing he delighted in more than another, it was the thought that his life was all in the open. The broad daylight could search the innermost corners of his every action. He had nothing in the world to hide. Why then should he suddenly find himself actively concerned with this atmosphere of mystery which had suddenly closed about him? But Bill had not done with the mistakes of the evening. He made another one now--in leaving the trail. Within five minutes of leaving the two police officers he found himself blindly floundering his way through an inky forest. The sky was jet black. The moon had long since switched off her light. The last star had concealed its twinkle behind the banking clouds of the summer storm. Now great warm splashes of rain had begun to fall. CHAPTER XVI FURTHER ADVENTURES Half an hour later tragedy befell. Drenched to the skin, blinded by the deluge of torrential rain, thoroughly confused beyond all recognition of his whereabouts in the tangle of bush through which he was thrusting his way, all his senses dazed by the fierce overhead detonations, and the streams of blazing fire splitting the black vault above, Big Brother Bill beat his way along the path of least resistance by sheer physical might. All idea of direction had left him. Up hill or down hill had become one and the same to him. He felt he must keep moving, must press on, and, in the end, he would reach his destination. At last, almost wearied out by his efforts, he came to a definite halt in a bush that seemed to afford no outlet whatsoever. Even the way he had entered it was lost, for the heavy foliaged boughs had closed in behind him in the darkness, utterly cutting off his retreat. For a moment he stood like an infuriated steer at bay, caught in the narrow branding "pinch." He waited for a revealing flash of lightning in the hope that it would show him a way out. He should have realized the futility of his hope, but, if he were soaked by the downpour, his spirit of optimism was as yet by no means drowned. The flash he awaited came. The whole valley seemed to be lit from end to end. Then it was gone as swiftly as it had come, leaving a pitchy blackness behind it. But in that brief flash Bill told himself he had seen the trail just beyond the clump of bush in the midst of which he stood. Summoning all his strength he hurled himself to thrust his way toward it. He fought the resisting boughs with all his great strength, backed by every ounce of his buoyant spirits. Then, in a moment, Fate stepped in, and--released him. His sensations were brief but tumultuous. He had a feeling that an earthquake had opened the ground at his feet. With all his might he sought to save himself from the yawning chasm. But the sudden jolt of his great weight was more than his muscles could withstand. His hands relaxed their grip upon the foliage and he fell with a great splash--into the river. He had driven his way through the overhanging foliage of the river. Big Brother Bill was not easily disconcerted by any physical catastrophe to himself. Nor did his sudden immersion now add one single pulse beat. The obvious thing, being a strong swimmer, was to strike out and get clear of the dripping trees, which he promptly proceeded to do, and, reaching the middle of the stream, and discovering that the rain had ceased, he philosophically consoled himself with the thought that, at least, he knew where he was. Five minutes later he climbed up the opposite bank out of the water. His first object at once became the ascertaining of his bearings. With a serious effort of argument he finally concluded he was on the wrong side of the river, which meant, of course, that the matter must be put right without delay. Seeing that the water was cold, in spite of the warmth of the summer evening, he was reminded of the footbridge opposite the Setons' house. Consequently, the further problem became the whereabouts of that bridge. Glancing up at the sky, possibilities presented themselves. The clouds were breaking almost as rapidly as they had gathered, and, with great decision, he concluded that the best thing to do would be to await the return of the moonlight, and occupy the interim by wringing some of the uncomfortable moisture out of his clothes. Ten minutes later his patience was rewarded. The moon shone out upon the stream at his feet, and there, less than one hundred yards to the west of him, the ghostly outline of the bridge loomed up. He really felt that Fate, at last, was doing her best. He set off at once at as swinging a gait as his damp condition would permit, and he even found it possible to whistle an air as he moved along, to the accompanying squelch of his water-logged boots. But, as the footbridge was approached, his purpose received a setback. The home of the Setons loomed up in the moonlight and promptly absorbed his attention. The moon was at its full once more, and the last clouds of the summer storm had passed away, leaving the wonderful, velvety night sky a-shimmer with twinkling diamonds. The front of the house was in full light, so pale, so distinct, that no detail of it escaped his interested eyes. There was the door with its rain-water barrel, there was the shingle roof. The lateral logs of its walls were most picturesque. The only thing that struck him as ordinary was, perhaps, the window----. Hallo! What was that at the window? He paused abruptly, and stared hard. He started. It was a woman! A woman sitting on the sill of the open window! Of all the----. Well, if that wasn't luck he felt he would like to know what was. He wondered which of the sisters it was--Kate or Helen. He was confident it was one of them. He would soon find out. With a tumultuously beating heart he promptly diverged from his course, and set off straight for the house. It was always his way to act on impulse. Rarely did he give things a second thought where his inclinations were concerned. As he drew near, Kate Seton's deep voice greeted him. Its tone was velvety in its richness, nor was there the least inflection of astonishment in its tone. "That you, Mr. Bryant?" she said, without stirring from her attitude of luxurious enjoyment. Bill came up hurriedly. "I s'pose it is," he said with a laugh. "All that the river hasn't washed away. Say," he went on, with amiable inconsequence, "there's just two things puzzling my fool head, Miss Seton: Why Fate takes a particular delight in handing me so many pleasant moments with so many unpleasant kicks? And what wild streak of good luck finds you sitting in the moonlight this hour of the night? It surely was a scurvy trick of Fate dumping me in the creek, when there's a bridge to walk over, just to land me right here, where you're handing up fancy dreams to a very chilly but beautiful moon. Guess I'm kind of spoiling the picture for you though. I may be some picture to look at, but I wouldn't say it's worth framing--would you?" Kate smiled up at him. His dripping condition was obvious enough. Nor could she help her amusement. Knowing something of the man, he became doubly grotesque in her eyes. "It needs courage to put things nicely under such adverse conditions," she said, with a laugh. "And I like courage." Then she went on in her easy, pleasant way: "It was the storm fetched me out of bed. I never can resist a storm. So I just had to dress and come right out here to watch it. Why are you around, anyway? Tell me about--about the river, and how you got into it." Bill laughed joyously. "Guess that's an easy one," he said lightly. "I was on my way home when I met that policeman, Fyles. He put me wise to the storm coming up--which I guessed was bright and friendly of him. You see, I hadn't located it. It was up to me to make Charlie's place quick, so I got busy on a short cut. Say, did you ever take a short cut--in a hurry? Don't ever do it. 'Tisn't worth it--if you're in a hurry. Of course, I lost myself in the storm, and Fate began handing me one or two. Fate's always tricky. She likes to wait till she gets you by the back of the neck, so you can't do a thing, and then passes you all that's coming to you. Guess she's had me by the neck quite awhile now, what with one thing and another. However, I mustn't blame her too much. You see, I lost myself, and it was she who found me, though I don't think anything of the way she did it. I was boosting through what I thought was a reasonable sort of bush, and found it wasn't. It was the overhang of the river, and when I dropped through I found myself in the water. Still, I knew that water was the river, and I knew where the river was. I'm grateful, in a way, but I can't help feeling Fate's got a dirty side to her nature, and bridges are fool things anyway, for always being where they aren't wanted." Kate's laugh was one of whole-hearted amusement. Big Brother Bill's whimsical manner appealed to her. "Maybe Fate thought you were out later than you ought to be," she said. "You--a stranger." But the girl's remark had a different effect upon Bill than might have been expected. His smile died out, and all his lightness vanished. Once more he was feeling that atmosphere of mystery closing about him. It had oppressed him before, and now again it was oppressing him. For a moment he made no answer. He was debating with himself in his blundering way. Finally, with a quick, reckless plunge, he made up his mind. "I--was looking for Charlie," he said. "I've been trying to find him ever since I left here." The girl's smile had passed, too. A growing trouble was in her eyes. "Charlie--is still out?" she demanded sharply. "And Fyles--where did you meet Inspector Fyles?" The dark eyes were full of anxiety now. Kate's voice had lost its softness. Nor could Bill help noticing the wonderful strength that seemed to lie behind it. "I can't say where Charlie is now," the man went on, a little helplessly. "I saw Fyles close by that big pine tree." "Close by the pine tree?" Kate repeated the words after him, and her repetition of them suddenly endowed them with a strange significance for Bill. With an air of having suddenly abandoned all prudence, all caution, Bill flung out his arms. "Say, Miss Seton," he said, in a sort of desperation, "I'm troubled--troubled to death. I can't tell the top-side from the bottom-side of anything, it seems to me. There's things I can't understand hereabouts, a sort of mystery that gets me by the neck and nearly chokes me. Maybe you can help me. It seems different, too, talking to you. I don't seem to be opening my mouth too wide--as I've been warned not to." "Who warned you?" The question came sharp and direct. "Why, O'Brien. You see, I went down to the saloon after I'd searched the ranch for Charlie, and asked if he had been there. O'Brien was shutting up. He said he had been there, but had gone. Then he told me where I'd be likely to find him, but warned me not to open my mouth wide--till I'd found him. Said I'd likely find him somewhere around that pine. Said he'd likely be collecting some money around there. "Well, I set out to make the pine, and I didn't wonder at things for awhile. It wasn't till I got near it, and I saw the moon get up, and, in its light, saw Charlie in the distance near the pine, that this mystery thing got hold of me. It came on me when I hollered to him, and, as a result of it, saw him vanish like a ghost. But----" "You called to him?" The girl's question again came sharply, but this time with an air of deep contemplation. "Yes. But I didn't get time to think about it. Just as I'd shouted two horsemen scrambled out of the bush beside me. One of 'em was Fyles. The other I didn't know. He'd got three stripes on his arm." "Sergeant McBain," put in the woman quietly. "You know him?" Kate shrugged. "We all know him about here." Bill nodded. "Fyles cursed me for a fool for hollering out. Said he'd been watching that 'tough,' and didn't want to lose sight of him. I got riled. I told him a few things, and said I'd a right to hail my brother any old time. Then he changed around and said he was sorry, and asked me if I was sure it was my brother. When I told him 'yes,' he thanked me for putting him wise, and said I'd saved him a deal of unnecessary trouble. Said there was no more need to watch him--seeing he was my brother. That's when he told me about the storm, and I hit my short cut, and, finally, reached--the river. Now, what was he watching for, and who did he mistake Charlie for? What's the meaning of the whole thing? Why did O'Brien warn me? These are the things that get me puzzled to death. Maybe you can tell me--can help me out?" He waited, confidently expecting an explanation that would clear up all the mystery, but none was forthcoming. Instead, when Kate finally replied, there was an almost peevish complaint in her tone. "I wish you had taken O'Brien's warning more to heart," she said. "Maybe you've done a lot of harm to-night. I can't tell--not yet." "Harm?" Bill stood aghast. "Yes--harm, man, harm." Kate's whole manner had suddenly undergone a change. She seemed to be laboring under an apprehension that almost unnerved her. "Don't you know who Fyles is after? He's after whisky-runners. Don't you know why O'Brien warned you? Because he believes, as pretty nearly everybody believes--Fyles, too--that your brother Charlie is the head of a big gang of them. Mystery? Mystery? There is no mystery at all--only danger, danger for your brother, Charlie, while Fyles is on his track. You don't know Fyles. We, in this valley, do. It is his whole career to bring whisky-runners under the hammer of the law. If he can fix this thing on Charlie he will do it." The girl sprang from her seat in her agitation, and began to pace the wet ground. "Charlie? Though he's your brother, I tell you Charlie's the most impossible creature alive. Everything he does, or is, somehow fosters the conviction that he is against the law. He drinks. Oh, how he drinks! And at night he's always on the prowl. His associates are known whisky-runners, men whom the police, everybody, knows have not the wit to inspire the schemes that are carried out under the very noses of the authorities. What is the result? The police look for the brain behind them. Charlie is clever, unusually clever; he drinks, his movements are suspicious. He's asking for trouble, and God knows he's going to find it." A sudden panic was swiftly overwhelming Big Brother Bill. Though he knew no fear for himself it was altogether a different matter where his brother was concerned. He ran the great fingers of one hand through his wet, fair hair, an action that expressed to the full his utter helplessness. "Say," he cried desperately, "Charlie's no crook. By God, I'll swear it! He's just a weak, helpless babe, with a heart as big as a house. Charlie a crook? Say, Miss Seton, you don't believe it, do you?" Kate shook her head. "I know he's not," she said gently. Then in a moment all her fierce agitation returned. "But what's the use? Tell the folks in the valley he isn't, and they'll laugh at you. Tell that to Fyles." She laughed wildly. "Man, man, there's only one thing can save Charlie from this stigma, from Fyles. Let him leave the valley. It's the only way." She sighed and then went on, her manner becoming suddenly subdued and rather hopeless. "But nothing on earth could move him from here, unless it were a police escort taking him to the penitentiary." She returned to her seat in the window, and when she spoke again her whole manner had undergone a further change. It was full of that womanly gentleness which fitted her so well. "Mr. Bryant," she said, with a pathetic smile lighting her handsome features, and softening them to an almost maternal tenderness, "I'm fonder of Charlie than any creature in the world--except Helen. Don't make any mistake. I'm not in love with him. He's just a dear, dear, erring, ailing brother to me. He can't, or won't help himself. What can we do to save him? Oh, I'm glad you've come here. It's taken a load from my heart. What--what can we do?" Again the big fingers raked through the man's wet hair. "I--wish I knew," Bill lamented helplessly. But a moment later a quick, bright look lit his big blue eyes. "I know," he almost shouted. "Let's hunt this gang down--ourselves." Kate's gaze had been steadily fixed upon the far side of the valley, where Charlie Bryant's house stood. Now, in response to the man's wild suggestion, it came slowly back to his face. "I hadn't thought of--that," she said, after a pause. In a wild burst of enthusiasm Bill warmed to his inspiration. "No," he cried. "Of course not. That's because you aren't used to scrapping." He laughed. "But why not? I'll do the scrapping, and you--you just do the thinking. See? We'll share up. It's dead easy." "Yes--it would be dead easy," Kate demurred. "Easy? Of course it's easy. I'm pretty hot when it comes to a scrap," Bill ran on with added confidence. "And a bunch of whisky-runners don't amount to a heap anyway." Suddenly Kate rose from her seat. She moved a step toward him and laid one brown hand gently on his arm. She was smiling as she had smiled at the thought of her regard for this man's brother. There was something almost motherly now in her whole attitude. "You're a big, brave soul, and like all brave souls you're ready at all times to act--act first and think afterwards," she said very gently. "You said I was to think. Let me think now. You see, I know this place. I know this class of man. It's the life of the police to deal with these whisky-runners, and they--they can do nothing against them. Then what are we, you, with your brave inexperience, I, with my woman's helplessness, going to do against them? Believe me, the men who carry on this traffic are absolutely desperate creatures who would give their lives at any moment rather than go to the penitentiary. Life to them, their own and their enemy's, means nothing. They set no value on it whatsoever. The trade is profitable, and"--she sighed--"against the law. Those engaged in it live for the excitement of fighting the law. That's one of the reasons which makes it impossible that Charlie could be one of them. No, Mr. Bryant, I guess it's not for us to do this thing. We just couldn't do a thing. But we must think of Charlie, and, when we've thought, and the time comes, why, then--we'll act. Fyles is a brave man, and a just man," she went on, with a slight warmth. "He's a man of unusual capacity, and worth admiration. But he is a police officer," she added regretfully. "In saving Charlie from him we shall prevent one good man wronging another, and I guess that should be good service. Let's content ourselves with that. Will you help?" Big Brother Bill had no hesitation at any time. He was carried away by the enthusiasm Kate's words inspired. He thrust out one great hand and crushed the woman's in its palm. "Sure I'll help. I've just got two hands and a straight eye, and when fight's around I don't care if it snows. My head's the weak spot. But, anyway, what you say goes. We'll save Charlie, or--or--Say, a real bright woman's just about the grandest thing God ever made." Kate winced under the crushing force of his handshake, but she smiled bravely and thankfully up into his face as she bade him "good night." CHAPTER XVII BILL PEEPS UNDER THE SURFACE The surprises of the night were not yet over for Big Brother Bill. It almost seemed as if a lifetime of surprises were to be crowded into his first night in the valley of Leaping Creek. Still thoroughly moist, he finally reached home to find his brother there, waiting for him. Of course, the big man promptly blundered. Charlie was in the living room, sitting in a dilapidated rocking chair. An unopen book was in his lap, and his dark, clever face was turned toward the single window the room possessed, as the heavy tread of Bill sounded on the veranda. It was obvious he was still laboring under the influence of the drink; it was also obvious, though less apparent, that he was laboring under an emotion, which unusually disturbed him. His eyes were shining with a gleaming light which might have expressed anger, excitement, or even simply the effect of his libations. Whatever it was, Bill recognized, without appreciating its meaning, a definite change from the man he had so cordially greeted earlier in the day; a recognition which made his blundering now, more hopelessly than ever, an expression of his utter lack of discretion. "Say, Charlie, boy," he cried, as he entered the little room, filling it almost to overflowing with his robust personality, "I've chased half over the valley looking for you. Then I saw you at the old pine and shouted, and you sort of faded away. I thought I'd 'got' 'em. What with that, and then falling into the river, and one or two minor, but more or less unpleasant accidents, I've had one awful time. Say, this valley's got me beat to death." The simplicity of the man was monumental. No one else could have looked upon that slight figure, huddled down in the big old rocker, without having experienced a feeling of restraint; no one could have observed the drawn, frowning brows, and the hard lines about the still somewhat sensual mouth, without using an added caution in approaching him. There were fires stirring behind Charlie's dark eyes which were certainly ominous. Now, as he listened to his brother's greeting, swift anger leaped into them. His words came sharply, and almost without restraint. Big Brother Bill was confronted by another side of his nature, a side of which he had no knowledge whatever. "You always were a damned fool," Charlie cried, starting heatedly forward in his chair. "I told you I was going out. If you had any sort of horse sense you'd have understood I wasn't in need of a wet-nurse. What the devil do you want smelling out my trail as if you were one of the police?" Then he suddenly broke into an unpleasant laugh. "You came here in Fyles's company. Maybe you caught the police infection from him." Bill stared in wide-eyed astonishment at the harsh injustice of the attack. For one second his blood ran hot, and a wild desire to retaliate leaped. But the moment passed. Though he was not fully aware of Charlie's condition, something of it now forced itself upon him, and his big-hearted regret saved him from his more rampant feelings. He sat himself on the edge of the table. "Easy, Charlie," he said quietly, "you're kind of talking recklessly. I'm no wet-nurse to anybody. Certainly it's not my wish to interfere with you. I'm--sorry if I've hurt you. I just looked around to tell you my adventures, I'm no--spy." Charlie rose from his seat. He stood swaying slightly. The sight of this outward sign of his drunken condition smote the good-natured Bill to the heart. It was nothing new to him in his erring brother. He had seen it all before, years ago, so many, many times. But through all these years apart he had hoped for that belated reforming which meant so much. He had hoped and believed it had set in. Now he knew, and his last hopes were dashed. Kate Seton had warned him, but her warning had not touched him as the exhibition he now beheld did. Why, why had Charlie done this thing, and done it to-night--their first night together in the new world? He could have cried out in his bitterness of disappointment. As he looked upon the man's unsteady poise he felt as though he could have picked him up in his two strong hands and shaken sober senses into him. But Charlie's mood had changed at the sound of the big man's regrets. They had penetrated the mists of alcohol, and stirred a belated contrition. "I don't want any apologies from you, Bill," he said thickly. "Guess I'm not worth it. You couldn't spy on a soul. It's not that----." He broke off, and it became evident to the other that he was making a supreme effort at concentration. "You saw me at the pine?" he suddenly inquired. Bill nodded. He had no desire to say anything more now. He felt sick with himself, with everything. He almost regretted his own coming to the valley at all. For a moment his optimism was utterly obscured. Added to what he now beheld, all that Kate Seton had said was revolving in his brain, an oppressive cloud depriving him of every joy the reunion with his brother had inspired. The two thoughts paramount, and all pervading, were suggested by the words "drunkard" and "crook." Nor, in that moment of terrible disappointment, would they be denied. Charlie sat down in his chair again, and, to the onlooker, his movement was almost involuntary. "I was there," he said, a moment later, passing one hand across his frowning brows as though to clear away the cobwebs impeding the machinery of his thought. "Why--why didn't you come and speak to me? I was just--around." Again Bill's eyes opened to their fullest extent. "I hollered to you," he said. "When you heard me you just--vanished." Again Charlie smoothed his brow. "Yes--I'd forgotten. It was you hollered, eh! You see, I didn't know it was you." Bill sat swinging one leg thoughtfully. A sort of bewilderment was getting hold of him. "You didn't recognize my voice?" he asked. Then he added thoughtfully, "No--and it might have been Fyles, or the other policemen. They were there." Charlie suddenly sat up. His hands were grasping the arms of the rocker. "The police were there--with you?" he demanded. "What--what were they doing there--with you?" The sharp questions, flung at him so quickly, so soberly, suddenly lifted Bill out of his vain and moody regrets. In spite of all Kate had told him, in spite of her assurance that Fyles, and all the valley, believed Charlie to be the head of the smuggling gang, the full significance of Fyles's presence in the neighborhood of the pine had not penetrated to his slow understanding before. Now an added light was thrown upon the matter in a flash of greater understanding. Fyles was not watching any chance crook. He was watching Charlie, and he knew it was Charlie, and the assurance of Charlie's identity extracted from him, Bill, had been a simple blind. What a fool he had made of himself. Kate was right. The harm he had done now became appalling. He promptly became absorbed in a strongly restrained excitement. He leaned forward and talked rapidly. He had forgotten Charlie's condition, he had forgotten everything but the danger threatening. "Here, Charlie," he cried, "I'll tell you just all that happened after I left here, when you went out. Guess it's a long yarn, but I think you need to know it for your own safety." Charlie leaned back in his chair and nodded. "Go ahead," he said. Then he closed his eyes as Bill rushed into his narrative. The big man told it all as far as it concerned his first meeting with the Setons, his subsequent visit to the saloon, and, afterwards, his meeting with Fyles. The only thing he kept to himself was his final meeting with Kate Seton. At the end of this story Charlie reopened his eyes, and, to any one more observant than Big Brother Bill, it was plain that his condition had improved. A keen light was shining in them, a light of interest and perfectly clear understanding. "Thanks, Bill," he said, "I'm glad you've told me all that." Then he rose from his chair, and his movements had become more certain, more definite. "Guess I'll get off to bed. It's no use discussing all this. It can lead nowhere. Still, there is one thing I'd like to say before we quit. I'm glad, I'm so mighty glad you've come along out here to join me I can't just say it all to you. I'm ready to tumble headlong into any schemes you've got in your head. But there's things in my life I've got to work out in my own way. Things I can't and don't want to talk about. Maybe I'll often be doing things that seem queer to you. But I want to do 'em, and intend to do 'em. Drink is not one of 'em. You'll find I'm a night bird, too. But, again, my night wanderings are my own. You'll hear folks say all sorts of things about me. You'll see Fyles very busy. Well, it's up to you to listen or not. All I say is don't fight my battles. I can fight them in my own way. Two of us are liable to mess them all up. Get me? I live my life, and you can share as much in it as you like, except in that--well, that part of it I need to keep to myself. There's just one thing I promise you, Fyles'll never get me inside any penitentiary. I promise you that, sure, because I know from your manner that's the trouble in the back of your silly old head. Good night." He passed out of the room without giving the astonished Bill any opportunity to do more than respond to his "good night." Anyway, the latter had nothing else to say. He was too taken aback, too painfully startled at the tacit admission to all the charges he had been warned the people and police of Leaping Creek were making against his brother. What could he say? What could he do? Nothing--simply nothing. He remained where he was against the table. He had forgotten his wet clothes. He had forgotten everything in the overwhelming nature of his painful feelings. His own beliefs, Kate's loyally expressed convictions, had been utterly negatived. It was all true. All painfully, dreadfully true. Charlie was not only a drunkard still, but the "crook" he was supposed to be. He was a whisky-runner. He was against the law. His ultimate goal was the penitentiary. Good God, the thought was appalling! This was where drink had led him. This was the end of his spoiled and wayward brother's career. What a cruel waste of a promising life. His good-natured, gentle-hearted brother. The boy he had always admired and loved in those early days. It was cruel, terrible. By his own admission he was against the law, a "crook," and--the penitentiary was looming. CHAPTER XVIII THE ARM OUTREACHING The morning was gloriously fine. It was aglow with the fulness of summer. Far as the eye could see the valley was bathed in a golden light which the myriad shades of green made intoxicating to senses drinking in this glory of nature's splendor. Leaping Creek gamboled its tortuous way through the heart of a perfect garden. A veritable Eden thought Stanley Fyles--complete to the last detail. But his thought was without cynicism. He had no time for cynicism. Besides, the goal of his career lay yet before him. His thought drifted further. His whole fate had suddenly become bound up in that valley. Nor was the fact without a certain irony. For him it was the valley of destiny. Within its spacious confines lay the two great factors of life--his life--love and duty. They were confronting him. They were standing there waiting for him to possess himself of his victorious hold. Stanley Fyles felt rather like a ticket-of-leave criminal, instead of a law officer, as he gazed out from the doorway of the frame hut, which formed the temporary quarters of the police, far out on the western reaches of the valley, five miles above the village of Rocky Springs. He knew he was there to prove himself. His mistakes, or his bad luck, of the past must be remedied before he could return to his superiors with a clean sheet. His hands were free, he knew. But in that freedom he was more surely a prisoner on parole than any man on his given word. He was pitting himself like the gambler against the final throw. It was all, or--ruin. To leave the valley with the work undone, with another mistake to his credit, and his present career must terminate. Then there was that other side. That wonderful--other side. The human nature in him made the valley more surely his destiny than any charges of his superior officer. The woman was there. The Eve in his Eden. More than all else the thought of her inspired him to the big effort of his life. He was thinking of Kate Seton now as his gaze roamed at will over the ravishing summer tints. He was thinking wholly of her when his mind might well have been contemplating the terms of the despatches he had just written, the orders he had sent to his troopers, even the events and clues he had obtained on the previous night, pointing the work he had in hand. A door opened and closed behind him. He was aware of it, but did not turn. A voice addressed him. It was the cold voice of Sergeant McBain. "The men are saddled up, sir." Fyles glanced around without changing his position. "The despatches are on the table," he replied, with a sharp inclination of the head in the direction. "Any other instructions, sir?" Fyles thought a moment. "Yes," he said at last. "When they return here it must be after dark. The patrol and horses they bring with 'em are to be camped over at Winter's Crossing, five miles higher up the valley. This before they come in to report. That's all." "Very good, sir." Sergeant McBain departed, and presently the clatter of hoofs told the officer that the two troopers had ridden away. As they went he drew out a pipe and began to fill it. When McBain re-entered the room Fyles bestirred himself. He turned back and flung himself into an uncomfortable, rawhide-seated, home-made chair, and lit his pipe. McBain took up a position at the small table which served the purpose of a desk. McBain and his men had taken up their quarters here several weeks ago. It was a mere shed, possibly an implement shed on an abandoned farm. It was a frame, weather-boarded shanty with a dilapidated shingle roof. Quite a reasonable shelter till it chanced to rain. The handiness of the troopers had made it comparatively habitable with oddments of furnishing, and a partition, which left an inner room for sleeping quarters. There was a partial wooden lining covering the timbers supporting the roof, which was an open pitch, without any ceiling. There were several wooden brackets projecting from the walls, which had probably, at one time, been used to support harness. Now they served the purpose of carrying police saddles and uniform overcoats. There was obviously no attempt at establishing a permanent station there. These men were, as was their custom, merely utilizing the chance finding as an added comfort in their strenuous lives. Fyles lit his pipe, and, for some moments, smoked thoughtfully, while McBain's pen scratched a series of entries in his diary. Fyles watched him through a cloud of smoke, and when his subordinate returned his pen to the home-made rack on the table, he began to talk. "There's two things puzzling me about that tree, McBain," he said, following out his train of thought. "Your reckoning has justification all right. We saw enough last night for that. Besides, you have seen the same sort of thing several times before. It surely has a big play in the affairs of these 'runners.' But I can't get a focus of that play. Suppose that the tree is in some mysterious way a sort of means of communication, why is it necessary? And, why in thunder, when everybody knows who the boss of the gang is, don't they deal direct with him?" Fyles smiled into the grim face of McBain, and sat back waiting to hear the Scot's reply. His keen face was alight with expectancy. He wanted this shrewd man's ideas as well as his facts obtained by observation. The sergeant's face was obstinately set. He had already asserted certain convictions about the old pine, and now he detected skepticism in his superior. "Three times in the last two weeks I have seen the same figure in the shadow of that tree late at night. It hasn't needed any guessing to locate his identity. Very well, starting with the supposition that the village folk are right, and Charlie Bryant is our man, then his movements about that tree at that hour of the night become more than suspicious. Especially since we know he's run a big cargo in lately. But while I figger on that tree there's something else, as I've told you. I've tracked him into the neighborhood of the old Meeting House and back again to the tree. Now, I've seen this play three times, and would have seen the whole of it again last night if that damned coyote of a tenderfoot hadn't butted in. That's that, sir." Fyles nodded. The older man's earnestness was not without its weight. But to a man like Fyles, definite proof, or reasonable probabilities, were necessary. Clearing his throat, McBain went on. "Let's come to another argument, sir," he said, setting himself with his arms on the table. "Every man or woman in the place reckons this tough, Charlie Bryant, runs the gang. They can lay their tongues to the names of the men who form the gang. Guess this is the list, and a certain one sure, knowing the men. There's Pete Clancy, Nick Devereux, both hired men to Miss Seton. There's Kid Blaney, hired to Bryant himself. There's Stormy Longton, the gambler and--murderer. Then there's another I believe to be Macaddo, the train hold-up, and the fellow they call "Holy" Dick. That's the gang with Bryant at their head, but there may be more of them. I've got the names indirectly from the village folk. But this is my point. Never a soul in the village has seen them at work. Never a soul has seen them buy, or sell, or handle, one drop of drink, except what they buy in the saloon to consume. The gang don't do one single thing to give itself away, and there's not a man or woman could give them away in the village, except from their talk when they're drunk." The man was making his point, and Fyles remained interested. "Now, this is the argument, an' you'll admit, sir, experience carries a lot of it out. Crooks are scared to death of each other, you know that, sir, better than I do. It's the basis of their methods. They've got to make safe. To do this they have to resort to schemes which hide their identity. They'll trust each other engaged in the crime because all are involved. But they daren't trust those who're under no penalty. What do they do? They've got to blind the outside world, the police, and they do it by making a mystery. Now, in this case, the pine is the heart of their mystery. It must give the key to the cache. It must lead us to getting the lot red-handed--running a cargo. That's what I know and feel, and it's up to you, sir, to show us the way. I've worked on the lines you gave me, sir, and I've done all a man can do. I've had the whole village watched, and worked inquiry by a farmer outlying the valley. But now we're plumb at a deadlock till they run another cargo, which I'm calculating, at the rate liquor's consumed, they'll soon have to do. Maybe that'll give us a week or so for fixing our plans. I've watched each member of the gang, and we've got their movements written down here, from the time we missed that cargo on the trail. Maybe you'll read my notes on them." Fyles took the diary the man held out. "It's a tough proposition, McBain," he said with a sigh, which had no weakening in it. "But I think we'll make good this time, if only we can get the news of the shipment when it comes along well ahead. Superintendent Jason is in communication with every local police force east, and should get it all right. If we get that, the rest should be easy. Rocky Springs only has three roads, and it's a small place. I've got a pretty wide scheme ready for them when we get word. In the meantime our present work must be to endeavor to locate their cache. That discovered, and left alone, our work will be simple pie. I'll read these notes now. Then I'm going into the village. Later on I've a notion to see just how busy Master Bryant is on his--ranch." * * * * * Kate gave a final glance round at the walls of green logs, and noted with appreciation the picturesque dovetailing of every angle. "Well," she declared, after a moment's thought, "all I can say is that the design's working out in truly elegant fashion. Charlie's done his work well--and so have the boys." She beamed pleasantly upon her audience, two men balancing themselves upon the open floor joists of the new church. "It's a real work of art. It's going to be swell, and the folks should be just proud of it." Billy Unguin smiled confidently. "Oh, the folks'll be proud of it all right, all right," he said. "They'll yap about this place, and how they built it, till you'll wish it was swallowed up by that kingdom they guess they're going to get boosted into by means of it. They'll have one hell of a burst at the saloon when the work's done, and every feller'll be guessin' he could have done the other feller's job better than he could have done it himself, and the women folk'll just say what elegant critturs their men are, till they get home sossled. Then they'll beat hell out of 'em. They'll sure be proud of it, but I don't guess the church'll be proud of them. It'll have hard work helpin' most of 'em into the kingdom. Ain't that so, Allan?" Billy asked for confirmation of his opinions merely as a matter of form. But Allan Dy displayed little interest in them. He had some of his own. "Guess so," he murmured indifferently. "Course it's so," said Billy sharply. "Dessay you're right," replied Dy, with still less interest. "But I ain't got time thinking conundrums. I get too many, running the mail. Still, I'd like to say right here this doggone church ain't architecture. Maybe it's art, as Miss Kate says. But it ain't architecture. That's what it ain't," he finished up, with decided emphasis. Kate smiled upon him. She was interested in what lay behind the remark. "How--how do you make that out, Allan?" she inquired. The postmaster felt sorry for her and showed it. "It's easy," he declared. Then he gathered his opinions in a bunch, and metaphorically hurled them at her. "Where's the steel girders an' stone masonry?" he demanded. "It's just wood--pine. Wher's the figures an' measurements? Who knows the breakin' strain o' them green logs? Maybe it's art, but it ain't architecture. I ain't so sure about the art, neither. It's to be lined with red pine. Ther' ain't no art to red pine. Now maple--bird's-eye maple, an' we got forests of it. Ther's art in bird's-eye maple. It's mighty pleasing to the eye. It 'ud make the folks feel good. Red pine? Red?" He shook his head ominously. "Not in this city. You see, red's a shoutin' color. Sets folk gropin' fer trouble. But white's different. It--it sort o' sets folks thinking o' them days when their little souls was white enough, even if their bodies wasn't rid of a month's dirt. I tell you, Rocky Springs 'ud get pious right away under the influence of bird's-eye maple. Maybe they'd be fighting drunk later, but that don't cut no ice. You see, it's sort o' natural to 'em. Still, the church would have done 'em some good if only it kept 'em a few seconds from doing somebody or something a personal injury." Billy was chafing at his friend's monopoly of the talk and promptly seized the opportunity of belittling his opinions. "What's the use," he cried. "I'm with Miss Kate. Charlie's done right in fixing on red pine lining. Art's art, an' if you're goin' to be artistic, why, you just got to match things same as you'd match a team of horses, same as a woman does her fixings. 'Tain't good to mix anything. Not even drinks. Red pine goes with raw logs. Say, there's art in everything. Beans goes with pork; cabbage with corned beef. But you don't never eat ice cream with sowbelly. Everybody hates winter. Why for do folks fix 'emselves like funeral mutes in winter? It's just the artistic mind in 'em. They'd hate flying in the face of Providence by cheerin' themselves up with a bit of color. Art is art, Dy, my boy; maybe art ain't in your line, seein' you're a Government servant. Ther' ain't nothin' but red pine for the inside of that church, or all art's bust to hell. Start the folks in this city off on notions inspired by anemic woodwork, an' the sight o' so much purity would set 'em off sniveling on their women-folk's bosoms, and give 'emselves internal chills shoutin' fer ice water at O'Brien's bar. You'd set the boys so all-fired good-natured they'd give 'emselves up fer the crimes they never committed, or they'd be startin' up a weekly funeral club so as to be sure of a Christian burial anyway. You'd upset the harmony o' Rocky Springs something terrible. Bird's-eye maple--nothin'. Ain't that so, Miss Kate?" Kate laughed outright. "I can't quite follow all the arguments," she said, cautiously. "But--but--it sounds all right." "Sure," agreed Billy, complacently. But Dy was not yet defeated. "I'm arguin' architecture," he said doggedly. "Here," he indicated the length of the main building, "I don't care a cuss about your art. What about this? Where's the tree grown hereabouts tall enough to give us a ridge pole for this roof? It means a join in the ridge pole. That's what it means. And that ain't architecture, Master Billy--smarty--Unguin." Kate ran her eye over the offending length. The man's point seemed obvious. "It certainly looks like a join," she admitted unwillingly. For a moment Billy was disconcerted. But his inventive faculties quickly supplied him with a way out. Anyway, he could break up the other's argument. "Isn't nothin'!" he cried, with fine scorn. "That don't need to worry you. Ain't we got the tallest pine in creation right here on the spot?" The postmaster's eyes widened. Even Kate was startled at the suggestion. "You'd cut down the old tree?" she inquired. "Wher's your sense?" demanded Dy roughly. "Cut down the old pine? Who's goin to do it? Who's got the grit?" "It don't need grit to saw that tree--only a saw," smiled Billy, provokingly. But Dy had no sense of humor at the moment. "Pshaw! What about the Indian cuss on it?" he demanded. "Ther' ain't a boy in this valley 'ud drive a saw into that tree. You're talking foolish." Billy grew very red. "Am I?" he cried, angrily. "Well, I ain't no sawyer, but I'll say right here if the church needs that pine I'll fetch it down if it's only to show you that Charlie Bryant's notions are better than yours. I'll do it if the work kills me." "Which it surely will," said Dy significantly. But Kate had no liking for the turn the conversation had taken, and attempted to divert it. "No, no," she cried, with a laugh that was a trifle forced. "That's the worst of you men when you begin to argue. You generally get spiteful. Just like women. Art or architecture, it doesn't matter a bit. We're all proud of this lovely little church. But I must be off. I've a committee meeting to attend. Then there's a church sewing bee. See you again." She turned away and began to pick her way from joist to joist toward the doorway in the wall. Her progress occupied all her attention and careful balance. Thus she was left wholly unaware of the man who was standing framed in the opening watching her. Her first realization came with the sound of his voice. And so startling was its effect that she lost her balance, and must have taken an undignified fall between the joists, had not a pair of strong hands been thrust out to save her. "I'm sorry, Miss Kate," cried Fyles earnestly, as, aided by his supporting arms, she regained her balance. "I thought you knew I was here--had seen me." Kate freed herself as quickly as she could. Her action was almost a rebuff, and suggested small enough thanks. Probably none of the villagers would have met with similar treatment. She felt angry. She did not know why, and her words of thanks had no thanks in their tone. "Thank you," she said coldly. Then she looked up into the keen face before her and beheld its easy confident smile. "It was real stupid of me. But--you see, I didn't guess anybody was there." "No." Kate stepped down through the doorway, and stood beside the officer, whose horse was grazing a few yards away upon a trifling patch of weedy grass. Her annoyance was passing. "I'd heard you'd come into Rocky Springs," she said. "Everybody is--is excited about it." Inspector Fyles was still smiling as he returned her glance. He was thinking, at that moment, that the passing of time only added to Kate Seton's attractiveness. His quick eyes took in the simplicity of her costume, while he realized its comparative costliness for a village like Rocky Springs. "I don't guess there's much to be excited about--yet," he said. "Maybe that'll come later, for--some of them. I'm going to be around for quite a while." Kate was looking ahead down the trail. She was half-heartedly seeking an excuse for leaving him. Perhaps the man read something of her thought, for he abruptly nodded in the direction of the village. "You're going on down?" he inquired casually. "Yes. I've a church committee to attend. I am rather late." "Then maybe I may walk with you?" The man's manner was perfectly deferential, and something about it pleased his companion more than she would have admitted. Somehow she resented him and liked him at the same time. She was half afraid of him, too. But her fear was wholly sub-conscious, and would certainly have been promptly denied had she been made aware of it. "Your horse?" she protested. "You--you are riding." But Fyles only shook his head. "We needn't bother about him," he declared easily. "You see, he'll just walk right on." They moved on toward the mouth of the trail at the edge of the clearing, and Kate, watching the horse, saw it suddenly throw up its head and begin to follow in that indifferent manner so truly equine, picking at the blades of grass as it came. "What a dear creature," she exclaimed impulsively. "Did--did you train him that way?" Fyles smilingly shook his head. "Taught himself," he said. "Poor Peter's a first-class baby. He hates to be left alone. Guess if I went on walking miles he'd never be more than ten yards behind me." They walked on. Kate for the most part seemed interested only in the horse following so close behind, while Fyles made small secret of his interest in her. But for awhile talk seemed difficult. Finally it was Kate who was forced to take the initiative with this big, loose-limbed man of the plains. She searched her brains for an appropriate subject, and, finally, blundered into the very matter she had intended to avoid. "I suppose there's going to be a very busy time about here, now you've come around?" she said. "I suppose the lawlessness of this place will receive a check that's liable to make some folks pretty uncomfortable?" She smiled up at her companion with just a suspicion of irony in her dark eyes, and the man who had to rely on his wits so much in his life's work found it necessary to think hard before replying. The result of his thought was less than he could have hoped, for he had already learned, with some misgiving, of her friendliness with Charlie Bryant. However, the opportunity seemed a suitable one, so he added a gravity of tone to his reply. "There are people in this valley to whom my presence will make no difference. There are others--well, others whose company is worth avoiding. Say, Miss Kate, maybe you haven't a notion of a policeman's work--and penalties. Maybe you know nothing of the meaning of crime, as we understand it. Maybe you think us just paid machines, without feelings, without sentiment, cold, ruthless creatures who are here to run down criminals, as the old-time Indians ran down the buffalo, in a wanton love of destroying life. Believe me, it isn't so. We're particularly humane, and would far rather see folks well within the law and prospering, the same as we want to prosper ourselves. We don't fancy the work of shutting up our fellow creatures from all enjoyment of the life about us, or curtailing that life for them by so much as a second. Still, if folks obstinately refuse to come within the law of their own free will, then, for the sake of all other law-abiding folk, they must be forced to do so, or be made to suffer. Yes, I am here to do certain work, and what's more, I don't quit till it's done. It may cost me nothing but a deal of work, and some regret, it may cost me my life, it may cost other lives. But the work will go on till it is finished, and though I may not see that finish, there will be others to take my place. That is the work of the police in this country. It has always been so, and, finally, we always achieve our purpose. In the end a criminal hasn't a dog's chance of escape." The man's calmly spoken words were not without their effect. The irony in Kate's glance had merged into a gravity of expression that was not without admiration for the speaker. Furtively she took in the clean-cut profile, the square jaw, the strongly marked brows of the man under his prairie hat, then his powerful active frame. He was strikingly powerful in his suggestion of manhood. "It seems all different when you put it that way," she said thoughtfully. "Yes, I guess you're right, we folks sort of get other ideas of the police. Maybe it's living among a people who are notoriously--well, human. You don't hear nice things about the police in this valley, and I s'pose one gets in the same way of thinking. But----" Kate broke off, and her dark eyes gazed half wistfully out over the valley. "But?" Fyles urged her. Nor did his manner suggest any of his official capacity. He was interested. He simply wanted her to go on talking. It was pleasant to listen to her rich thrilling voice, it was more pleasant than he could have believed possible. Kate laughed quietly. "Maybe what I was going to say will--will hurt you," she said. "And I don't want to hurt you." Fyles shook his head. "We police don't consider our official feelings. They, and any damage done to them, are simply part of our work." They had reached the main village trail. The girl deliberately halted and stood facing him. "I was thinking it a pity you came here in--time of peace," she said quickly. "I was thinking how much better it would have been to wait until a cargo of liquor was being run, and then get the culprits red-handed. You see," she went on naively, "you've got time to look around you now, and--and listen to the gossip of the village, and form opinions which--which may put you on a false scent. Believe me," she cried, with sudden warmth, "I'd be glad to see you measure your wits against the real culprits. Maybe you'd be successful. Who can say? Anyway, you'd get a sound idea of whom you were after, and would not be chasing a phantom, as you are likely to be now, if you listen to the talk of this place. Believe me, I hold no brief for wrongdoers. They must take their chances. If they are discovered and captured they must pay the penalty. But I know how deceptive appearances may be in this valley, and--and it would break my heart if--a great wrong were done, however inadvertently." The wide reaches of the valley were spread out before them. Kate was gazing away out westward, where, high up on the hillside, Charlie Bryant's house was perched like an eagle's eyrie. Even at that distance two figures could be seen standing on the veranda, and neither she nor Fyles, who was following the direction of her gaze, needed a second thought as to their identity. "You're thinking of Charlie Bryant," the man said after a pause. "You're warning me--off him." "Maybe I am." Kate's eyes challenged the officer fearlessly. "Why?" The man's searching eyes were not seeking those secrets which might help his official capacity. Other feelings were stirring. "Why? Because Charlie is a weak, sick creature, deserving all the pity and help the strong can give him. Because he is a gentle, ailing man who has only contrived to earn the contempt of most, for his weakness, and the blame of those who are strong enough to help. Because he is, for all his weaknesses, an--honest man." Fyles gazed up at the house on the hillside again, and Kate's anxious eyes watched him. "Is that all?" he inquired presently. Nor could there be any mistake as to the thought behind the question. A dash of recklessness, that recklessness which her sister had deplored the absence of, now drove Kate headlong. "No. It is not all," she cried. "For five years I have been striving to help him to escape from the demon which possesses him. Oh, and I know how hopeless it has all been. I love Charlie, Mr. Fyles. I love him as though he were my brother, or even my own son. I would do anything in the world to save him, and I tell you frankly, openly, if the police seek to fix any crime this valley is accused of upon him, I will strive, by every possible means, whether right or wrong, to defeat their ends." The woman's face was aglow with reckless courage. Her eyes were shining with an enthusiasm which the man before her delighted in. All her defiance of him, of the law, only made her appeal the more surely. But he was not thinking of her words. He was thinking of her beauty, her courage, while he repeated her words mechanically. "Your brother--or even your own son?" "Yes, yes," Kate cried. Then she caught a sharp breath, and a deep flush suffused her cheeks and brow. The significance of the man's thoughtful words and tone had come home to her. She knew he was not thinking of anything else she had said. Only of her regard for that other man. She abruptly held out her hand and Stanley Fyles took it. Her good-bye came with a curtness that might well have inspired consternation. But the policeman replied to it without any such feeling, and passed on with his faithful Peter trailing leisurely behind him. CHAPTER XIX BILL MAKES THREE DISCOVERIES It was Big Brother Bill's third morning in the valley of Leaping Creek, and in that brief time his optimism and enthusiasm for the affairs of life in general had suffered shocks from which, at the moment, recovery seemed altogether doubtful. Like all simple natures, once mental disquiet set in it was not easily shaken off. So, about nine o'clock in the morning, he found himself sitting on the sill of the barn doorway, his broad back propped against the casing, hugging his troubles to himself, and, incidentally, smoking like a miniature smoke-stack. The place was quite still under the blazing morning sun; a collar-chain rattled inside the barn where a few horses stood impatiently swishing off the attacks of troublesome flies with their long tails; a hen, somewhere nearby, clucked to her brood of wandering chicks; an occasional grunt, and curious snuffing, came from the regions of the dilapidated hog pen. These were the only signs of life about the place. For Charlie, after displaying an unusual taciturnity, had taken himself off for the day, upon work which he had declared to be imperative, and Kid Blaney, after feeding and watering his horses, had done the same thing, on a similar excuse. Now, Bill felt he must do one of those very big "thinks," which, on occasion, he had been known to achieve. He felt that the time had come when something must really be done to ease the pressure upon his mental endurance. The previous night had furnished the climax, a painful climax, to all he had learned of his brother's doings, of his brother's guilt. Yes, he no longer shrank from using that hideous word. All suspected Charlie, the police, everybody, except Kate Seton, and Charlie had practically admitted his guilt to him personally, without any apparent shame or regret. But since then, since Bill had listened to the loyal defense of Kate, he had seen for himself the smugglers and their chief at work upon their nefarious trade, and thus further proof was no longer necessary. All mystery was banished. The whole thing, in spite of Kate's denial, was as plain as daylight. Charlie was a whisky-runner. The head of the gang. His little "one-eyed" ranch was the merest blind. His prosperity, if prosperity he possessed at all, was the prosperity of successful defiance of the law. To the simple brother this realization was a terrible one. Charlie, the brother to whom he had always been so devoted, was a crook, a mere common crook. His discovery of the previous evening had come as a far greater shock than might have been expected, considering all Bill had heard and witnessed of his brother's doings. But then it is the way of things to make the witnessing of a disaster far more terrible than listening to the story told in language however lurid. Last night he had watched his brother supplying contraband liquor to the saloonkeeper. It had happened in this way. After his first experiences on the night of his arrival he had been determined to avoid so unpleasant a sequence of occurrences on the second. Charlie had ridden off directly after supper, and Bill took the opportunity of paying an evening call upon Kate and Helen Seton. The chance he had deemed too good to miss. At least there was nothing of mystery and suspicion there, and he desired more than anything to breathe a wholesome air of frank honesty. These girls, particularly Helen, were the one bright spot in this crime-shadowed valley. To his mind Helen was a perfect ray of sunshine, which made the shadows in the place something more than possible of endurance. His call was welcomed in a manner that was obvious, even to his simple mind. And never in his life had he spent an evening of more whole-hearted enjoyment than he did with Helen, while her less volatile sister considerately kept herself more or less out of the way. Had his evening ended there his peace of mind might have suffered no further shock, but, as it was, the comparatively natural desire to celebrate his successful evening with a drink at O'Brien's sent him off in the direction of the village. Proceeding rapidly along the trail, full of happy thoughts of Helen, with her ready wit and gaiety, he was dreaming pleasantly all those delightful dreams, which every man at some time in his life, finds running through his head. Then suddenly he was aroused to the scene about him by the yellow light of a back window of O'Brien's saloon, just ahead of him. He was approaching the saloon from the rear! How had this happened? Then he discovered that, by some strange chance, he had left the main trail, and was proceeding up a wagon track, which evidently led to the barn behind the saloon. He turned off to seek a way round to the front of the building, and soon became so involved that he finally drew up at a low wire fence, enclosing the rear buildings, with the lamp-lit window still directly ahead of him. He was about to step over the wire when a movement, and the sound of hushed voices, caught and held his attention. He stood quite still. It was still fairly early, and the moon had not yet risen. The outbuildings rose up in shadowy outline against the starlit sky, and only the lamplight in the window made anything clear at all. It was this window, and the shaft of light it threw across the intervening space that held his attention, for it was somewhere in the shadow, to the right of it, he heard the movement and the voices. The movement continued, and then, quite suddenly, a figure stepped into the light. Bill drew back farther into the shadow. It was a man's figure, tall and lean. He was carrying something on his shoulder, which the watcher had no difficulty in recognizing as a small barrel. Close behind him followed a second man. He, too, was tall and spare, and he, too, was burdened with a keg upon his shoulder. In a moment Bill knew he was witnessing a transaction in contraband liquor between the whisky-runners and the saloonkeeper. His interest became absorbed. He had recognized neither of the men, and a wild hope stirred within him that perhaps he was to gain definite proof that Kate Seton's belief was right, and that Charlie had nothing to do with these people. His excitement and hope became intense. For the moment the men had vanished through the darkened doorway of the barn. Their voices were still hoarsely whispering, and though he could not catch a word of what was said, he felt that they were merely discussing their work. He waited for them to reappear. It was his anxious desire to finally assure himself that Charlie was not with them. He had not long to wait. The voices drew nearer. First one man emerged from the barn. It was one of the two he had seen go in. Then the other followed. They crossed the light once more. He was absolutely certain now, and a great thankfulness swept over him. But his relief was short-lived. A third man now appeared from the barn. He was smaller, much smaller, and very slight. His face and hair were undistinguishable beneath his prairie hat, but his dark jacket, and loose riding breeches were plain enough to the onlooker. In a moment Bill's heart sank. Even in that dim light he knew he was gazing upon the figure he had seen the night before at the old pine. There could be no mistake. Though he could not see the man's face, his figure was sufficient. He felt convinced that it was his brother. Kate was wrong, and everybody else was right. Charlie was indeed the whisky-runner whom the police were after. Any purpose he had had before was promptly abandoned. He hurried away, sick at heart, and hastily returned to the ranch to find Charlie--still out. After what he had witnessed he had no desire to meet Charlie that night, so he went straight to bed, but not to sleep. For a long time he lay awake thinking, thinking of his discovery. Then at last, thoroughly weary with thinking, he fell into a troubled sleep and dreamed that Inspector Fyles and his men were pursuing him over a plain, upon which there was no cover, and over which he made no progress whatsoever. Now, as he sat at the door of the barn, brooding over all he had seen and discovered, he felt that there were but two courses open to him. He must either, in his own phraseology, "get out or go on." And by that he meant he must either renounce all his affection for his erring brother, and leave him to his fate, or, like Kate, he must stand by to help him in the time of trouble, and do all in his power to save him from himself. There was not much doubt as to which direction his inclinations took, but he felt it was no time for permitting his feelings to rule him. He must think a big "think," and adopt its verdict. But the "think" would not come. Only would his inclinations obtrude. There was nothing mean or petty in this big creature. He loved his brother frankly and freely, and his absurd heart would not permit him to thrust those feelings aside. Groping and struggling, and undecided, yet convinced, he finally rose from his seat and stretched and shook himself like some great dog. Then he looked about rather helplessly. At that moment his eyes came to rest on the distant house of the Setons', and, as he beheld a woman emerge from its door, a great inspiration came to him. In a moment his dilemma disentangled itself. He laughed in very triumph as the idea swept through his brain. It permeated his whole being with a sense of delight. He only wondered he had not thought of it before. It was the very thing. How the devil had he managed to miss it? Helen was as full of plain wisdom and sense, as her pretty gray eyes were full of laughter. She was tremendously clever. She was always reading books. Hadn't he picked them up? Why, of course. He would go and catch her up, and--do a big powwow and "think" with her. His enthusiasm once more at high pressure, Big Brother Bill set off hot foot to intercept the girl he had seen just leaving her home. She would have to cross the bridge, that was certain--then----Ah, yes, the church. The new church. She generally took that in on her way to the village. She had told him that. Well, that was quite easy. He would cut across to the old pine, he couldn't lose himself doing that, then the trail would run right on down by the church. For once he made no mistake in taking a short cut. He reached the old pine safely, and felt like congratulating himself. Then a disconcerting thought occurred to him as he contemplated the trail down which he must proceed. The girl had a long way to go, and he had hurried desperately. She wouldn't be up at the church for some time yet. He felt annoyed with himself for always doing things in such a hurry. It was quite absurd. Now he would have either to remain where he was, kicking his heels about, or go on down to the church, and make it look as though he were purposely lying in wait for her. He felt that would be a mistake. She might resent it. She might regard it as an impertinence. He couldn't afford to offend her, he was much too anxious for her approval. He remembered her resentment at their first meeting, and--laughed. But he told himself she was quite right. She thought he had been spying on her. If he had been it would have been a low-down trick. Anyway he would take no chance now. He would wait right there, and---- A sudden commotion in the scrub beside him abruptly changed the trend of his thought. He was startled. The commotion went on. Then with a rush and whirr of wings, and a hoarse-throated squawk, a large bird flew up, clutching the ruffled body of a lesser one in its fierce claws, its great flapping wings brushing his sleeve as it swept on past him. His wondering blue eyes followed the bird's flight until it passed beyond the tree tops, and became hidden by the trunk of the old pine. Then he looked down into the bush, searching for the nest of fledglings he felt sure the hawk had robbed of a mother. He was absurdly grieved that his gun was still with his missing baggage. It would have delighted him to have brought the lawless pirate to book, and restored the mother to her panic stricken chicks. He peered into the bush searching for the nest, but the foliage was dense, and though he groped the boughs aside he could discover no signs of it. Still, the thought of those motherless chicks had stirred him, and he persisted. Breaking his way in among the boughs he searched more carefully. But at last, after wasting nearly a quarter of an hour upon his tender-hearted sympathy, he finally decided that he must be wrong. There was no nest of fledglings. He really felt quite disappointed. Just as he was about to abandon his search something fluttered at the very roots of the bush. It was of a grayish blue. With a lunge he made a grab, caught it, and stood up. It was a ball of paper, loosely crumpled. With an exclamation of disgust he made his way out of the bush and found himself confronted by the laughing gray eyes of Helen Seton. "For goodness' sake, Mr. Bryant!" the girl exclaimed, "whatever are you playing at? Is it Injuns, or--or are you busy on one of your short cuts? I'm nearly scared to death. I surely am." Bill looked into that laughing face, and slowly one great hand went up to his perspiring brow. It was the action of a man at a loss. "Guess you aren't half as scared as I am," he blurted out. "I've just had the life scared right out of me. It was a pirate hawk. A big one flapped up out of that bush, with a small bird in its claws. I--I was looking for the little feller's fledglings, and the nest. Sort of birds' nesting. You see, I guessed they'd need feeding--with their mother gone." Helen looked into the eyes of this absurd creature, and--wondered. Was there--was there ever a man quite so simple and--soft hearted? Her eyes became very gentle. "And did you--find them?" she asked quietly. Bill shook his head, and looked ruefully down at the paper in his hand. "Only this," he said, almost dejectedly. His air was too much for the girl's sense of humor. She laughed as she shifted the folded easel, and japanned tin box she was carrying, from one hand to the other. "Oh, dear, oh, dear," she cried, stifling her mirth. "And--and I do so hate hawks. They're such villains, and--and the valley's full of them. But there, the valley is full of everything bad--isn't it?" Bill was smoothing out the paper absent mindedly. Helen's reference had reminded him of his purpose. Her presence somehow made it difficult. But Helen went on without apparently noticing his awkwardness. "Tell me, Mr. Bryant, what was it brought you out this way, when you ought to be worrying around getting wise to--to the ranching business?" she demanded. Bill flung back his broad shoulders, and, with the movement, seemed to fling off every care. He laughed cordially. "Say, you make me laugh," he cried. "Now if I was to tell you what had brought me this way, you'd sure get mad." Then he discovered the things she was carrying for the first time. "Say, can't I carry those things?" he cried, reaching out and possessing himself of them without ceremony. "Why, it's a paint box, and--and easel," he cried in awe-struck tones. "I didn't guess you--painted." Helen was frankly delighted with him, but she promptly denied the charge. "Paint? 'Daub,' you mean. Guess Charlie tried to knock painting into my--my thick head. But he had to quit it after I reached the daubing stage. I don't think he guesses I'll ever win prizes at it," she went on, moving up toward the pine. "Still, I might sell some of my daubs among the worst drinking cases in the village." But Bill felt the outrage of such possibilities. "I'll buy 'em all," he cried. "Just name your price, I'd--I'd like to collect works of art," he added enthusiastically. Helen turned abruptly and glared. "How dare you laugh at me?" she cried, in mock anger. "I--I might have paid you to take one away, but I just won't--now. So there. Works of art! How dare you? And what are you hugging that old piece of paper to death for? Give it to me. Perhaps it's somebody's love letter. Though folks don't generally write love letters on blue paper. It suggests something too legal." Bill yielded up the paper with a good-natured smile. "It's all mussed and dirty," he said, in a sort of apology. "That's up to me," cried Helen. "Anyway a woman's curiosity don't mind dirt." She smoothed the paper carefully as she paused at the foot of the pine. Bill looked around. "Is this where you paint?" he asked. Helen nodded. She was busy with the paper. Bill occupied himself by thoroughly entangling the legs of the folded easel, in an endeavor to set it up for her. He tried it every way without success, and finally desisted with a regretful sigh. "Was there ever----?" he began. But Helen broke in with a sharp exclamation, which promptly drew him to her side. "This--this isn't a love letter at all," she cried amazedly. "It's--it's--listen! 'Please have ten gallons of Brandy and twenty Rye laid in the manger in my barn. Money enclosed. O'B!'" Helen looked up at the man beside her. All her laughter had gone. There was something like tragedy in her serious eyes. Bill was staring at the paper. "Why that's--that's an order for--liquor from O'Brien," he said, with the air of having made a discovery. His brilliancy passed the girl by. She merely nodded. "How--how did it get there?" she ejaculated. "Why, some one must have thrown it there," Bill declared deliberately. Again the man's shrewdness lacked an appreciative audience. The girl made no answer. She was thinking. She moved aside and leaned against the rough trunk of the mighty pine. She was still staring at the paper. But her movement caught the man's attention, and the sudden realization of the proximity of the pine recalled many things to his mind. The pine. That was where he had seen Charlie, his first night in the valley. That was where the police were watching him. That was where he vanished. It was at the pine that O'Brien had warned him Charlie had gone to collect "greenbacks"--dollars. That was O'Brien's order, money enclosed. Charlie had found the order and money. Then, when he was interrupted by his, Bill's, shout he had thrown the order away. The realization was like a douche of cold water, in spite of all he had seen and knew. Then he did a thing he hardly understood the reason of. It was the result of impulse--a sort of sub-conscious impulse. He reached out and took the weather-stained paper from the girl's yielding hands and deliberately tore it up. "Why--why are you doing that?" Helen asked sharply. Bill forced himself to a smile, and shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know," he said. Then, after a pause: "I guess that order has been filled." A bitterness found expression in the quality of his smile. "I saw the liquor delivered at O'Brien's last night. I saw the 'runners' at work. Charlie was with them. Say, where d'you paint from? Right here?" Helen looked up into the man's face. The last vestige of levity had passed from her. Her cheeks had paled, and she was striving desperately to read behind the ill-fitting smile she beheld. Bill knew. Bill knew all that everybody believed in the valley. He had done what nobody else had done. He had seen Charlie at his work. A desperate feeling of tragedy was tugging at her heart. This great big soul had received the full force of the blow, and somehow she felt that it had been a staggering blow. All her sympathy went out to him. Now she utterly ignored his question. She sat down at the foot of the tree and signed to him. "Sit here," she said soberly. "Sit here, and--talk to me. You came out here this morning because--because you wanted to find some one to talk to. Well?" Bill obeyed her. There was no question in his mind. She had fathomed his purpose, and he was glad. He replied to her challenge without hesitation, and strove to speak lightly. But as he went on all lightness passed out of his manner, and the girl was left with a full view of those stirring feelings which he had not the wit nor inclination to secrete for long. "Say," he began, "you asked what I was doing here, and guessed right--first time. Only, maybe you didn't guess it was you I came out to find. I saw you leave your house, and figured you'd make the new church. I was going right on down to the new church. Yes, I wanted to talk--to you. You see, I came here full of a--a sort of hope, and--and in two days I find the arm of the law reaching out to grab up my brother. I've given up everything to come and--join. Now I'm up against it, and I can't just think right. I sort of need some one to help me think--right. You see, I guessed you could do it." The man was sitting with his arms clasped about his knees. His big blue eyes were staring out over the valley. But he saw nothing of it. Helen, watching him, remained quite unconscious of the tribute to herself. She was touched. She was filled with a tender feeling she had never known before. She found herself longing to reach out and take hold of one of those big, strong hands, and clasp it tightly and protectingly in her own. She longed to tell him that she understood his grief, and was yearning to share it with him, that she might lighten the burden which had fallen upon him. But she did neither of these things. She just waited for him to continue. "You see," he went on, slowly, with almost painful deliberation, "I kind of feel we can think two ways. One with our heads, and the other with our hearts. That's how I seem to be thinking now. And between the two I'm all mussed up." The girl nodded. "I--I think I know," she said quietly. The man's face lit for a moment. "I knew you would," he cried, in a burst of enthusiasm. Then the light died out of his eyes again, and he shook his head. "But you can't," he said hopelessly. "Nobody can, but--me. I love old Charlie." "What does your head say?" asked Helen abruptly. "My head?" The man released his knees and pushed back his hat, as though for her to read for herself. "Guess my head says I best get aboard a train quick, and get right back East where I came from, and--stop there." "And leave Charlie to his--fate?" suggested the girl. The man nodded. "That's what my head says." "And your heart?" Helen's gray eyes were very tender as they looked into the troubled face beside her. Bill's broad shoulders lifted, with the essence of nonchalance. "Oh, that says get right up, and shut off the life of every feller at the main who tries to do Charlie any hurt." A sudden emotion stirred the girl at his side, and she turned her head away lest he should see that which her eyes betrayed. "The head is the wisest," she said without conviction. But she was wholly unprepared for the explosion her words invoked. "Then the head can be--damned!" Bill cried fiercely. And in a moment the shadows seemed to fall from about him. He suddenly sprang up and stood towering before her. "I knew if I talked to you about things you'd fix me right," he cried, with passionate enthusiasm. "I tell you my head's just a fool thing that generally butts in all wrong. You've just made me see right. You're that wise and clever. And--and when I get fixed like I've been, I'll always need to come to you. Say, there isn't another girl in all the world as bright as you. I'm going to stop right here, and I'll smash every blamed policeman to a pulp if he lays hands on Charlie. Charlie may be what he is. I don't care. If he needs help I'm here to give it. I tell you if Charlie goes to the penitentiary I go with him. If they hang him, they'll hang me, too. That's how your sister feels. That's how I feel. That's how----" "I feel, too," put in Helen quickly. "Oh, you great Big Brother Bill," she went on, in her sudden joy and enthusiasm. "You're the loyalest and best thing I ever knew. And--and if you aren't careful I'll--I'll give you one of my daubs after all. Come along. Let's go and look at the new church. Let's go and see how all the pious, whited sepulchers of this valley are getting on with their soul-saving business. I--I couldn't paint a thing to-day." CHAPTER XX IN THE FAR REACHES Charlie Bryant's horse was a good one, far better than a rancher of his class might have been expected to ride. It was a big, compact animal with the long sloping pasterns of a horse bred for speed. It possessed those wonderful rounded ribs, which seemed to run right up to quarters let down like those of a racehorse. It was a beautiful creature, and as it chafed under the gentle, restraining hand of its rider its full veins stood out like ropes, and its shoulders and flanks were a-lather of sweat. They were traveling over a broken country a few miles up the valley. There was no road of any sort, only cattle tracks, which, amid the wild tangle of bush, made progress difficult and slow. The man's eyes were brooding, and his effeminate face was overcast as he rode. The wild scene about him went for nothing, even to his artist eyes. His thoughts were full to the brim with things that held them concentrated to the exclusion of all else. And, for all he thought, or saw, or felt, of his surroundings, he might have been footing the superheated plains of a tropical desert. He was thinking of a woman. She was never really out of his thoughts, and his heart was torn with the hopelessness of the passion consuming him. No overshadowing threat could give him the least disquiet, no physical fear ever seemed to touch him. But every thought of the one woman whose image was forever before him could sear and lacerate his heart almost beyond endurance. He had no blame for her at any time. He had no protest to offer that her love, the love of a wife for a husband, was utterly beyond his reach. How could it be otherwise? He knew himself so well for what he was, he had so subtle an appreciation of all he must lack in the eyes of a big spirited, human woman, that, to his troubled mind, the situation as it was had almost become inevitable. Now as he rode, he thought, too, of his newly arrived brother, and the hatefulness of personal comparison made him almost cringe beneath their flagellations. Bill, so big of heart and body, so lacking in the many abilities which go to make up the man in men's eyes, but which count for so little in a woman's, so strong in the buoyancy and fearlessness that was his. He felt he could almost hate him for these things. Bill had not one ugly thought or feeling in the whole of his nature. Temptation? He barely understood the word, because he was so naturally wholesome. But more than these things it was the memory of that which, since his earliest youth, had looked back at him out of the mirror, that robbed Charlie Bryant of so much peace now. That, and the weakness which seemed to fit the vision so well. Whereas Bill, this child of the same parents, was all that might be, his own form and manner made him shudder as he thought of them. Then there was that devil haunting him, and from whom there seemed to be no escape. How could he ever hope that Kate Seton would do more than lend her strong, pitying affection for his support? How could she ever look to him for support and guidance? His sense of proportion was far too acute to permit so grievous an error. In some perverse way his mentality was abnormally acute. He saw with eyes which were inspired by a brain capable of vast achievement, but which possessed none of that equipoise so necessary for a well-balanced manhood. And it told him all that, and forced conviction upon him. It told him so much of that which no man should believe until it be thrust upon him overwhelmingly by the bitter experiences of life. His whole brain was permeated by a pessimism forced upon him by a morbid introspection, resulting from an undue appreciation of his own physical and moral shortcomings. Yet with it all he bore no resentment except against the perversity of such a lot as his. And in this lay the germ of a self-pity, which is a specter to be dreaded more than anything else in life. While deploring the conditions under which he must live, robbed, as he believed he was robbed, of the possibility of winning for himself all those things which belong to the manhood really existing beneath his exterior of denial, he yet felt he would rather have his bread divided than be denied that trifling food which made it possible for him to go on living. Kate's tender pity, Kate's warmth of affection, an affection she might even bestow upon some pet animal, was preferable to that she should shut him entirely out of her life. It left him free to drink in the dregs of happiness, although the nectar itself was denied him. He could accept such conditions. Yes, he could almost be satisfied with them, since he believed no others to be forthcoming. But, and a dark fury of jealousy flooded his heart as he thought, he could not witness another drinking the nectar while he was condemned to the dregs. He felt that that way lay madness. That way was more than could be endured. He could endure all else, whatever life had in store for him, but the thought that he must stand by while Kate be given to another was more than his fate, for all its perversity, could expect of him. From his veranda that morning, as on the morning before, Charlie had seen Kate and Stanley Fyles walking together. More than that he had heard from Kate herself of her admiration of the police officer. And, in these things, so trifling perhaps, so commonplace, he had read the forecast of a mind naturally dreading, and eaten up by suspicion. He would have been ready to suspect his own brother, had not a merciful providence made it plain to him that Bill possessed interest solely in the laughing gray eyes of Kate's sister. Now, as he rode along, he saw dull visions of a future in which Kate no longer played a part. A demon of jealousy was driving him. He longed impotently for the power to rob the man of the possibility of winning that which was dearest to him. In the momentary madness which his jealousy invoked he felt that the death of this man, his life crushed out between his own lean hands, would be something approaching a joy worth living for. But such murderous thoughts were merely passing. They fled again before the pessimism so long his habit. It would not help him one iota. It would rob Kate of a happiness which he felt was her due, which he desired for her; it would rob him of the last vestige of even her pitying regard. Then he laughed to himself, a laugh full of a hatefulness that somehow did not seem to fit him. It was inspired by the thought of how easy it would be to shoot the heart out of the man he deemed his rival. Others had done such things, he told himself. Then, with a world of bitterness, he added, far better men than himself. But he knew that no such intention was really his. He knew that beneath all his bitterness of feeling, and before all things, he desired Kate's happiness and security. A strange magnanimity, in a nature so morally weak, so lacking in all that the world regards as the signs of true manhood, was his. Even his life, he felt, would be small enough price to pay for the happiness and security of the only woman who had ever held out the strong arm of support and affection for him to lean upon, the only woman he had ever truly loved. So a nightmare of thought teemed through his brain as he rode. Now he would fall into a sweat of panic as fantastic specters of hideous possibilities arose and confronted him, now only a world of grief would overwhelm him. Again a passion of jealousy would drive him to the verge of madness, only to be followed swiftly by that lurking self-pity which robbed him of the wholesome human instincts inspired by the spirit of battle in affairs of life. Then would come that overwhelming depression, bred of the long sapping of his moral strength, while through it all, a natural gentleness strove to soar above the ashes of baser fires. It was with a sigh of relief, as his horse finally cleared a close growing bush, he emerged upon a small clearing. In the midst of this stood a corral. But, for the moment, he passed this by, and rode toward a log hut of ancient construction and design. He drew the restive creature up and dismounted. Then he flung the reins over one of the posts of the old corral. The place was beyond the boundary of his homestead and belonged to a time when the valley knew few inhabitants beyond half-breeds and Indians. He had discovered it, and had turned it into the service of a storage for those things which were required only rarely upon his ranch, and at the more remote parts of it. Inside the corral stood a wagon. It was an ordinary box wagon, but nearby stood a hay-rack, which signified its uses. Then there was a mower, and horse rake. There were other odds and ends, too, but it appeared obvious that haying operations were carried on in this direction, and this old corral so found its uses. After glancing casually in the direction of these things Charlie passed round to the door of the hut. And herein his purpose became more obscure. The place was heavily thatched and suggested long disuse. Its air was less of dilapidation than desertion, and lichen and fungus played a large part in such an aspect. The walls were low, and the heavy roof was flat and sloping. As the man drew near a flight of birds streamed from its eaves, screaming their resentment at such intrusion. Charlie appeared not to notice them, so intent was he upon his purpose. He walked hurriedly, and finally paused at the doorway. For a moment he almost seemed in doubt. Then, with a thrust, he pushed the door, the hinges of which creaked protestingly as it opened inwards. Another fluttering of wings, another chorus of harsh screams, and a further flight of birds poured from within and rushed headlong into the brilliant sunshine. The place was certainly very old. A dreadful mustiness pervaded the atmosphere. The dirt, too, the heavy deposit of guano upon the floor, made it almost revolting. There was no furniture of any sort, while yet it conveyed the suggestion that, at some remote period, it had been the habitation of man. A rough boarding lined the walls of logs very nearly up to the sloping roof. Rusty nails protruded here and there, suggesting hangers for utensils. A circular aperture in the roof denoted the presence, at one time, of a stove, possibly a cooking stove. And these things might well have raised in the mind a picture of a lean, black-haired, cadaverous man of low type, living a secret life amid the wilderness of this valley, with crime, crime against the laws of both God and Man as his object. Just such a man as is the notorious half-breed cattle thief. Stepping over to the far end of the room, where the light shone down through the stovepipe hole in the roof, Charlie halted before the rough boarding at the angle of the wall. Then he reached out and caught the upper edge of the wooden lining, which, here, was much lower than at any other point, and exerted some strength. Four of the upright plankings slid upward together in a sort of rough panel, and revealed a shallow cupboard hewn out of the old logs behind them. Within this opening a number of garments were hanging. There were several pairs of riding breeches, and an odd coat or two, besides other articles of man's outer attire. Added to these were two ammunition belts with holsters and revolvers. Charlie stood gazing at the contents of the cupboard for some moments. Then he examined them, pulling each article aside as though to assure himself that nothing was missing. Each revolver, too, he withdrew from its holster and examined closely. The chambers were fully loaded. And having satisfied himself of these things he slid the boards back into their place. As they dropped back his expression was one of appreciation. No one could possibly have guessed, even from a narrow examination, what lay behind those rough, time-worn boards. Their fit was in perfect keeping with the rest of the wall lining. He stood back and gave a final glance about him. Then he turned toward the door. As he did so the sound of a soft whinny reached him. It came from his horse outside. A quick, startled light leaped into his dark eyes, and the next moment his movements became almost electrical. He reached the door on the run and looked out. His horse was standing with head held high and ears pricked. The creature was gazing fixedly in the direction from which it had approached the clearing. Charlie needed nothing more. Something was approaching. Probably another horse. If so there was equally the probability of a rider upon its back. He closed the door quickly and carefully behind him, and hurried toward the corral. He threw down the poles that barred it, and made his way to the side of the wagon. Then his movements became more leisurely. Opening the wagon box he drew out a jack and a tin of grease. Then, still with an easy, leisurely air he jacked up one wheel and removed an axle cap. He was intent upon his work now--curiously intent. He removed the wheel and smeared the inside of the hub with the filthy looking grease. His horse beyond the fence gave another whinny, which ended in a welcoming neigh. The man did not even look up. He replaced the wheel and spun it round. Then he examined the felloes which had shrunk in the summer heat. An answering neigh, and a final equine duet still failed to draw his attention. Nor, until a voice beyond the fence greeted him, did he look up. "Getting ready for a journey?" said the voice casually. Charlie looked round into the keen face of Stanley Fyles. He smiled pleasantly. "Not exactly a journey," he said. Then he glanced quickly at the hay-rack standing on its side. "Say, doing anything?" he cried, and his smile was not without derision. "Nothing particular," replied the police officer, "unless you reckon getting familiar with the geography of the valley particular." Charlie nodded. "I'd say that's particular for--a police officer." His rich voice was at curious variance with his appearance. It was not unlike a terrier with the bay of a bloodhound. The phenomenon was not lost upon Fyles. He was studying this meager specimen of a prairie "crook." He had never before met one quite like him. He felt that here was a case of brain rather than physical outlawry. It might be harder to deal with than the savage, illiterate toughs he was used to. "Yes," returned Fyles, "we need to learn things." "Sure." Charlie pointed at the hay-rack. "Guess you don't feel like giving us a hand tipping that on to the wagon? I'm going haying to-morrow." "Sure," cried Fyles, with an easy smile, as he leaped out of the saddle. He passed into the old corral and his quick eyes took in every detail at a glance. They came to rest on the slight figure of the man and noted his costume. Charlie Bryant was clad in loose riding breeches, but was coatless. Nor did he display any firearms. "Two-man job, isn't it?" he said lightly. "And you guessed to do it--single?" Charlie's smile was blandly disarming. "No. I hadn't thought to get it on to-day. The Kid'll be with me to-morrow, or maybe my brother, Bill." "Ah. Brother Bill could about eat that rack on his own," Fyles declared, as the two men set about the task. It was a far lighter affair than it looked, and, in less than five minutes was resting perfectly balanced in its place on the wagon. Fyles looked on while Charlie went round and bolted the rack securely in its place. "Your wagon?" the officer observed casually, while his sharp eyes took in its last details. Charlie nodded. "Yes. Folks borrow it some. You see, I don't need it a heap, except at hay time." "No, I don't guess you need it a heap. Say, this is a queer place tucked away up here. Old cattle station, I guess." Fyles's remarks had no question in them. But he intended them to elicit a response. Charlie appeared to have nothing to conceal. "Well, of a sort, I'd say," he replied. "You see, this was King Fisher's corral. There's others around the valley, though I don't know just where. King Fisher reigned nearly twenty years ago. He lived in the building the folks in Rocky Springs use as a Meeting House. He was pretty tough. One of the worst badmen ever hit this part. Had a signboard set up on the trail down from the prairie. He wrote it. 'This is King Fisher's trail, take any other old trail.' I believe most folks used to take 'any other old trail.' There was one feller didn't though. And that was the end of King Fisher's reign. These secret corrals have always been used by toughs." Fyles was smiling. "Yes." Charlie laughed and pointed at the hut beyond the corral. "I'd awfully like to know some of the games that went on in there. Birds and things nest in its roof now. I guess they didn't come within a mile of it one time. They say King Fisher was mad--blood mad. If that's so, I daresay this place could tell a few yarns." Again came Fyles's monosyllabic agreement. Charlie turned to his wagon and went on with his greasing. And while he worked and listened to the other's talk, the memory of having seen him with Kate gathered stormily in his mind. But he still smiled when he looked up. He still replied in the light-hearted fashion in which he had accepted the police officer's coming. He was perfectly aware of the reason of the man's presence there. And, equally, he was indifferent to it. "Where are you haying now?" Fyles inquired presently. Charlie answered without turning from his work. "Half a mile down stream. Guess we all hay that way. There's no other sloughs handy on the west side of the village." "That's why the wagon's kept here?" "Sure. Saves the horses. They'll come out here to-morrow, and stop right here till we quit." Charlie spun the last wheel round after replacing the cap. "Where are you stopping with your men?" he demanded abruptly, as he let the jack down. "Just around," said Fyles evasively. "I see. On the prowl." Charlie smiled up into the man's shrewd, good-looking face. "You need to do some prowling around this valley if you're going to clean things up. Yes, and I'd say you need a mighty big broom." "We've got the broom, and I guess we'll do the work," replied Fyles nodding. "We generally do--in the end." Charlie's eyes had become thoughtful. "Yes," he agreed. "I s'pose you do. Guess I'll have to be moving." He returned the grease and jack to the wagon box, and moved toward the gate of the corral. "Coming my way?" he asked casually. "Not just now. I'm looking around--some." Charlie laughed. "Ah. I'd forgotten that broom." "Most folks do," replied Fyles, "--until they fall over it." Charlie had reached his horse's side. He unhooked the reins from the fence, and flung them over its head. Then, with an agility quite remarkable, he vaulted into the saddle. "Well, I hope that broom won't come my way," he laughed. "I'd hate falling around." "I hope it won't," said Fyles, in the same light manner, as he followed out of the corral. "That's a dandy plug of yours," he said with admiration, as his appreciative eyes noted the chestnut's points. "He surely is," returned Charlie. "He can go some, too. I'll give you a run one day--if you fancy yours." Fyles was hooking his reins over the post Charlie had vacated. "Mine?" he said. "Peter's the quickest thing west of Winnipeg. He'll sure give you a run when--the time comes." Charlie laughed. The drift of the talk, its hidden meaning, amused him. "We'll have to make a time, eh?" "Sure," said Fyles, looking him squarely in the eyes. Charlie moved his horse away. "Well, so long, for the present. Guess I'll remember that challenge. Thanks for helping me with the rack. You're stopping?" Fyles nodded. "Yes--for awhile." Charlie rode away with the air of a man with not a care in the world. But he was thinking swiftly, and his thoughts were of that hidden cupboard, and what it contained. Hope and fear struggled for paramount place in his heart. Was the secret of that hiding place sufficiently simple to defy Stanley Fyles, or was it not? Was he the man he was reputed to be, or was he merely a clever man backed by a big authority? In the end he abandoned the troublesome point. Time alone would give him his answer. CHAPTER XXI WORD FROM HEADQUARTERS Two horses ambled complacently, side by side, down the village trail. Each was ridden by the man it knew best, and was most willing to serve. Peter's affection for Stanley Fyles was probably little less than his master's affection for him. The same thing applied to Sergeant McBain, whose hard face suggested little enough of the tenderer emotions. But both men belonged to the prairie, and the long prairie trail inspires a wonderful sympathy between man and beast. The men were talking earnestly in low voices, but their outward seeming had no suggestion of anything beyond ordinary interest. "He's surely leaving a trail all over the valley," said Sergeant McBain, after listening to his superior's talk for some moments. "It's a clear trail, too--but it don't ever seem to lead anywhere--definite. You've made nothing of that corral place, sir?" Fyles's eyes roamed over the scene about him in the quick, uneasy fashion of a groping mind. "I don't know yet," he said slowly, "I've got to windward of that haying business. The fellow's haying all right. He's got a permit for cutting, and he generally puts up fifty tons. Maybe he keeps that wagon out there all the time for convenience. I can't say. But even if he doesn't I can't see where it points." "We can watch the place," said McBain quickly. "That's better than speculation, but--it's clumsy." "How, sir?" "Why, man alive," replied Fyles sharply. "Do you think we're going to fool a crook like him by just watching? Besides----" "Yes, sir?" Fyles had broken off. A woman was moving down the trail ahead of them. She was a good distance away, but he had recognized the easy gait and trim figure of Kate Seton. After a moment's pause he withdrew his gaze and went on. "I've got all I need out of that place--for the present. You've seen the wagon and--recognized it. It's the wagon they ran that last cargo in. The man who drove it was Pete Clancy. Clancy is one of Charlie Bryant's gang. I don't think we need any more--yet. We've centralized the running of that last cargo. The rest of the work is for the future. My plans are all ready. The patrol comes in from Amberley to-night. It will be ample reinforcement. We're just one move ahead of these boys, here, and we've got to keep that way. You can get right back to quarters, and wait for my return. I'm going in to the mail office to run my eye over local mail. The envelopes of a local mail make good reading--when a man's used to it." McBain grinned in a manner that seemed to give his hard face pain. "You get more out of the ad-dress on an envelope than any one I ever see, sir," he observed shrewdly. Fyles shrugged, not ill pleased at the compliment. "It's practice, and--imagination. Those things, and--a good memory for handwriting, also postmarks. Say, who's that coming down the southern trail? Looks like----" He broke off, shading his eyes from the burning sunlight of the valley. McBain needed no such protection. His mahogany face screwed itself up until his eyes were mere slits. "It ain't part of the patrol?" he said questioningly. "Yet it's one of our fellers. Maybe it's a--despatch." Fyles's brows drew sharply together in a frown of annoyance. "If the chief's sent me the word I'm waiting for that way he's--a damn fool. I asked him for cipher mail." "Mr. Jason don't ever reckon on what those who do the work want. If that feller's riding despatch, the whole valley will know it." McBain's disgust was no less than that of Fyles. His hard face was coldly set, and the despatch rider, if he were one, seemed likely to get a rough reception. "He'll make for the mail office," said Fyles shortly. "We'll go and meet him." He lifted Peter's reins, and the horse responded at a jump. In a moment the two men were galloping down to Dy's office. Fyles was the first out of the saddle, and the two stood waiting in silence for the arrival of the horseman. There was not much doubt as to the publicity of the man's arrival. As if by magic a number of men, and as many women, appeared in the vicinity of the saloon, farther down the trail. They, too, had seen the newcomer, and they, too, were consumed with interest, though it was based on quite a different point of view from that of Stanley Fyles and Sergeant McBain. To them a despatch rider meant important news, and probable action on the part of the authorities. Important action meant, to their minds, something detrimental to the shady side of their village life. Every man was searching his brain for an explanation, a reason for the man's coming, and every woman, sparing herself mental effort, was asking pointed questions of those who should think for her. The man rode into the village at full gallop, and, seeing the two police horses outside the mail office, came straight on toward them. He flung out of the saddle and saluted the inspector. Then he began fumbling in an inner pocket. Fyles understood his intention and sharply warned him. "Not here. Now, in one word. Is it news from down East?" The man nodded. "Yes, sir. I believe so." "You believe so?" "Yes, sir. Mr. Jason told me I'd to make here to-day--mid-day. Said you were waiting for this letter to act. He also said I was to avoid speaking to any one in the place till I'd delivered the despatch into your hands. He also said I was to remain here under your orders." "Damnation! And we've had letters through the mail every day." "Beg pardon, sir----" McBain made a sign for silence, and the man broke off. But Fyles bade him go on. "Mr. Jason warned me to be very careful, as it was a despatch he could not trust to the mail." Fyles gave a short laugh. "That'll do. Now, get mounted, and ride back the way you came into the valley. When you get out of it keep along the edge of it westwards. You'll come to our camp five miles out. It's in a bluff. It's a shack on an abandoned farm. I can't direct you better, except it's just under the shoulder in the valley, and is approached by a cattle track. You'll have to ride around till you locate it. McBain will be coming back soon. Maybe he'll pick you up. Avoid questions, and still more--answers. Keep the letter till McBain gets in." "Very good, sir." The man remounted and rode away. His coming had been so sudden, his stay so brief, and his departure so rapid, that Fyles had achieved something of his purpose in repairing any damage Superintendent Jason had done to his plans in acting contrary to his subordinate's wishes. The sharp-eyed villagers had witnessed the interview with suspicions lulled. There had been no despatch delivered, and the man was off again the way he had come. Surely nothing very significant had taken place. Possibly, after all, the man was merely a patrol from some outlying station. Fyles turned to his lieutenant. "We're going to get busy," he said, with a shadowy smile. The older man could not conceal his appreciation. "Looks that way, sir." "I'll look over the mail myself," Fyles went on. "You best get back to camp, and see to that letter. Guess you'll wait for me to take action. You can get out across the valley south. Ride on west and ford the river up at the crossing--Winter's Crossing. See if the patrol's in. Then make camp--and keep an eye skinned for that boy. I'll get along later." The sergeant saluted and sprang into the saddle. Fyles passed into the mail office as the man rode off. Allan Dy was used to these visits of the inspector. There were very few country postmasters who were not used to such visits. It was a process of espionage which was never acknowledged, yet one that was carried on extensively in suspected districts. There was never any verbal demand, or acquiescence, in the manner in which it was carried out. When the police officer appeared the day's mail was usually in the process of being sorted, and was generally to be found spread out lying in full view of the searching eyes. Fyles walked in. Passed the time of day. Collected his own mail and that of the men under him. Chatted pleasantly with the subservient official, and started to pass out again. In those brief moments he had seen all he wanted to see, which on this occasion was little enough. There were only four letters from the East, The rest were all of local origin. One of the eastern letters was for O'Brien, and it carried an insurance firm's superscription. There were two letters for Kate Seton, both from New York, and both carrying the firm styles of well-known retail traders in women's clothing. The fourth was addressed to Charlie Bryant, and bore no trader's imprint. As he neared the door of the little office he had to stand aside as Kate Seton made her way in. Fyles felt that his luck was certainly in. The news he had awaited with so much impatience had been received at last, and now--well, his quick appreciative eyes took in the delightfully fresh, wholesome appearance of this woman, who had made such inroads upon his usually unemotional heart. There was not a detail escaped him. The rounded figure suggesting virility and physical well-being. Her delightful, purposeful face full of a wide intelligence and strength. Those wonderful dark eyes of such passionate, tender depth, which yet held possibilities for every emotion which finds its place in the depth of a strong heart. She was clad, too, so differently from the general run of the villagers. Like her sister, though in a lesser degree, she breathed the air of a city--a city far from these western regions, a city where refinement and culture inspires a careful regard for outward appearance. She smiled upon him as he stood aside. Somehow the shyness which her sister had accused her of seemed to have gone. Her whole atmosphere was that of a cordial welcome. "You're early down for your mail, Mr. Fyles," she said, after greeting him. "I'm generally right on the spot before Allan Dy is through. Still, I dare say your mail is more important, and stands for no delay." "It's the red tape of our business, Miss Seton," Fyles replied, with a light shrug. "We're always getting orders that should rightly be executed before they can possibly reach us. It's up to us to get them the moment they arrive." Kate's smile was good to see. There was just that dash of ironical challenge in her eyes which Fyles was beginning to associate with her. "Still working out impossible problems which don't really--exist?" The man returned her smile. "Still working out problems," he said. Then he added slyly, "Problems which must be solved, in spite of assurances of their non-existence." "You mean--what I said to you the other day?" Fyles nodded. Kate's eyes sobered, and the change in their expression came near to melting the officer's heart. "I'm sorry," she said simply. Then she sighed. "But I s'pose you must see things your own way." She glanced at the mail counter. "You had a despatch rider in this morning. I saw him coming down the trail. Everybody saw him." Just for a moment Fyles's strong brows drew together. He was reluctant to deliberately lie to this woman. He felt that to do so was not worthy. He felt that a lie to her was a thing to be despised. "We had a patrol in," he said guardedly. Kate smiled. "A patrol from--Amberley?" Again was that ironical challenge in Kate's eyes. Fyles's responsive smile was that of the fencer. "You are too well informed." But the woman shook her head. "Not so well informed as I could wish," she said. Then she laughed as her merry sister might have laughed, and the policeman wanted to join in it by reason of its very infection. "There's a whole heap of things I'd like to know. I'd like to know why a government of the people makes a law nobody wants, and spends the public's money in enforcing it. Also I'd like to know why they take a vicious delight in striving to make criminals of honest enough people in the process. Also I'd like to know how your people intend to trip up certain people for a crime which they have never committed, and don't intend to commit, and, anyway, before they can be punished must be caught red-handed. You've got your problems sure enough, and--and these are some of the simplest of mine. Oh, dear--it almost makes my head whirl when I think of them. But I must do so, because," her smile died out, and the man watched the sudden determined setting of her lips, "I'm against you as long as you are--against him. Good-bye. I must get my mail." * * * * * It was a long circuitous route which took Stanley Fyles back to his camp. But it seemed short enough on the back of the faithful, fleet-footed Peter. Then, too, the man's thoughts were more than merely pleasant. Satisfaction that his news was awaiting him at the camp left him free to indulge in the happy memory of his brief passage of arms with Kate Seton. What a staunch creature she was! He wondered if the day would ever come when she would exercise the same loyalty and staunchness on his behalf. To him it seemed an extraordinary, womanish perversity that made her cling to a poor creature so obviously a wrongdoer. Was she truly blind to his doings, or was she merely blinding herself to them? She was not in love with Charlie Bryant, he felt sure. Her avowal of regard had been too open and sincere to have been of any other nature than the one she had claimed for it. Yes, he could understand that attitude in her. Anything he had ever seen of her pointed the big woman nature in her. She felt herself strong, and, like other strong people, it was a passion with her to help the weak and erring. Fyles's knowledge of women was slight enough, but he had that keen observation which told him many things instinctively. And all the best and truest that was in him had been turned upon this woman from the very first time he had seen her. He told himself warmly, now, that she was the most lovable creature on earth, and nothing but marriage with her could ever bring him the necessary peace of mind that would permit him to continue his work with that zeal and hope of achievement with which he had set about a career. He saw so many things now, through the eyes of a great passion, that seemed utterly different, rendered transcendentally attractive through the glamor of a strong, deep love. They were things which, before, had always been viewed dispassionately, almost coldly, yet not without satisfaction. They had always been part of his scheme, but had no greater attraction than the mere fact that they were integral parts of one great whole. Now they became oases, restful shades in the sunlight of his effort. He had always contemplated marriage as an ultimately necessary adjunct to the main purpose. No man, he felt, could succeed adequately, after a certain measure had been achieved, without a woman at his side, a woman's influence to keep the social side of a career in balance with the side which depended upon his direct effort. Now he saw there was more in it than that. Something more human. Something which made success a thousand times more pleasing to contemplate. He felt that with Kate at his side giant's work would become all too easy. Her ravishing smile of encouragement would be a gentle spur to the most jaded energies. The delight of bearing her upon his broad shoulders in his upward career, would be bliss beyond words, and, in the interim of his great efforts, the care and happiness of her loyally courageous heart would be a delight almost too good to be true. His keen mind and straining energies were bathed in the wonderful fount of love. He was looking for the first time into the magic mirror which every human creature must, at some time, gaze into. He was discovering all those pictures which had been discovered countless millions of times before, and which other coming countless millions had yet to discover for themselves. So he rode on dreaming to the rhythmic beat of Peter's willing hoofs. So he came at last to the distant camp of his subordinate comrades. He was greeted by the harsh voice and hard, weather-stained features of McBain wreathed in a smile which was a mere distortion, yet which augured well. "I haven't opened the letters, sir," he said, "but I've questioned Jones close. I guess it's right, all right." Fyles was once more the man of business. He nodded as he flung off his horse and handed it over to a waiting trooper. "Where's the despatch?" he demanded sharply. McBain produced a long, official envelope. The other tore it open hastily. He ran his eyes over its contents, and passed it back to the sergeant. "Good," he exclaimed. "There's a cargo left Fort Allerton, on the American side, bound for Rocky Springs by trail. It's a big cargo of rye whisky. We'll have to get busy." CHAPTER XXII MOVES IN THE GAME OF LOVE Stanley Fyles's extreme satisfaction was less enduring than might have been expected. Success, and the prospect of success, were matters calculated to affect him more nearly than anything else in his life. That was the man, as he always had been; that was the man, who, in so brief a time, had raised himself to the commissioned ranks of his profession. But, somehow, just now a slight undercurrent of thought and feeling had set in. It was scarcely perceptible at first, but growing rapidly, it quickly robbed the tide of his satisfaction of quite half its strength, and came near to reducing it to the condition of slack water. McBain was in the quarters attending to the detail which fell to his lot. A messenger from Winter's Crossing had come in announcing the arrival, at that camp, of the reinforcing patrol. This was the culminating point of Fyles's satisfaction. From that moment the undercurrent set in. The inspector had moved out of the bluff, which screened the temporary quarters from chance observation, and had taken up a position on the shoulder of the valley, where he sat himself upon a fallen fence post to consider the many details of the work he had in mind. The sun was setting in a ruddy cauldron of summer cloud, and, already, the evening mists were rising from the heart of the superheated valley. The wonderful peace of the scene might well have been a sedative to the stream of rapid thought pouring through his busy brain. But its soothing powers seemed to have lost virtue, and, as his almost unconscious gaze took in the beauties spread out before it, a curious look of unrest replaced the satisfaction in his keen eyes. His brows drew together in a peevish frown. A discontent set the corners of his tightly compressed lips drooping, and once or twice he stirred impatiently, as though his irritation of mind had communicated itself to his physical nerves. Once more the image of Kate Seton had risen up before his mind's eye, and, for the first time it brought him no satisfaction. For the first time he had associated the probable object of his plans with her. Charlie Bryant was no longer a mere offender against the law in his mind. In concentrating his official efforts against him he realized the jeopardy in which his own regard for Kate Seton placed him. He saw that his success now in ridding the district of the whisky-runner would, at the same time, rob him of all possible chance of ever obtaining the regard of this woman he loved. It meant an ostracism based upon the strongest antipathy--the antipathy of a woman wounded in her tenderest emotions, that wonderful natural instinct which is perhaps beyond everything else in her life. The more than pity of it. Kate's interest in Charlie Bryant had assumed proportions which threatened to overwhelm his whole purpose. It became almost a tragedy. Pondering upon this ominous realization a sort of panic came near to taking hold of him. Apart from his own position, the pain and suffering he knew he must inflict upon her set him flinching. Her protestations of Charlie's innocence were very nearly absurd. To a mind trained like his there was little enough doubt of the man's offense. He was a rank "waster," but, as in the case of all such creatures, there was a woman ready to believe in him with all the might of feminine faith. It was a bitter thought that in this case Kate Seton should be the woman. She did believe. He was convinced of her honesty in her declaration. She believed from the bottom of her heart, she, a woman of such keen sense and intelligence. It was--yes, it was maddening. Through it all he saw his duty lying plainly before him. His whole career was at stake, that career for which only he had hitherto lived, and which, eventually, he had hoped to lay at Kate's feet. What could he do? There was no other way. He--must--go--on. His dream was wrecking. It was being demolished before his eyes. It was not being sent crushing at one mighty stroke, but was being torn to shreds and destroyed piecemeal. He strove to stiffen himself before the blow, and his very attitude expressed something of his effort. He told himself a dozen times that he must accept the verdict, and carry his duty through, his duty to himself as well as to his superiors. But conviction was lacking. The human nature in him was rebelling. For all his discipline it would not be denied. And with each passing moment it was gaining in its power to make itself felt and heard. Its promptings came swiftly, and in a direction hardly conceivable in a man of his balance of mind. But the more sure the strength of the man, the more sure the strength of the old savage lurking beneath the sanest thought. The savage rose up in him now in a reckless challenge to all that was best and most noble in him. A cruel suspicion swept through his mind and quickly permeated his whole outlook. What if he had read Kate's regard for the man Bryant wrong? What if he had read it as she intended him to read it, seeking to blind him to the true facts? He knew her for a clever woman, a shrewd woman, even a daring woman. What if she had read through his evident regard for her, and had determined to turn it to account in saving her lover from disaster, by posing with a maternal, or sisterly regard for his welfare? Such things he felt had been done. He was to be a tool, a mere tool in her hands, the poor dupe whose love had betrayed him. He sprang from his seat. No, a thousand times no, he told himself. His memory of her beautiful, dark, fearless eyes was too plainly in his mind for that. The honesty of her concern and regard for the man was too simply plain to hold any trace of the perfidy which his thought suggested. He told himself these things. He told himself again and again, and--remained unconvinced. The savage in him, the human nature was gaining an ascendancy that would not be denied, and from the astute, disciplined man he really was, at a leap, he became the veriest doubting lover. He threw his powerful arms out, and stretched himself. His movements were the movements of unconcern, but there was no unconcern within him. A teeming, harassing thought was urging him, driving him to the only possible course whereby he could hope to obtain a resumption of his broken peace of mind. He must see Kate. He must see her again, without delay. * * * * * Kate Seton was sitting in the northern shadow of her little house the following morning when Stanley Fyles rode down the southern slope of the valley toward the old footbridge. She had just dispatched Big Brother Bill on an errand to the village, and, with feminine tact, had requested him to discover Helen's whereabouts, and send her, or bring her home. She had no particular desire that Helen should return home. In fact, she would rather she didn't until mid-day dinner. But she felt she was giving the man the excuse he evidently needed. As a matter of fact, she had a good deal of work to do. And the first hour after Bill had taken his departure she was fully occupied with her two villainous hired men. After that she returned to the house, and wrote several letters, and, finally, took up her position in the shade, and devoted herself to a basket of long-neglected sewing. At the sound of the approaching horseman she looked up with a start. She had no expectation of a visitor, she had no desire for one just now. Nevertheless, when she discovered the officer's identity, she displayed no surprise, and more interest, than might have been expected. She did not disguise from herself the feelings this man inspired. On the contrary she rather reveled in them, especially as, in a way, just now, all her actions must be in direct antagonism to his efforts. She felt that a battle, a big battle, must be fought and won between them. It was a battle to be fought out openly and frankly. It was her determination that this man should not wrong himself by committing a great wrong upon Charlie Bryant. Kate was very busy at the moment Fyles rode up. She was intent upon fitting a piece of lace, obviously too small, upon a delicate white garment of her sister's, which was obviously too big. For a moment, as she did not look up, Fyles sat leaning forward in the saddle with his arms resting upon its horn. He was watching her with a smiling interest which was not without anxiety. "There's surely not a dandier picture in the world than a girl sitting in the shade sewing--white things," he said at last, by way of greeting. Kate glanced up for the briefest of smiling glances. Then her dark head bent over her sewing again. "And there's surely nothing calculated to upset things more than a man butting in, where the same girl's fragment of brain is worrying to fit something that doesn't fit anyway." "Meaning me?" Fyles smiled in his confident way. "Seeing there's no one else around, I must have meant some other fellow." Kate laid the lace aside, and looked up with a sigh. A gentle amusement shone in her fine dark eyes. "Have you ever tried to make things fit that--just won't?" she demanded. Fyles shook his head. "Maybe I can help, though," he hazarded. "Help?" Kate's amusement merged into a laugh. "Say, when it comes to fitting things that don't fit, two heads generally muss things right up. All my life I've been trying to fit things that don't fit, and I find, if you're to succeed, you've got to do it to yourself, and by yourself. It always takes a big lot of thinking which nobody else can follow. Maybe your way of thinking is different from other folks, and so they can't understand, and that's why they can't follow it. Now here's a bit of lace, and there's a sleeve. The lace is short by an inch. Still there's ways and ways of fixing it, but only one right way. If I make the sleeve smaller the lace will fit, but poor Helen won't get her arm through it. If I tack on a bit more lace it'll muss the job, and make it look bad. Then there's other ways, too, but--there's only one right way." She dropped the lace in her basket and began to fold the garment. "I'll get some new lace that does fit," she declared emphatically. Fyles nodded, but the amusement died out of his eyes. "All of which is sound sense," he said seriously, "and is leading us toward controversial--er--subjects. Eh?" Kate raised a pair of shoulders with pretended indifference. But her eyes were smiling that challenge which Stanley Fyles always associated with her. "Not a bad thing when the police are getting so very busy, and--you are their chief in the district," she said. "I must once more remark, you are well informed," smiled Fyles. "And I must once more remark not as well informed as I could wish," retorted Kate quickly. Fyles had permitted his gaze to wander down the wooded course of the river. Kate was watching him closely, speculatively. And curious enough she was thinking more of the man than his work at that moment. The man's eyes came back abruptly to her face, and her expression was instantly changed to one of smiling irony. "Well?" she demanded. Fyles shook his head. "It isn't," he said. "May I ask how you know we are--so very busy?" "Sure," cried Kate, with a frank laugh. "You see, I have two of the worst scamps in the valley working for me, and they seem to think it more than necessary that they keep themselves posted as to--your movements." "I see." Fyles's lighter mood had entirely passed, and with its going Kate's became more marked. "I s'pose they spy out everything for the benefit of their--chief." Kate clapped her hands. "What reasoning. I s'pose they have a chief?" she added slyly. A frown of irritation crossed the policeman's brow. "Must we open up that old sore, Miss Kate?" he, asked almost sharply. "They are known to be--when not occupied with the work of your farm--assisting Charlie Bryant in his whisky-running schemes. They are two of his lieutenants." "And so, because they are so known among the village people here, you are prosecuting this campaign against a man whom you hope to catch red-handed." "I have sufficient personal evidence to--prosecute my campaign," said Fyles quickly. "As you said just now, we are not idle." "Yes, I know," Kate sighed, and her gaze was turned upon the western reaches of the valley. "Your camp out there is full of activity. So is Winter's Crossing. And the care with which you mask your coming and going is known to everybody. It is a case of the hunter being hunted. Yes, I say it without resentment, I am glad of these things, because I--must know." "If we are against each other--it is only natural you should wish to know." Kate's eyes opened wider. "Of course we are against each other, as long as you are against Charlie. But only in our--official capacities." A whimsical smile stole into the woman's eyes. "Oh, you are so--so obstinate," she cried in mock despair. "In this valley it is no trouble for me to watch your every move, and, in Charlie's interests, to endeavor to frustrate them. But the worst of it is I'd--I'd like to see you win out. Instead of that I know you won't. You've had some news. You had it yesterday, I suppose, by that patrol. Maybe it's news of another cargo coming in, and you are getting ready to capture it, and--Charlie. I'm not here to give any one away, I'm not here to tell you all I know, must know, living in the valley, but you are doomed, utterly doomed to failure, if you count the capture of Charlie success." In spite of the lightness of Kate's manner her words were not without their effect upon Fyles. There was a ring of sincerity in them that would not be denied. But its effect upon him was not that which she could have wished. His face set almost sternly. The challenge of the woman had stirred him out of his calm assurance, but it was in a direction which she could scarcely have expected. He thrust his sunburned face forward more aggressively, and challenged her in return. "What is this man to you?" he demanded, his square jaws seeming to clip his question the more shortly. In a moment Kate's face was flushing her resentment. Her dark eyes were sparkling with a sudden leaping anger. "You have no right to--ask me that," she cried. But Fyles had committed himself. Nor would he draw back. "Haven't I?" he laughed harshly. "All's fair in love and--war. We are at war--officially." The woman's flushing cheeks remained, but the sparkle of her eyes had changed again to an ironical light. "War--yes. Perhaps you're right. The only courtesies recognized in war are observed in the prize ring, and in international warfare. Our warfare must be less exalted, and permits hitting--below the belt. I've told you what Charlie is to me, and I have told you truly. I am trying to defend an innocent man, who is no more to me than a brother, or--or son. I am doing so because of his peculiar ailments which make him well-nigh incapable of helping himself. You see, he does not care. His own safety, his own welfare, are nothing to him. It is for that reason, for the way he acts in consequence of these things, that all men believe him a rogue, and a--a waster. I tell you he is neither." She finished up a little breathlessly. She had permitted her loyalty and anxiety to carry her beyond the calm fencing she had intended. But Fyles remained unmoved, except that the harshness had gone out of his manner. "It is not I who am obstinate," he said soberly. "It is you, Miss Kate. What if I told you I had irrefutable circumstantial evidence against him? Would that turn you from your faith in him?" The woman shook her head. "It would be merely circumstantial evidence," she said. "God knows how circumstance has filled our penitentiaries wrongfully," she added bitterly. "And but for circumstance our population of wrongdoers at large would be greater by a thousand per cent.," retorted the officer. "That is supposition," smiled Kate. "Which does not rob it of its possibility in fact." The two sat looking at each other, silently defiant. Kate was smiling. A great excitement was thrilling her, and she liked this man all the better for his blunt readiness for combat, even with her. Fyles was wondering at this woman, half angry, half pleased. Her strength and readiness appealed to him as a wonderful display. He was the first to speak, and, in doing so, he felt he was acknowledging his worsting in the encounter. "It's--it's impossible to fight like this," he said lamely. "I am not accustomed to fight with women." "Does it matter, so long as a woman can fight?" Kate cried quickly. "Chivalry?" she went on contemptuously. "That's surely a survival of ages when the old curfew rang, and a lot of other stupid notions filled folks' minds. I--I just love to fight." Her smile was so frankly infectious that Fyles found himself responding. He heaved a sigh. "It's no good," he said almost hopelessly. "You must stick to your belief, and I to mine. All I hope, Miss Kate, is that when I've done with this matter the pain I've inflicted on you will not be unforgivable." The woman's eyes were turned away. They had become very soft as she gazed over at the distant view of Charlie's house. "I don't think it will be," she said gently. Then with a quick return to her earlier manner: "You see, you will never get the chance of hurting Charlie." A moment later she inquired naively: "When is the cargo coming in?" But Fyles's exasperation was complete. "When?" he cried. "Why, when this scamp is ready for it. It's--it's no use, Miss Kate. I can't stop, or--or I'll be forgetting you are a woman, and say 'Damn!' I admit you have bested me, but--young Bryant hasn't. I----" he broke off, laughing in spite of his annoyance, and Kate cordially joined in. "But he will," she cried, as Peter began to move away. "Good-bye, Mr. Fyles," she added, in her ironical fashion as she picked up her sewing. "I can get on with these important matters--now." The man's farewell was no less cordial, and his better sense told him that in accepting his defeat at her hands he had won a good deal in another direction where he hoped to finally achieve her capitulation. * * * * * While the skirmish between Stanley Fyles and Kate Seton was going on, the object of it was discussing the doings of the police and the prospect of the coming struggle with Big Brother Bill on the veranda of his house. He was leaning against one of its posts while Bill reposed on the hard seat of a Windsor chair, seeking what comfort he could find in the tremendous heat by abandoning all superfluous outer garments. Charlie's face was darkly troubled. His air was peevishly irritable. "Bill," he said, with a deep thrill of earnestness in his voice, as he thrust his brown, delicate hands into the tops of his trousers. "All the trouble in the world's just about to start, if I'm a judge of the signs of things. There's a whole crowd of the police in the valley now. They're camped higher up. They think we don't know, but we do--all of us. I wonder what they think they're going to do?" His manner became more excited, and his voice grew deeper and deeper. "They think they're going to get a big haul of liquor. They think they're going to get me. I tell you, Bill, that for men trained to smelling things out, they're blunderers. Their methods are clumsy as hell. I could almost laugh, if--if I didn't feel sick at their coming around." Bill stirred uneasily. "If there were no whisky-running here they wouldn't be around," he said pointedly. Charlie eyed him curiously. "No," he said. Then he added, "And if there were no whisky-running there'd be no village here. If there were no village here we shouldn't be here. Kate and her sister wouldn't be here. Nothing would be here, but the old pine--that goes on forever. This village lives on the prohibition law. Fyles may have a reputation, but he's clumsy--damned clumsy. I'd like to see ahead--the next few days." "He's smelling a cargo--coming in, isn't he?" Bill's tact was holding him tight. Again Charlie looked at him curiously before he replied. "That's how they reckon," he said guardedly, at last. Bill had turned away, vainly searching his unready wit for the best means of carrying on the discussion. Suddenly his eyes lit, and he pointed across at the Seton's house. "Say, who's that--on that horse? Isn't it Fyles? He's talking to some one. Looks like----" He broke off. Charlie was staring out in the direction indicated, and, in a moment, his excitement passed, swallowed up in a frowning, brooding light that had suddenly taken possession of his dark eyes. Bill finally broke the uncomfortable silence. "It's--Fyles?" he said. "Yes, it's Fyles," said Charlie, with a sudden suppressed fury. "It's Fyles--curse him, and he's talking to--Kate." At the sound of his brother's tone, even Bill realized his blundering. He knew he had fired a train of passion that was to be deplored, even dreaded in his brother. He blamed himself bitterly for his lack of forethought, his absurd want of discretion. But the mischief was done. Charlie had forgotten everything else. Bill stirred again in his chair. "What does he want down there?" he demanded, for lack of something better to say. "What does he want?" Charlie laughed. It was an unpleasant laugh, a savage laugh. It was a laugh that spoke of sore heart, and feelings crowding with bitterness. "I guess he wants something he'll never get--while I'm alive." He relapsed into moody silence, and a new expression grew in his eyes till it even dominated that which had shone in them before. Bill thought he recognized it. The word "funk" flashed through his mind, and left him wondering. What could Charlie have to fear from Fyles talking to Kate? Did he believe that Kate would let the officer pump her with regard to his, Charlie's, movements! Yes, that must be it. "He won't get more than five cents for his dollar out of her," he said, in an effort to console. Charlie was round on him in a flash. "Five cents for a dollar? No," he cried, "nor one cent, nor a fraction of a cent. Fyles is dealing with the cleverest, keenest woman I've ever met in all my life. I'm not thinking that way. I'm thinking how almighty easy it is for a man walking a broken trail to trip and smash himself right up. The more sure he is the worse is his fall, because--he takes big chances, and big chances mean big falls. You've hit it, Bill, I'm scared--scared to death just now. If I know Fyles there's going to be one hell of a time around here, and, if you value your future, get clear while you can. I'm scared, Bill, scared and mad. I can't stand to watch that man talking to Kate. I'm not scared of man or devil, but I'm scared--scared to death when I see that. I must get out of this. I must get away, or----" He moved off the veranda in a frantic state of nervous passion. Bill sprang from his seat and was at his brother's side in two great strides, and his big hand fell with no little force upon the latter's arm and held it. "What do you mean?" he cried apprehensively. "Where--where are you going?" With surprising strength Charlie flung him off. He turned, facing him with angry eyes and flushed face. "Don't you dare lay hand on me like that again, Bill," he cried dangerously. "I don't stand for that from--anybody. I'm going down the village, since you want to know. I'm going down to O'Brien's. And you can get it right now that I wouldn't stand the devil himself butting in to stop me." CHAPTER XXIII STORM CLOUDS A dispirited creature made its way down to the Setons' house that same evening. Big Brother Bill felt there was not one single clear thought in his troubled head, at least, not one worth thinking. He was weighted down by a hazy conception of the position of things, in a manner that came near to destroying the very root of his optimism. One or two things settled upon his mind much in the manner of mental vampires. He knew that Charlie was threatened, and he knew that Charlie knew it, and made no attempt to protect himself. He knew that Charlie was also scared--frightened out of all control of himself in a manner that was absurdly contradictory. He knew that he was now at the saloon for the purpose of drowning his hopeless feelings in the maddening spirit O'Brien dispensed. He knew that his own baggage had at last arrived from Heaven only knew where, and he wished it hadn't, for it left him feeling even more burdened than ever with the responsibilities of the pestilential valley. He knew that he was beginning to hate the police, and Fyles, almost as much as Charlie did. He knew that if prevailing conditions weren't careful he would lose his temper with them, and make things hot for somebody or something. But, more than all else, he knew that Helen Seton was more than worth all the worry and anxiety he was enduring. In consequence of all this he arrayed himself in a light tweed suit, a clean, boiled shirt and collar, a tie, that might well have startled the natives of his home city, and a panama hat which he felt was necessary to improve the tropical appearance of his burnt and perspiring features, and hastened to Helen's presence for comfort and support. The girl had been waiting for him. She looked the picture of diaphanous coolness in the shade of the house, lounging in an old wicker chair, with its fellow, empty, drawn up beside her. There were no feminine eyes to witness her little schemes, and Bill?--why, Bill was delighted beyond words that she was there, also the empty chair, also, that, as he believed, while she was wholly unconscious of the fact, the girl's attitude and costume were the most innocently pleasing things he had ever beheld with his two big, blue, appreciative eyes. He promptly told her so. "Say, Hel," he cried, "you don't mind me calling you 'Hel,' do you?--you see, everything delightful seems to be associated with 'Hell' nowadays. If you could see yourself and the dandy picture you make you'd kind of understand how I feel just about now." The girl smiled her delight. "Maybe I do understand," she said. "You see, I don't always sit around in this sort of fancy frock. Then, no girl of sense musses herself into an awkward pose when six foot odd of manhood's getting around her way. No, no Big Brother Bill. That chair didn't get there by itself. Two carefully manicured hands put it there, after their owner had satisfied herself that her mirror hadn't made a mistake, and that she was looking quite her most attractive. You see, you'd promised to come to see me this evening, and--well, I'm woman enough to be very pleased. That's all." Bill's sun-scorched face deepened its ruddy hue with youthful delight. "Say, you did all this for--for me?" Helen laughed. "Why, yes, and told you the various details to be appreciated, because I was scared to death you wouldn't get them right." Bill sat himself down, and set the chair creaking as he turned it about facing her. He held out his hands. "I haven't seen the manicuring racket right, yet," he laughed. Helen stretched out her two hands toward him for inspection. He promptly seized them in his, and pretended to examine them. "The prettiest, softest, jolliest----" But the girl snatched them away. "That's not inspection. That's----" "Sure it's not," retorted Bill easily. "It's true." "And absurd." "What--the truth?" Bill's blue eyes were widely inquiring. "Sometimes." The smile died out of the man's eyes, and his big face became doleful. "Yes, I s'pose it is." Helen set up. "What's gone wrong--now? What truth is--absurd?" she demanded. The man shrugged. "Oh, everything. Say, have you ever heard of a disease of the--the brain called 'partly hatched'?" The girl's eyes twinkled. "I don't kind of remember it." "No, I don't s'pose you do. I don't think anybody ever has it but me. I've got it bad. This valley's given it me, and--and if it isn't careful it's going to get fatal." Helen looked around at him in pretended sympathy. "What's the symptoms? Nothing outward? I mean that tie--that's not a symptom, is it?" Bill shook his head. He was smiling, but beneath his smile there was a certain seriousness. "No. There's no outward signs--yet. I got it through thinking too--too young. You see, I've done so much thinking in the last week. If it had been spread over, say six months, the hatching might have got fixed right. But it's been too quick, and things have got addled. You see, if a hen turned on too much pressure of heat her eggs would get fried--or addled. That's how my brain is. It's addled." Helen nodded with a great show of seriousness which the twitching corners of her pretty mouth belied. "I always thought you'd got a trouble back of your--head. But you'd best tell me. You see, I don't get enough pressure of thinking to hatch anything. Maybe between us we can fix your mental eggs right." Bill's big eyes lit with relief and hope. "That's bright of you. You surely are the cutest girl ever. You must have got a heap of brain to spare." Helen could no longer restrain her laughter. "It's mostly all--spare. Now, then, tell me all your troubles." The great creature at her side looked doubtful and puzzled. "I don't know just where to begin. There's such a heap, and I've worried thinking about it, till--till----" Helen sat up and propped her chin in her hands with her elbows on her knees. "When you don't know where to begin just start with the first thought in your head, and--and--ramble." Bill brightened up. "Sure that's best?" "Sure." The man sighed in relief. "That's made a heap of difference," he cried. Then he took a handkerchief from his pocket, removed his panama and mopped his forehead. He gave a big gulp in the midst of the process, and spoke as though he were defying an enemy. "Will you marry me?" he demanded, and sat up glaring at her, with his hat and handkerchief poised in either hand. The girl gave him a quick look. Then she flung herself back in her chair and laughed. "We--we are talking of troubles," she protested. Bill replaced his hat, and restored his handkerchief to its pocket. "Troubles? Troubles? Isn't that trouble enough to start with? It's--it's the root of it all," he declared. "I'm--I'm just crazy about you. And every time I try to think about Charlie and the police, and--and the scallywags of the valley, I--I find you mixed up with it all, and get so tangled up that I don't know where I am, or--or why. Say, have you ever been crazy about anybody? Some feller, for instance? It's the worst worrying muddle ever happened. First you're pleased--then you cuss them. Then you sort of sit dreaming all sorts of fool things that haven't any sense at all. Then you want to make rhymes and things about eyes, and flowers, and moons, and feet, and laces and bits. You feel all over that everything else has got no sense to it, and is just so much waste of time thinking about it. You sort of feel that all men are fools but yourself, and other females aren't women, but just images. You sort of get the notion the world's on a pivot, and that pivot's just yourself, and if you weren't there there'd be a bust up, and most everything would get chasing glory, and you don't care a darn, anyway, if they did. Say, when you get clean crazy about anybody, same as I am about you, you find yourself hating everybody that comes near them. You get notions that every man is conspiring to tell the girl what a perfect fool you are, that they're worrying to boost you right out with her. You hate her, because you think she thinks you are a simpleton, and can't see your good points, which are so obvious to yourself. You hate yourself, you hate life, you hate the sunlight and the trees, and your food, and--and everything. And you wouldn't have things different, or stop making such a fool of yourself, no--not if hell froze over. Will--will you marry me?" Helen's humor suddenly burst the bonds of all restraint. She sat there laughing until she nearly choked. Bill waited with a patience that seemed inexhaustible. Then, as the girl's mirth began to lessen, he put his question again with dogged persistence. "Will you marry me?" "Oh, dear! Oh, dear! Of all the----" "Will you marry me?" the man persisted, his great face flushing. Helen abruptly sobered. The masterful tone somehow sent a delighted thrill through her nerves. She nodded. "Of course I will. I--intended to from the first moment I saw your big, funny face with Stanley----" "You mean that, Hel? You really--meant to marry me? You did?" The man's happy excitement was something not easily to be forgotten. He sprang from his chair, reached out his powerful hands, caught the girl about the waist, and picked her up in his arms as he might have picked up a child. His great bear-like hug was a monstrous thing to endure, but Helen was more than willing to endure it, as also his kisses, which he rained upon her happy, laughing face. But the girl's sense of the fitness of things soon came to her rescue. The ridiculousness, the undignified figure she must appear, held in her great lover's arms, set her struggling to free herself, and, in a few moments, he set her once more upon her feet, and stood laughing down into her blushing face. "Say," he cried, with a great laugh, "I don't care a cuss if my brains never hatch out. You're going to be my wife. You, the girl I'm crazy to death about. Fyles and all the rest can go hang. Gee!" Helen looked up at him. Then she smoothed out her ruffled frock, and patted her hair into its place. "Well," she cried, with a happy laugh, "I've heard some queer proposals from the boys of this valley when they were drunk, but for a sober, educated man, I think you've made the funniest proposal that any one ever listened to. Oh, Bill, Bill, you've done a foolish thing. I'm a shameless man-hunter. I came out west to find a husband, and I've found one. I wanted to marry you all along. I meant to marry you." Bill's laugh rang out in a great guffaw. "Bully!" he cried. "What's the use of marrying a girl who doesn't want to marry you?" "But she ought to pretend--at first." "Not on your life. No pretense for me, Hel. Give me the girl who's honest enough to love me, and let me know it." "Bill! How--dare you? How dare you say I loved you and told you so? I've--I've a good mind not to marry----Say, Bill, you are a--joke. Now, sit right down, and tell me all about those--those other things worrying you." In a moment a shadow crossed the man's cheerful face. But he obediently resumed his seat, and somehow, when Helen sat down, their chairs were as close together as their manufacturer had made possible. "It's Charlie--Charlie, and the police," said Bill, in a despondent tone. "And Kate, too. I don't know. Say, Hel, what's--what's going to happen? Fyles is hot after Charlie. Charlie don't care a curse. But there's something scaring him that bad he's nearly crazy. Then there's Kate. He saw Kate talking to Fyles, and he got madder than--hell. And now he's gone off to O'Brien's, and it don't even take any thinking to guess what for. I tell you he's so queer I can't do a thing with him. I'm not smart enough. I could just break him in my two hands if I took hold of him to keep him home and out of trouble, but what's the use? He's crazy about Kate, he's crazy about drink, he's crazy about everything, but keeping clear of the law. That's what I came to tell you about--that, and to fix up about getting married." The man's words left a momentary dilemma in the girl's mind. For a moment she was at a loss how to answer him. It seemed impossible to accept seriously his tale of anxiety and worry, and yet----. The same tale from any other would have seemed different. But coming from Bill, and just when she was so full of an almost childish happiness at the thought that this great creature loved her, and wanted to marry her, it took her some moments to reduce herself to a condition of judicial calm, sufficient to obtain the full significance of his anxious complaint. When at last she spoke her eyes were serious, so serious that Bill wondered at it. He had never seen them like that before. "It's dreadful," she said in a low tone. "Dreadful." Bill jumped at the word. "Dreadful? My God, it's awful when you think he's my brother, and--and Kate's your sister. I can't see ahead. I can't see where things are--are drifting. That's the devil of it. I wish to goodness they'd given me less beef and more brain," he finished up helplessly. Helen displayed no inclination to laugh. Somehow now that this simple man was here, now that the responsibility of him had devolved upon her, a delightful feeling of gentle motherliness toward him rose up in her heart, and made her yearn to help him. It was becoming quite easy to take him seriously. "P'r'aps it's a good thing you've got all that--beef. P'r'aps it's for the best, you're so--so strong, and so ready to help. You can't see ahead. Neither can I. Maybe no one can, but--Fyles. Suppose you and I were standing at the foot of a cliff--a big, high cliff, very dangerous, very dreadful, and some one we both loved was climbing its face, and we saw them reach a point where it looked impossible to go on, or turn back. What could we do? I'll tell you. We could remain standing there looking on, praying to Providence that they might get through, and holding ourselves ready to bear a hand when opportunity offered, and, failing that, do our utmost to _break their fall_." Bill's appreciation suddenly illuminated his ingenuous face. "Say," he cried admiringly. "You've hit it. Sure, we can't climb up and help. It would mean disaster to both, with no one left to help. Say, I'm glad I'm big and strong. That's it, we'll stand--by. You'll think, and I'll do what you tell me. By Jing! That's made everything different. We'll stand by, and break their fall. I could never have thought of that--I couldn't, sure." It was Helen's turn to display enthusiasm. It was an enthusiasm inspired by her lover's acceptance of her suggestion. "But we're not going to just watch and watch and do nothing. We must keep on Fyles's trail. We must keep close behind Charlie, and when we see the fall coming on we must be ready to thrust out a hand. You never know, we may beat the whole game in spite of Charlie. We may be able to save him in spite of himself. No harm must come to Kate through him. I can't see where it can come, except--that he is mad about her, and she is mad about--some one else." "Fyles?" Bill hazarded. Helen looked around at him in amused admiration. She nodded. "You're getting too clever for me. You will be thinking for us both soon." Bill denied the accusation enthusiastically. "Never," he exclaimed. And after that he drifted into a lover's rhapsody of his own inferiority and unworthiness. Thus, for a while, the more serious cares were set aside for that brief lover's paradise when two people find their focus filled to overflowing with that precious Self, which we are told always to deny. Fortunately human nature does not readily yield to such behests, and so life is not robbed of its mainspring, and the whole machinery of human nature is not reduced to a chaotic bundle of useless wheels. For all Helen's boasted scheming, for all Bill's lack of brilliancy, these two were just a pair of simple creatures, loyal and honest, and deeply in love. So they dallied as all true lovers must dally with those first precious moments which a Divine Providence permits to flow in full tide but once in a lifetime. * * * * * Charlie Bryant was standing at the bar of O'Brien's saloon. One hand rested on the edge of the counter as though to steady himself. His eyes were bloodshot, a strange pallor left his features ghastly, and the combination imparted a subtle appearance of terror which the shrewd saloonkeeper interpreted in his own fashion as he unfolded his information, and its deductions. The bar was quite empty otherwise, and the opportunity had been too good for O'Brien to miss. "Say, I was mighty glad to get them kegs the other night safely. But I'm takin' no more chances. It'll see me through for awhile," he said, as he refilled Charlie's glass at his own expense. "There's a big play coming right now, and, if you'll take advice, you'll lie low--desprit low." "You mean Fyles--as usual," said Charlie thickly. Then he added as an afterthought: "To hell with Fyles, and all his damned red-coats." O'Brien's quick eyes surveyed his half-drunken customer with a shrewd, contemptuous speculation. "That sounds like bluff. Hot air never yet beat the p'lice. It needs a darnation clear head, and big acts, to best Fyles. A half-soused bluff ain't worth hell room." Charlie appeared to take no umbrage. His bloodshot eyes were still fixed upon O'Brien's hard face as he raised his glass with a shaking hand and drained it. "I don't need to bluff with no one around worth bluffing," he said, setting the empty glass down on the counter. O'Brien's response was to fold his arms aggressively, and lean forward upon the counter, peering into the delicate, pale face before him. "See here," he cried, "a fellow mostly bluffs when he's scared, or he's in a corner--like a rat. See? Now it's to my interest to see Fyles beat clean out of Rocky Springs. It's that set me gassin'. Get me? So just keep easy, and take what I got to hand out. I'm wise to the game. It's my business to keep wise. Those two crooks of yours, Pete and Nick, were in this morning, and I heard 'em talkin'. Then I got 'em yarning to me. They've got every move Fyles is making dead right. They're smartish guys, and I feel they're too smart for you by a sight. If things go their way you're safe. If there's a chance of trouble for them you're up against it." Charlie licked his dry lips as the saloonkeeper paused. Then he replaced the sodden end of his cigarette between them. But he remained silent. "I've warned you of them boys before," O'Brien went on. "But that's by the way. Now, see here, Fyles has got your play. The boys know that, and in turn have got his play. Fyles knows that to-morrow night you're running in a big cargo of liquor. The only thing he don't know is where you cache it. Anyways, he's got a big force of boys around, and Rocky Springs'll have a complete chain of patrols around it, to-morrow night. Each man's got a signal, and when that signal's given it means he's located the cargo. Then the others'll crowd in, and your gang's to be overwhelmed. Get it? You'll all be taken--red-handed. I'm guessin' you know all this all right, all right, and I'm only telling it so you can get the rest clear. How you and your boys get these things I'm not guessing. It's smart. But here's the bad stuff. It's my way to watch folks and draw 'em when I want to get wise. I drew them boys. They're reckonin' things are getting hot for 'emselves. They're scared. They're reckonin' the game's played out, and ain't worth hell room, with Fyles smelling around. Those boys'll put you away to Fyles, if they see the pinch coming. And that's where my interests come in. They'll put you away sure as death." If O'Brien were looking for the effect of his solemn warning he was disappointed. Charlie's expression remained unchanged. The ghastly white of his features suggested fear, but it was not added to by so much as a flicker of an eyelid. "That all?" he asked, with a deliberate pause between the words to obtain clear diction. O'Brien shrugged, but his eyes snapped angrily at this lack of appreciation. "Ain't it enough? Say," his manner had become almost threatening, "I'm not doing things for hoss-play. The folks around can build any old church to ease their souls and make a show. Rocky Springs ain't the end of all things for me. I'm out after the stuff. I'll soothe my soul with dollars. That's why I'm around telling you, because your game's the thing that's to give 'em to me. When your game's played I hit the trail, but as long as you make good Rocky Springs is for me. If you can't handle your proposition right then I quit you." Charlie suddenly shifted his position, and leaned his body against the counter. The saloonkeeper looked for that sign which was to re-establish his confidence. It was not forthcoming. For a moment the half-drunken man leaned his head upon one hand, and his face was turned from the other behind the bar. O'Brien became impatient. "Wal?" he demanded. His persistence was rewarded at last. But it was rewarded with a shock which left him startled beyond retort. Charlie suddenly brought a clenched fist down upon the counter with a force that set the glasses ringing. "Fyles!" he cried fiercely, "Fyles! It's always Fyles! God's truth, am I never to hear, or see, the last of him? Say, you know. You think you know. But you don't. Damn you, you don't!" Before the astonished saloonkeeper could recover himself and formulate the angry retort which rose to his lips, Charlie staggered out of the place. CHAPTER XXIV THE SOUL OF A MAN It was growing dark. Away in the west a pale stream of light was fading smoothly out, absorbed by the velvet softness of the summer night. There was no moon, but the starlit vault shone dazzlingly upon the shadowed valley. Already among the trees the yellow oil lamps were shining within the half-hidden houses. From within a dense clump of trees, high up the northern slope of the valley, a man's slight figure made its way. His movements were slow, deliberate, even furtive. For some moments he stood peering out at a point below where a woman's figure was rapidly making its way up the steep trail toward the old Meeting House. The man's eyes were straining in the darkness for the outline of the woman's figure was indistinct, only just discernible in the starlight. She came on, and he could distinctly hear her voice humming an old, familiar air. She evidently had no thought of the possibility that her movements could be of any interest to anybody but herself. She reached the Meeting House and paused. Then the watching man heard the rattle of a key in the lock. The humming had ceased. The next moment there was the sound of a turning handle, and a tight-fitting door being thrust open. The woman's figure had disappeared within the building. The man left the sheltering bush and moved out on to the trail. He passed one thin hand across his brow, as though to clear the thoughts behind of their last murkiness after a drunken slumber. He stretched himself wearily as though stiff from his unyielding bed of sun-baked earth. Then he moved down the trail toward the Meeting House, selecting the scorched grass at the side of it to muffle the sound of his footsteps. His weariness seemed to have entirely passed now, and all his attention was fixed upon the rough exterior of the old building, which had passed through such strange vicissitudes to finally become the house of worship it now was. With its old, heavy-plastered walls, and its long, reed-thatched roof, so heavy and vastly thick, it was a curiosity; the survival of days when men and beasts met upon a common arena and played out the game of life and death, each as it suited him, with none but the victor in the game to say him nay. The man felt something of the influence of the place now as he drew near. Nor could he help feeling that the game that went on about it now had changed little enough in its purpose. The rules may have received modification, but the spirit was still the same. Men were still struggling for victory over some one else, and beneath the veneer of a growing civilization, passions, just as untamed, raged and worked their will upon their ill-starred possessors. Reaching the building, he moved cautiously around the walls till he came to a window. It was closed, and a curtain was drawn across it. He passed on till he came to another window. It was partially open, and, though the curtain was drawn across it, the opening had disarranged the curtain, and a beam of light shone through. He pressed his face toward the opening so that his mouth was at its level. Then he spoke softly, in a voice that was little more than a whisper---- "Kate!" he called. "Kate! It is I--Charlie. I've--I've been waiting for you, and want to speak to you." For answer there was a sound of hurrying footsteps across the floor of the room. The next moment the curtain was pulled aside. Kate stood at the other side of the window in the dim lamplight. Her handsome eyes were startled and full of inquiry, and her rounded bosom rose and fell quickly. When she saw the pale face peering in at her a gentle smile crept into her eyes. "You scared the life out of me," she said calmly. Then, with a quick look into his bloodshot eyes, she went on: "Why did you wait for me--here?" Charlie lowered his eyes. "I--guessed you'd be along some time this evening. I wanted to speak to you--alone." Kate studied him for a moment. His averted, almost shifty, eyes seemed to hold her attention. She was thinking rapidly. Presently his eyes came back to her face; a deep passion was shining in them. "Can I come around to the door?" There was just the smallest hesitation before Kate replied. "Yes, if you must see me here." Charlie waited for no more. The door was on the other side of the building, overlooking the village below. He hurried thither, and when he thrust it open the place was in darkness. Kate's voice greeted him promptly. "The draught has blown the lamp out. Have you a match?" Charlie closed the door behind him, and produced and struck a match. The lamp flared up and Kate replaced the glass chimney. Then she moved over to the wall and placed the lamp in its bracket. It was a curious interior. In their unevenness the white kalsomined walls displayed their primitive workmanship. The windows were small, framed, and set deep in the ponderous walls. They looked almost like the arrow slits in a mediæval fortress. The long, pitched roof was supported, and collared, by heavy, untrimmed logs, which, at some time, had formed the floor-supports of a sort of loft. This had been done away with since, for the purpose of giving air to the suppliants at a prayer meeting below. At the far end of the room were two reading desks and a sort of communion table. While in one corner, behind one of the reading desks, was a cheap-looking harmonium. Here and there, upon the rough walls, were nailed cardboard streamers, conveying, amid a wealth of illumination, sundry appropriate texts of a non-committal religious flavor, and down the narrow body of the building were stretched rows of hard-seated, hard-backed benches for the accommodation of the congregation. One swift glance sufficed for Charlie, and his eyes came back to the woman's smiling face. Her good looks were undoubted, but to him they were of an almost celestial order. There was no creature in the whole wide world to compare with her. His eyes devoured every detail of her expression, of her personality, with the hungry greed of a soul-starved man. It was almost an impossibility for him to seize upon and hold the thoughts that so swiftly poured through his brain. So the moments passed and Kate found her patience ebbing. "Well?" she demanded, her smile slowly fading. The man breathed a sigh, and swallowed as with a dry throat. The spell of her charm had been broken. "I had to come," he cried, with a nervous rush. "I had to find you. I had to speak to you--to tell you." The woman's eyes, so steadily fixed upon his face, were wearing an almost hard look. "Was it necessary to stimulate your nerve to come, and--speak to me? Charlie, Charlie," Kate went on more gently, her fine eyes softening, "when is this all to cease? Why must you drink? It seems so hopeless. Oh, man, where is your backbone, your grit. You tell me you long to be free of your curse, yet you plunge headlong the moment you are disturbed." Her moment of passionate remonstrance passed and a subtle coolness superseded it, as the scarlet flushed into the man's pale cheeks. "Tell it me all," she went on, "tell me what it is you had to see me about. Remember, to-morrow is Sunday, and this place must be put in order for meeting. As it is, I am late. I was kept." The flush of shame died out of the man's face, and his eyes became questioning. But his manner was almost humble. "I know," he said. "I knew I had no right to disturb you--now. I knew you would resent it. But I had to see you--while I had the chance. To-morrow it might be too late." "Too late?" The woman's question came with a sharp, rising inflection. "Oh, Kate, Kate, won't you understand what has brought me? Can't you understand all that I feel now that the shadow of the law is so threatening here in this valley? All the time I'm thinking of you; thinking of all you mean in my life; thinking of the love which would make it a happiness to lay down my life for you, the love which to me is the whole, whole world." He ceased speaking with a curious abruptness. It was as though there were much more to be said, but he feared to give it expression. Kate seized upon his pause to remonstrate. "Hush, Charlie," she cried almost vehemently, "you mustn't tell me all this. You mustn't. I am not worthy of such a love from any man. Besides," she went on, with a sigh, "it is all so useless. I have no love to return you. You know that. You have known it so long. Our friendship has been precious to me. It will always be precious. I feel, somehow, that you belong to me, are part of me, but not in the way you would have it. Oh, Charlie, the one thought in my mind, the one desire in my heart, is for your welfare. I desire that more than I could ever desire the love of any man. You love me, and yet by every act of yours that jeopardizes that welfare you stab me to the heart as surely as you add another nail to the coffin of your moral and physical well-being. You come here to tell me of these things, straight from one of your mad debauches, the signs of which are even now in your eyes, and in your shaking, nervous hands. Oh, Charlie, why must it all be? What madness is it with which you are possessed?" The man looked into her big eyes, so full of strength and courage. The yellow lamplight left them shining darkly. He sought in them something that always seemed to baffle. Something he knew was there, but which ever eluded him. And the while he cried out in bitterness at her challenge. "What does it matter--these things?" he said hoarsely. "What does it matter what I am if--I can't be anything to you?" Then his bitterness was redoubled, and an almost savage light shone in his usually gentle eyes. "Oh, God, I know I can never be anything to you but a sort of puling weakling, who must be nursed, and petted, and cared for. I know," he went on, his words coming with a rush in the height of his protesting passion, "if your thoughts, your secret thoughts and feelings, were put into words, I know what they would say of me, must say of me. Do I need to tell you? No, I think not. Look at me. It is sufficient." He paused, his great dark eyes alight as Kate had never seen them before. Then he went on, and his tone had become subdued, and its rich note thrilled with the depths of passion stirring him. "But for all that I am a man, Kate. For all my weakness I have strength to feel, to love, to fight. I have all that, besides, which goes to make a man, just as surely as has the man, Fyles, whom you love. I know, Kate. Denial would be useless, and in denying, you would be untrue to yourself. Fyles is the man for you, and no one knows it better than I. Fyles! The irony of it. The man who represents the law is the man who stands between me and all I desire on earth. I have seen it. I have watched. Nothing that concerns your life escapes me. How could it, when my whole thought is for you--you? But the agony of mind I suffer is no less. I cannot help it, Kate. The knowledge and sight of things drives me nearly crazy, and I suffer the tortures of hell. But even so, if your happiness lies at Fyles's side, then--I would have it so. If I were sure--sure that this happiness were awaiting you. Is it, Kate? Think. Think of it in--every aspect. Is it? Happiness with this--Fyles?" It was some moments before Kate made any reply. Her eyes were fixed upon the old Communion Table, so shadowy in the single lamplight. She was asking herself many questions; almost as many as he could have asked her. She had permitted herself to drift on the tide of her feelings. Whither? She knew she was beyond her depth. Her life was in the hands of a Providence which would inevitably work its will. All she knew was that she loved. She had known it from the first. She loved, and rejoiced that it was so. Again, there were moments when she feared as cordially. She knew the work that lay before this lover of hers. She knew in what direction it pointed. And in obedience to her thoughts her eyes came back to the drunkard's eager face. "You--you came to tell me--all this?" she said, in a low tone. "You came to assure yourself of my--happiness?" Then she shook her head. "Tell me the rest." It was Charlie's turn to hesitate now. The demand had robbed him of the small enough confidence he possessed. But Kate was waiting and he had no power to deny her anything. "I came to tell you of--things, while I still have the chance. To-morrow? Who knows what to-morrow may bring forth?" A keen, hard light suddenly flashed into the woman's eyes. "What of--to-morrow?" she demanded sharply, while she studied the man's pale features, with their boyish good looks. For answer Charlie reached out and caught one of her hands in both of his. She strove to release it, but he clung to it despairingly. "No, no, Kate. Don't take it away," he cried passionately. "It is for the last--the very last time. Tell me, dear, is--is there no hope for me? None? Kate, I love you so. I do--dear. I will give up everything for you, dear, everything. I can do it. I will do it. I swear it, if--only you'll love me. Tell me. Is there----?" Kate shook her head, and the man dropped her hand with a gesture of utter hopelessness. "My love is given, Charlie. Believe me, I have not given it. It--it is simply gone from me." Kate sighed. Then her mood changed again. That sharp alert look came into her eyes once more. "Tell me--of to-morrow," she urged him. The second demand had a pronounced effect upon Charlie. The air of the suppliant fell from him, even the signs of his recent debauch seemed to give way before a startling alertness of mentality. In his curious way he seemed suddenly to have become the man of action, full of a keenness of perception and shrewdness which might well have carried an added conviction to Stanley Fyles, had he witnessed the display. "Listen," he said, with a thrill of excitement. "Maybe it's not necessary to tell you. Maybe it's stale news. Anyway, to-morrow is to be the day of Fyles's coup." He paused, watching for the effect of his words. Just for an instant the woman's eyes flashed, but whether in fear, or merely excited interest, it would have been impossible to say. "Go on," she said. "To-morrow the village is to be surrounded by a chain of police patrols. Every entry will be closely watched for the incoming cargo of whisky. Fyles reckons to get me red-handed." "You?" Kate's eyes flashed again. "Sure. That's how he reckons." They looked into each other's eyes steadily. Charlie's were lit by a curious baffling irony. It was finally Charlie who spoke. "Fyles's plans are not likely to disconcert--anybody. There is no fear of legitimate capture. It is treachery--that is to be feared." Kate started. "Treachery?" The man nodded. And the woman gave a sharp exclamation of disgust. "Treachery! I hate it. I despise it. I--I could kill a traitor. You--fear treachery?" "I have been warned of it. That's all," he said, in a hard biting voice. "It is because of this I've come to you to-night. Who can tell the outcome of to-morrow if there's treachery? So I came to you to make my--last appeal." In a moment his passion was blazing forth again. "Say the word, dear. Forget this man. Give me one little grain of hope. We can leave this place, and all the treachery in the world doesn't matter. We can leave that, and everything else, behind us--forever." Kate shook her head. It almost seemed as though his pleading had passed her by. "It can't be," she said, almost coldly. "It's too late." "Too late?" The woman nodded, but her thoughts seemed far away. "Tell me," she said, after a pause, while she avoided the man's despairing eyes, "where does the treachery--lie?" The man turned away. His slim shoulders lifted with seeming indifference. "Pete Clancy and Nick Devereux--your two boys. But I don't know yet. I'm not sure." Suddenly Kate moved toward him. The coldness had passed out of her manner. Her eyes had softened, and a smile, a tender smile, shone in their depths. She held out her two hands. "Charlie, boy," she said, "you needn't fear for treachery for to-morrow. Leave Pete and Nick to me. I can deal with them. I promise you Fyles will gain nothing in the game he's playing, through them. Now, you must go. Give up all thought of me. We cannot help things. We can never be anything to each other, more than we are now, so why endure the pain and misery of a hope than can never be fulfilled. As long as I live I shall pray for your welfare. So long as I can I shall strive for it. It is for you to be strong. You must set your heart upon living down this old past, and--forgetting me. I am not worth the love you give me. Indeed--indeed I am not." But her outstretched hands were ignored. Charlie made a slight, impatient movement, and turned toward the door. Finally he looked back, and, for a moment, his gaze encountered the appeal in Kate's eyes. Then he passed on swiftly as though he could not endure the sight of all that which he knew to be slipping from beyond his reach. One hand reached the door handle, then he hunched his shoulders obstinately. "I give up nothing, Kate. Nothing," he said doggedly. "I love you, and I shall go on loving you to--the end." * * * * * It was late when Kate returned to her home. The house was in darkness, and the moon brought it out in silvery, frigid relief. Thrusting the front door open, she paused for a moment upon the threshold. She might have been listening; she might merely have been thinking. Finally she sat down and removed her shoes and gently tip-toed to her sister's room. Helen's door was ajar, and she pushed it open and looked in. The moonlight was shining across her sister's fair features, and the mass of loose fair hair which framed them. She was sound asleep in that wonderful dreamless land of rest, far from the turbulent little world in which her waking hours were spent. Kate as softly withdrew. Now she made her way back to the familiar kitchen parlor, and, in the dark, took up her position at the open window. Her whole attention was centered upon the ranch house of Charlie Bryant across the valley, which stood out in the moonlight almost as clearly as in daylight. A light was shining in one of its windows. She sat there waiting with infinite patience, and at last the light was extinguished. Then she rose, and, going to her bureau, picked up a pair of night glasses. She leveled these at the distant house and continued her watch. Her vigil, however, did not last long. In a few minutes she distinctly beheld a figure move out on to the veranda. Its identity, at that distance, she was left to conjecture. But she saw it leave the veranda and make its way round to the barn. A few minutes later, again, it reappeared, this time mounted upon a horse. She sighed. It was a sigh of impatience, it was also a sigh of resignation. Then she rose from her seat, and returned her night glasses to the bureau. Again she looked out of the window, but this time she remained standing. Nor were her eyes turned upon the distant ranch house. Her whole attitude was one of deep pensiveness. At last, however, she stirred, and, quite suddenly, her movements became quick and decided. It almost seemed as though she had finally reached a definite resolve. She passed out of the room, and then out of the house through the back way. The little barn was within a hundred yards of the house. She was still in the shadow of the house when she became aware of figures moving just outside the barn. In a moment she recognized them. They were her two hired men in the act of riding away on their horses. She let them get well away. Then she drew the door close after her and crossed over to the barn. The door was open and she went in. Passing the two empty stalls where the men's horses were kept, she went on to another, where her own horse, hearing her approach, set its collar chains rattling and greeted her with a suppressed whinny. It was the work of but a few minutes to saddle him and bring him out into the moonlight. Then she mounted him and rode off in the wake of those who had gone on before. CHAPTER XXV THE BROKEN CHAIN The peace of Sunday evening merged into the calm of night. Service was long since over in the old Meeting House. The traveling parson had come and gone. He had done his duty. He had read the service to the lounging, unkempt congregation, he had prayed over them, he had preached at them. He had done all these things because it was his duty to do so, but he had done them without the least hope of improving the morals of his unworthy flock, or of penetrating one single fraction through their crime-stained armor of self-satisfaction. Rocky Springs was one of the shadowed corners upon his tour, into which, he felt, it was beyond his power to impart light. There were those in the valley who viewed the Sabbath calm with a derisive smile. There were those who sat upon their little verandas and smoked, and talked in hushed voices, lest listening ears might catch the ominous purport of their words. There were others who went to their beds with a shrug of pretended indifference, feeling glad that for once, at least, their homes were a haven of safety for themselves. Rocky Springs as a whole knew that something was afoot--some play in which some one was to be worsted, in which, maybe, a life or two would be lost. Anyway, the players were Law _versus_ Outlaw, and those who were not actually concerned with the game felt glad that they still had another night under their own roofs. It was truly extraordinary how unspoken news spread. It was extraordinary the scent of battle, the scent of a struggle against the law, that was possessed by this people. Everybody seemed to know that to-night something like history was to be made in the annals of the crime of the valley. So the peace of the valley was almost remarkable. An undoubted air of studied indifference prevailed, but surely it was carefully studied. Neither Fyles nor any of his police had been seen the whole day. None of them had attended divine service. It was almost as if they had entirely vanished from the precincts of the valley. So the sun sank, and the ruddy clouds rose up from the west like the fiery splash of the molten contents of the cauldron into which the great ball of fire had plunged. They rose up, and then dispersed, vanishing into thin air, and making way for the soft sheen of a myriad stars, and leaving clear a perfect night for the great summer moon to illuminate. * * * * * Two by two a large number of horsemen rode out of the valley of Leaping Creek. Once away from the starting point, their movements, their figures became elusive and shadowy. They passed out from among the trees, on to the wide plains above, and each couple split up, taking their individual ways with a certainty which displayed their perfect prairie craft. Far out into the night they rode, each with clear instructions filling his mind, each with the certainty that one or more of their number must be brought face to face with a crisis before morning, which would need all their nerve and wit to bring to a successful issue. The moon rose up, a great golden globe, slowly changing to a cold silvery light as it mounted the starlit vault. Then came a change. Instead of leaving a starry track behind it, a bank of cloud followed hard upon its heels, threatening to overtake it and hide its splendor behind a pall of summer storm. Stanley Fyles watched with satisfaction the signs of the night. * * * * * A solitary horseman sat leaning forward upon the horn of his saddle, his eyes searching, searching, with aching intensity, that dim, shadowed skyline now almost lost against its backing of cloud. He was half-hidden in the shadow of a small bluff of spruce, with the depths of the valley hard behind him. Not only were his eyes searching with an almost unblinking watchfulness, but his ears, too, were busy with that intense, nerve-racking straining which leaves them ever ready to carry the phantom sounds of imagination to the impatient brain above. It was a long, intense vigil, and a hundred times the waiting man saw movements and heard sounds which set him ready to give the final signal which was to complete the carefully laid plans of his chief. But, in each case, he was spared the false alarm to which tricks of imagination so nearly drove him. Midnight came and passed. The sky grew more threatening. The man's eyes were upon that distant, southern upland which marked the skyline. Something seemed to be moving in the hazy distance, but as yet there was no sound accompanying the movement. Was there not? Hark, what was that? The man sighed. It was the rustle of the trees about him, stirred by a gentle rising breeze. But was it? Hark! That sounded like a footfall. But a footfall was not wanted. It was the sound of wheels for which his ears were straining. Ah, that was surely the wind. And--yes--listen. A rumble. It might be the wheels at last, or was it thunder? He sat up. The strain was hard to bear. It was thunder. And his eyes, for a moment, left the horizon for the clouds above. He regretted the absence of the moon. It left his work doubly difficult. He wondered---- But his wonder ceased, and he fell like a stone out of the saddle. He struggled fiercely, but his arms were held to his sides immovable. He had a vague recollection of a swift whirring sound, but that was all. Then he found himself struggling furiously on the ground with his horse vanished. * * * * * Inspector Fyles was thinking of many things. His post was at a point overlooking the Fort Alberton trail, which wound its way in the wide trough of two great, still waves of prairieland directly in front of him. Nothing could pass that way and remain unobserved, excepting under cover of the storm which seemed to be gathering. He patted Peter's arched neck, and the well-mannered, amiable creature responded by champing its bit impatiently. Fyles smiled. He knew that Peter loved to be traveling far and fast. He turned his eyes skywards. Perhaps it was not a storm. There were breaks here and there, and occasionally a star peeped out and twinkled mockingly at him. Still, he must hope for the best. A storm would favor his quarry, besides being----. Hark! A shot rang out in the distance, away to the east. One--two! Wait. A third! There it was. To the east. They were coming on over the southern trail, and that was in McBain's section! He lifted his reins, and Peter promptly laid his swift heels to the ground. Three shots. Fyles hoped the fourth would not be fired until he was within striking distance of the spot. * * * * * Four horsemen were converging upon the bluff whence the shots had proceeded. Each of the four had heard the three shots fired, each was executing the tactical arrangement agreed upon, and each was waiting as he rode, laboring under a high nervous tension, for the fourth shot, which was to confirm the alarm and notify the definite discovery of the contraband. It was withheld. Fyles was the first to reach the bluff, but, almost at the same moment, McBain's great horse drew up with a jolt. The inspector saw the approach of his subordinate while his eyes were still searching the skirts of the bluff for the patrol who had given the signal. "He should be on the southeast side," said McBain, and rode off in that direction. Fyles followed hard upon his heels. They had gone less than two hundred yards when the officer saw the shadowy form of the Scot throw itself back in the saddle, and pull his great horse back upon its haunches. Fyles swept up on the swift-footed Peter. He, too, reined up with a jolt and leaped out of the saddle. McBain was on his knees beside the prostrate form of the sentry. The man was bound hand and foot, and a heavy gag was secured in his widely forced open mouth. At that moment two troopers dashed up. And the sounds of others foregathering could be plainly heard. As Fyles regarded the prostrate man he realized that once more he had been defeated. He did not require to wait for the gag to be removed. He understood. He leaped into the saddle, as McBain cut the gag from the man's mouth. A sharp inquiry broke the silence. "Say, did you fire that--alarm?" Fyles cried almost fiercely. The man had struggled to a sitting posture, and began to explain. "No, sir. I was dragged----" "Never mind what happened. You didn't give the alarm?" "No, sir." "Quick, McBain!" Fyles almost shouted. "They've done us. Cut him loose, and follow me. They're on the Fort Allerton trail--or my name's not Fyles." * * * * * Peter led the race for the Fort Allerton trail. The dark night clouds were breaking when they reached the spot where the inspector had originally stationed himself. They passed on, and a glimmer of moonlight peeped out at them as they reached the trail side. Fyles and McBain leaped from their saddles and examined the sandy surface of it. Two of the troopers joined them. At length the officer spoke, and his voice had lost something of its sharp tone of authority. "They've beaten us, McBain," he cried. "God's curse on them, they've played us at our own game, and--beaten us. A wagon and team's passed here less than five minutes ago. Look at the dust track they've left." Fyles stood up. Then he started, and an angry glitter shone in his gray eyes. A horseman was silently looking on at the group of dismounted men, deliberately watching their movements. In the heat of the hunt no one had heard his approach. He sat there looking on in absolute silence. Fyles moved clear of his men and strode up to the horseman. He halted within a yard of him, while the rest of the party looked on in amazement. McBain was the only one to make any move. He followed hard on his chief's heels. Fyles looked up into the horseman's face. The sky had cleared and the moon was shining once more. A sudden fury leaped to the officer's brain, and, for a moment, all discretion was very nearly flung to the winds. By a great effort, however, he checked his mad impulse. "What are you doing here, Mr. Bryant?" he demanded sharply. Charlie Bryant leaned forward upon the horn of his saddle. His dark eyes were smiling, but it was not a pleasant smile. "Why, wondering what you fellows are doing here," he said calmly. Fyles stared, and again his fury nearly got the better of him. "That's no answer to my question," he snapped. "Isn't it?" A subtle change was in Charlie Bryant's manner. His smile remained, but it was full of a burning dislike, and even insolence. "Guess it's all you'll get from a free citizen. I've as much right here looking on at the escapades of the police, as they have to--indulge in 'em. Guess I've had a mighty long day and need to get home. Say, I'm tired. So long." He urged his horse forward and passed on down the trail. And as he went a trooper followed him, with orders to track him till daylight. CHAPTER XXVI ROCKY SPRINGS HEARS THE NEWS The news which greeted early morning ears in Rocky Springs was of a quality calculated to upset the entire affairs of the day, and bring a perfect surfeit of grist to O'Brien's insatiable mill. It even jeopardized the all-important church affairs. No one was inclined to work at all, let alone voluntarily work. Then, too, there were the difficulties of gathering together a quorum of the Church Construction Committee, and Mrs. John Day, full of righteous indignation and outraged pride, as president, felt and declared that it was a scandal that the degraded doings of a parcel of low-down whisky-runners should be allowed to interfere with the noble cause which the hearts of the valley were set upon. But, being a woman of considerable energy, she by no means yielded to circumstances. However, her difficulties were considerable. The percolation of the news of the police failure had reduced the male population to the condition of a joyful desire to celebrate in contraband drink. The female population became obsessed with a love of their own doorsteps, whence they could greet each other and exchange loud-voiced opinions with their neighbors, while their household "chores" awaited their later convenience. The children, too, were robbed of their delight in more familiar mischief, and turned their inventive faculties toward something newer and more in keeping with prevailing conditions and sentiments. Thus, a new game was swiftly arranged, and some brighter soul among them christened it the D. I. F. game. The initials were popularly believed to represent "Done is Fyles," but the enlightened among the boys understood that they stood for "Damn Idjut Fyles," an interpretation quite in keeping with the general opinion of the people of the valley. Certainly the atmosphere of the village that morning must have been intolerable to Inspector Fyles, had he permitted himself to dwell upon the indications, the derisive glances, the quiet laugh of men as he chanced to pass. But public opinion and feeling were things he had long since schooled himself to ignore. He was concerned with his superiors, and his superiors only. At all times they were more than sufficient to trouble with, and his whole anxiety was turned in their direction now, in view of his terrible failure of the night before. Thus he was forced to witness the signs about him, and content himself with the knowledge that he had been bluffed, while he cast about in his troubled mind for a means of appeasing his superior's official wrath. The church committee was to assemble at Mrs. John Day's house at ten o'clock, and the hour passed without a shadow of a quorum being formed. Kate Seton, the honorary secretary, was the only member, besides the president, who put in an appearance at the appointed hour. So Mrs. Day thrust on her bonnet, and, with every artificial flower in its crown shaking with indignation, set out to "round-up" the members. O'Brien was impossible. His trade was too overwhelming to be left in the hands of a mere bartender, but there was less excuse for Billy Unguin and Allan Dy, who were merely drinkers in the place. She possessed herself of their persons and marched them off, and gathered up two or three women friends of hers on the way home. Thus, by eleven o'clock, she had the door of her parlor closed upon a more or less efficient quorum. Then she sat her bulk down with a sigh of enforced content. Her florid face was beaded with perspiration as a result of her efforts. She turned autocratically to her secretary. "We'll dispense with the reading of the minutes of the last meeting," she declared half-defiantly. "We'll take 'em as read and passed. This liquor business is driving us all to perdition, as well as wasting our time, which is more important in Rocky Springs. I've never seen the like of this place." She glared directly at the two men. "And the men--well, say, I s'pose they are men, these fellows who stand around decorating that villain O'Brien's saloon. If it was a christening, they'd drink; if it was a wedding, they'd drink; if it was a funeral, they'd drink; if they were going to stand before their Maker right away, they'd call for rye first." After which few opening remarks, given with all the scornful dignity of one who knows she holds the leading position among her sex in the village, she proceeded with the work in hand with a capacity for detail that quite worried the absent minds of the only two male members of the committee present. Such was the general yearning for a termination of the meeting, so that its members might once more return to the gossip outside, that Mrs. John Day was permitted to carry all her plans in her scheme of salvation before her, with little or no discussion. And, in consequence, her good nature quickly reasserted itself, and she became more and more inclined to look leniently upon the defects of the majority of her committee. The president disposed of several lesser complaints against the construction of the church to her own satisfaction. The list of them was an accumulation of opinions sent in by people who felt that it was due to the community, and themselves, particularly, that the elected committee were sufficiently harrassed by pin pricks, lest it became too high-handed and autocratic. Mrs. Day's methods of dealing with these was characteristic of her social rule in the village. She rose with a look of contemptuous defiance upon her fiery features. It was Helen who had once declared that Mrs. John always reminded her of one of those very red-combed old hens who never failed to cluck themselves very nearly into an apoplectic fit over a helpless worm, and demanded that all eyes should watch her marvelous display of prowess in its slaughter. A slip of paper had been thrust into her hands by the undisturbed honorary secretary. "I guess I'm not going to worry you folks with debating these fool complaints sent in by some of the glory-seekers in this village," she began with enthusiastic heat. "I've settled them all myself. I'll read you the complaints and what I've done in each case. First, there's a kick from Mrs. Morgan, upon the hill. She's no account anyway, and hasn't given a bean toward the church--yet. Guess I'll have to see to that later. She says she saw two of the boys working on log hauling, sitting around in the shade of the church wall, after doing their work, swilling whisky out of the neck of a bottle, and guessed it wasn't decent. I've written her asking her to send two boys to do the work in their place. Guess she hasn't replied. Katherine L. Sherman, who guesses she's related to the real Shermans, and has had twins twice in three years, writes: 'When are we goin' to arrange for a christening font?' I handed her this. 'When folks needing it see their way clear to unrolling their bank wads.' Then there's Mrs. Andy Carlton, who's felt high-toned ever since she bought that second-hand top buggy from Mary Porson. She guesses we need a bell. I told her that if the people of Rocky Springs tried ringing their way to glory, it would be liable to alarm folks there. Best way would be to try and sneak in, and not shout they were coming. Then I heard from Mary Porson, herself. She wants to know who's to keep the boys who're drunk out of service, and wouldn't it be better to hold Meeting on Monday, so's the boys could get over the Saturday night souse in comfort. I told her she seemed to have a wrong idea of the folks of this village. I guessed if any feller got around to Meeting with liquor under his belt, there was liable to be a lynching right away. The boys wouldn't stand for any ungentlemanly conduct at Meeting. Then there's Mrs. Annerly-Jones. Having a hyphen to her name, she's all for white surplices and organized singing. She figures to start up a full choir, and sing the solos herself. I hinted that the choir racket wasn't to be despised, but solo work was liable to cause ill-feeling in the village by making folks think the singer was getting the start of them in the chase for glory. And, anyway, the old harmonium wasn't a match for her voice. Then there's a suggestion for cuspidors for each bench, and I must say, right here, I'm in favor of them. I'm not one to interfere with the disgusting ways of men. Men are just men, and can't help it, anyway, and if they contract filthy habits, it's not for woman to put 'em right. But she's got the right to refuse having her skirts turned into floor swabs. I've fixed all these things right, so we don't need to vote on 'em. But there's one little matter that needs discussing right here and now, seeing that the folks are present who've brought it up." The president paused and glared at the two men through her big, steel-rimmed glasses, and Billy Unguin and Allan Dy found themselves uncomfortably interested in various parts of well-varnished appointments of the lady's parlor. Kate Seton eyed the two men with some amusement. She felt that the recent discussion, which took place in the new church itself, was liable to assume a different complexion here. Besides, she knew these two men, and felt it was best to have the suggestion of felling the old pine, as a ridge pole for the church, definitely negatived by the present meeting. Mrs. John Day was always a difficult woman, of very strong opinions. Therefore it was not policy to suggest her course of action. So Kate had merely warned her that the suggestion had been made. "It's been said," Mrs. Day went on, with an aggressive look in her hot eyes, "that the design of the building is all wrong. That the main body is too long, and that the ridge pole of the roof will have to be joined in several places. This means a great weakness that'll have to be supported by central columns, which will obstruct the central gangway and the general view. I'd like Mr. Unguin and Mr. Dy to discuss the matter before the meeting." Thus challenged, Allan Dy sprang to his feet. "It's just as you say, ma'm," he cried. "And I say right here that ridge pole should be in one piece. It's bad. In a few years' time we'll surely have to rebuild that roof." He sat down with a jolt, and glared fiercely at his friend beside him. Billy Unguin was on his feet in a moment. "I want to say right here that my friend's been sorting mail so long he's got nervous. Furthermore, I'd add he don't need to worry a thing. It's my opinion the new church is an elegant proposition which reflects credit upon Rocky Springs, and our charming president more than anybody. And, if there's any liberties taken with the science of architecture, the matter can be got over dead easy. If joining the ridge pole means weakening the structure, then don't join it. That don't beat us a little bit. With such a head as our president has for the management of big affairs I'm sure she'll see a way out of the trouble, 'specially when I draw her attention to the old pine, which is tall enough to cut two ridge poles out of it for our church." Like his friend, he sat down with a jolt. But he was smiling with anticipated triumph. He felt that his long experience as a salesman of dry goods had taught him how to reach the most vulnerable point in feminine armor. When it came to winning over Mrs. John Day to his side Allan Dy hadn't an earthly chance with him. But his smile slowly disappeared when the honorary secretary promptly rose to her feet. Kate Seton turned and addressed herself to the president. "I should like to put in a word of protest," she began, while Allan Dy smiled and breathed his thankfulness that he was not to remain unsupported. Instantly Billy Unguin broke in. "Miss Seton, as secretary, is only ex-officio," he cried. Mrs. Day shot a withering glance at him. "Miss Seton is _honorary_ secretary." Allan Dy smiled more broadly as the president promptly nodded for Kate to proceed. "I wish to protest against the old pine being felled," she said, with some warmth. "It means disaster to Rocky Springs. There is the old legend. There is a curse on the felling of that tree." Her announcement was greeted by a murmur of approval from the women present, all except Mrs. Day. Dy beamed. But Kate was less pleased. She knew her president. She would always listen to the men, but when her own sex ventured on thinking for themselves she was liable to become restive. The president glanced round the room with a swift challenge shining through her glasses, and her hard mouth closed tightly. Then she turned sharply to the woman at her side. "I'm--I'm--astonished, Kate," she cried, with difficulty suppressing her inclination to domineer. "The matter is most simple. It is said the best interests of the church are being jeopardized. There is the obvious necessity of altering the design of the roof of our beautiful building. You--whom I have always regarded as the essence of sanity, and my chief support in the arduous work which has been flung upon my shoulders, and which Mr. Unguin has been pleased to say I'm not incapable of carrying out--you would sacrifice those interests for a lot of old Indian fool talk. I never would have believed it. Never! Say," she turned to the others, and her eyes challenged the rest of the women, "This surely is a more serious matter than I thought. It must be looked into. I'll look into it myself. If things are as Mr. Dy says, and it's necessary, as Mr. Unguin points out, to cut down that tree to fix our church right--why, it's going to be cut down. That's all." She paused dramatically, but not long enough for anybody to interrupt her. Then, with a wave of her fat arm, which, to the women, became a threat, and to the men appeared to be something like the gesticulation of an animated sausage, she proceeded to terminate the debate. "Those in favor of _my_ proposition will signify the same in the usual manner," she cried, with an air that brooked no sort of denial. Up went every right hand in the room except those of Kate and Allan Dy. Then the "no's" were taken. After which the result was announced with all the triumph of Mrs. Day's domineering personality. "Carried," she cried. Then she turned upon her secretary without the least sympathy or kindliness in her manner. "You'll enter that resolution in the minutes of the meeting," she snapped. * * * * * Some half-hour later the quorum dissolved itself and trickled out of the oppressive precincts of Mrs. John Day's highly polished parlor. The trickling process only lasted until the front door was gained. Then came a rush which had neither dignity nor politeness in it. The two men set off for the saloon without attempting to disguise their purpose. The women hastily tripped off in the various directions whither they knew their favorite gossips would be found. Even Kate Seton failed to wait to exchange her usual few final words with the president. Truth to tell, she was both disgusted and depressed, and felt that somehow she had made a mess of things. She felt that she had contrived to turn an unimportant matter into something of the first magnitude. The question of felling the old pine had merely been one of those subjects for bickering between Billy and Allan Dy, who had never been known to agree on any subject, and now, through bringing their dispute before the committee, she knew that she had changed it into a question upon which the whole village would take sides. She only trusted that superstition would prevail, and the aged landmark would be left standing. She somehow felt doubtful, however, now that Mrs. Day had taken sides against her, and she hurried off to avoid further discussion. Billy Unguin arrived at the saloon alone. Allan Dy's course was diverted when he came within sight of his post office. As he reached the main trail of the village, he saw Inspector Fyles and Sergeant McBain riding down from the west, and the sight of them reminded him of his mail. So, leaving his friend to continue his way to the saloon alone, he went on to his little office, arriving in time to take down a telegraphic message from Amberley, and hand it, with his mail, to the police officer. He rubbed his hands delightedly as he read the message over to himself a second time before placing it in its envelope. It was from the police headquarters, and its wording was full of significance in the light of last night's events. Allan Dy was glad he had not gone on to the saloon. The message was desperately curt. "Wagon returned to Fort Allerton empty. Report. Jason." The postmaster had just placed the message with the officers' mail when the two policemen entered. Fyles's expression was morose, and his manner repellent. McBain was grim and silent. "There's a goodish mail, Mr. Fyles," said Dy, without a trace of his real feelings, as he held out the bulky packet of letters. "That message has just come along over the wire." He pointed at the tinted envelope enclosing the telegram. While Fyles took his mail, McBain's keen eyes were at work upon the letters spread out on the counter. Fyles's silent manner induced the curious official to go a step further. "It's from headquarters--Superintendent Jason," he said, covertly watching the policeman's face. But the effect was not quite as satisfactory as he hoped. Fyles smiled. "Thanks. I was expecting it." Then he turned away, and, followed by McBain, passed out of the building. Once outside, however, it was quite another matter. The officer tore open the message and glanced at its contents. Then he passed it on to McBain with a brief comment. "They're wise," he said. "Guess the band's going to start playing--right away." McBain read the message. "We're up against it, sir," was his dry comment. "Up against it, man?" Fyles cried, with sudden heat. "I tell you that's very nearly our sentence. We've failed--failed, do you understand? And it's not our first failure. Do you need me to tell you anything? We may just as well stand right here and cut off the badges of our various ranks. That's what we may as well do," he added bitterly. "There's no mercy in Jason, and devilish little reason." But the Scot seemed to have very little sympathy for the other's feelings. He seemed to care less for his rank than something else, and, in his next words, the real man shone out. "I don't care a curse for my rank, sir," he exclaimed. "We've been bluffed and beaten like two babes in the game our lives are spent in playing. That's what hurts me. Have you seen 'em, sir? All the way along as we came down here just now. We passed five or six women at the doors of their miserable shacks, and they smiled as they saw us. We passed four men, and their greeting was maddening in its jeer. Even the damned kids looked up and grinned like the apes they are. They've bluffed and beaten us, and I--hate 'em all." For some moments Stanley Fyles made no answer. He was gazing out down the village trail, and his eyes were on a small group of people standing some way off talking together. He had recognized them. They were Kate and Helen Seton, and with them was young Bryant, the ingenuous brother of Charlie. He guessed, as well he might, the subject of their talk. His failure. Was not everybody talking of it? And were not most of them, probably all of them, rejoicing? His bitterness grew, and at last he turned on his subordinate. "Bluffed, but not beaten," he said, with a fierce oath which did the Scot's heart good. "We're not beaten," he reiterated, "if only Jason will leave us alone, and trust us further. I've got to convince him. I've got to tell him all that's happened, and I've got to persuade him to leave us here. We've got to go on. He can recommend my resignation, he can do what he damn well pleases, so long as he leaves me here to finish this work. I tell you, I've got to break up this gang of hoodlums." McBain's eyes glittered. "That's how I feel, sir." "Feel? We've just got to do it--or clear out of the country. Man, I'd give a thousand dollars to know how they got possession of our signals. Those shots, that bluffed us, were fired by some of the gang. How did they learn it? It's been done by spying, but--say, get on back to camp, and prepare the report of last night. Hold it up for me, and I'll enclose a private letter to Mr. Jason. I'll be along later." McBain nodded. "You fix it, sir, so we don't get transferred back. We need another chance badly. Maybe they won't bluff us next time." He swung himself into the saddle and rode away, while Fyles, linking his arm through the faithful Peter's reins, strolled leisurely on down the track toward the group which included Kate Seton. As he drew near they ceased talking, and watched his approach. Their attitude was such that Fyles could not refrain from a half-bitter, half-laughing comment as he came up. "It doesn't take much guessing to locate the subject of your talk, Miss Kate," he cried. Kate's dark eyes had no smile in them as she replied to his challenge. "How's that?" she inquired, while Bill and Helen watched his face. Fyles shrugged. "You stopped talking when you saw I was coming your way." He laughed. "However, I guess it's only to be expected. The boys bluffed us all right last night. It was a smartish trick. Still," he added thoughtfully, "it's given us an elegant lever--when the time comes." Kate made no answer. She was studying the man's face, and there was a certain regret and even pity in the depths of her regard. Bill and Helen had no such feelings for him. They were frankly rejoiced at his failure. Helen replied. "That's so, Mr. Fyles," she said, almost tartly, "but I guess that lever needs to help them into your traps to do any real good." The officer's smile was quite good-humored, in spite of the sharpness of the girl's reminder. What he really felt he was not likely to display here. "Sure," he said. "The spider weaves his web and it's not worth a cent if the flies aren't foolish enough to make mistakes. The spider is a student of winged insect nature, and he lays his plans accordingly. The flies always come to him--in the end." Bill laughed good-humoredly. "That's dandy," he cried. "There's always fool flies around. But sometimes that spider's web gets all mussed up and broken. I've broke 'em myself--rather than see the fool things caught." Kate's eyes were turned on the great bulk of Charlie's brother. Even Helen looked up with bright admiration for her lover. Fyles's gaze was leveled directly into the innocent looking blue eyes laughing into his. "Yes, I dare say you and other folks have broken those things up, often--but the spiders thrive and multiply. You see, when one net is busted they--make another. They don't seem to starve ever, do they? Ever seen a spider dead of starvation?" "Can't say I have." Bill shook his great head. "But maybe they'd get a bad time if they set their traps for any special flies--or fly." Fyles raised his powerful shoulders coldly. "Guess the spider business doesn't go far enough," he said, talking directly at Big Brother Bill. "When I spoke of that lever just now, maybe you didn't get my meaning quite clearly. That gang, who ran the liquor in last night, put themselves further up against the law than maybe they think. It was an armed attack on the police, which is quite a different thing to just simple whisky-running. Get me? The police are always glad when crooks do that. It pays them better--when the time comes." Bill had no reply. He suddenly experienced the chill of the cold steel of police methods. A series of painful pictures rose up before his mind's eye, which held his tongue silent. Helen quickly came to his rescue. "But who's to say who did it?" she demanded. Fyles smiled down into her pretty face. "Those who want to save their skins--when the time comes." It was Helen's turn to realize something of the irresistible nature of the work of the police. Somehow she felt that the defeat of the police last night was but a shadowy success after all, for those concerned in the whisky-running. Her thought flew at once to Charlie, and she shuddered at the suggested possibilities in Fyles's words. She turned away. "Well, all I can say is, I--I hate it all, and wish it was all over and done with. Everybody's talking, everybody's gloating, and--and it just makes me feel scared to death." Then she turned again to Bill. "Let's go on," she cried, a little desperately. "We'll finish our shopping, and--and get away from it all. It just makes me real ill." She waved a farewell to Kate and moved away, and Bill, like some faithful watchdog, followed at her heels. Fyles looked after them both with serious, earnest eyes. Kate watched them smiling. Presently Fyles turned back to her. "Well?" he demanded. Kate's eyes were slowly raised to his. "Well?" she echoed. "So----" She broke off. Her generous nature checked her in time. She had been about to twit him with his defeat. She sympathized with his feelings at the thought of his broken hopes. "Better say it," said Fyles, with a smile, in which chagrin and tenderness struggled for place. "You were going to say I have been defeated, as you told me I should be defeated." "I s'pose I was." Kate glanced quickly up into his face, but the feeling she beheld there made her turn her eyes away so that they followed Bill and Helen moving down the trail. "Women are usually ungenerous to--an adversary." Then her whole manner changed to one of kindly frankness. "Do you know my feelings are sort of mixed about your--defeat----" "Not defeat," put in Fyles. "Check." Kate smiled. "Well, then, 'check.' I am glad--delighted--since you direct all your suspicions against Charlie. Then I am full of regret for you, because--because I know the rigor of police discipline. In the eyes of the authorities you have failed--twice. Oh, if you would only attack this thing with an open mind, and not start prejudiced against Charlie. I wish you had never listened to local gossip. If that were so I could be on your side, and--and with true sportsmanship, wish you well. Besides that, I might be able to tell you things. You see, I learn many things in the village that others do not--hear." Fyles was studying the woman's face closely as she spoke. And something he beheld there robbed his defeat of a good deal of its sting. Her words were the words of partisanship, and her partisanship was for another as well as himself. Had this not been so, had her partisanship been for him alone, he could well have abandoned himself to an open mind, as she desired. As it was, she drove him to a dogged pursuit of the man he was convinced was the real culprit. "Don't let us reopen the old subject," he said, with a shade of irritability. "I have evidence you know nothing of, and I should be mad indeed if I changed my objective at your desire, for the sake of the unsupported belief and regard you have for this man. Let us be content to be adversaries, each working out our little campaign as we think best. Don't waste regrets at my failures. I know the price I have to pay for them--only too well. I know, and I tell you frankly, but only you, that my career in the police may terminate in consequence. That's all right. The prestige of the force cannot be maintained by--failures. The prestige of the force is very dear to me. If you have anything to tell me that may lead me in the direction of the real culprit, then tell me. If not--why let us be friends until--until my work has made that impossible. I--I want your friendship very much." Kate's eyes were turned from him. The deep light in them was very soft. "Do you?" she smiled. "Well--perhaps you have it, in spite of our temporary antagonism. Oh, dear--it's all so absurd." Fyles laughed. "Isn't it? But, then, anything out of the ordinary is generally absurd, until we get used to it. Somehow, it doesn't seem absurd that I want your--friendship. At least, not to me." Kate smiled up into his face. "And yet it is--absurd." The man's eyes suddenly became serious. "Why?" Kate shrugged. "That's surely explained. We are--antagonists." Again that look of impatience crossed the man's keen features. As he offered no reply, Kate went on. "About the armed attack on the police. You said it made all the difference. What is the difference?" "Anything between twelve months in the penitentiary and twenty years--when the gang is landed." "Twenty years!" The woman gave a slight gasp. The man nodded. "And do you know the logical consequence of it all?" he inquired. "No." Kate's eyes were horrified. "Why, when next we come into conflict there will be shooting if these people are pressed. They will have to shoot to save themselves. Then there may be murder added to their list of--delinquencies. These things follow in sequence. It is the normal progress of those who put themselves on the side of crime." CHAPTER XXVII AT THE HIDDEN CORRAL Charlie Bryant urged his horse at a dangerous pace along the narrow, winding cattle tracks which threaded the upper reaches of the valley. He gave no heed to anything--the lacerating thorns, the great, knotty roots, with which the paths were studded, the overhanging boughs. His sole object seemed to be a desperate desire to reach his destination. His horse often floundered and tripped, the man's own clothes were frequently ripped by the thorns, and the bleeding flesh beneath laid bare, while it seemed a miracle that he successfully dodged the threatening boughs overhead. There was a hunted look in his dark eyes, too. It was a look of concern, almost of terror. His gaze was alert and roving. Now, he was looking ahead, straining with anxiety, now he was turning this way and that in response to the mysterious woodland sounds which greeted his ears. Again, with a nervous jerk, he would rein in his horse and sit listening, with eyes staring back over the way he had come, as though fearing pursuit. Once he thrust a hand into an inside pocket as though to reassure himself that something was there which he valued and feared to lose, and with every movement, every look of his eyes, every turn of the head, he displayed an unusual nervousness and apprehension. At last his horse swept into the clearing of the hidden corral, and he reined it up with a jerk, and leaped from the saddle. Then he stood listening, and the apprehension in his eyes deepened. But presently it lessened, and he moved forward, and flung his reins over one of the corral fence posts. Every woodland sound, every discordant note from the heart of the valley was accounted for in his mind, so he hurried toward the flat-roofed hut, that mysterious relic of a bygone age. He thrust the creaking door open and waited while the flight of birds swarmed past him. Then he made his way within. Once inside he paused again with that painful look of expectancy and fear in his eyes. Again this passed, and he went on quickly to the far corner of the room, and laid his hands upon the wooden lining of the wall. Then he abruptly seemed to change his mind. He removed his hands, and withdrew a largish, morocco pocketbook from an inner pocket. It was a rather fine case, bound in embossed silver, and ornamented with a silver monogram. For some moments he looked at it as though in doubt. He seemed to be definitely making up his mind, and his whole attitude suggested his desire for its safety. While he was still gazing at it a startled look leaped into his eyes, and his head turned as though at some suspicious sound. A moment later he reached out and slid the wooden lining of the wall up, revealing the cavity behind it, which still contained its odd assortment of garments. Without hesitation he reached up to a dark jacket and thrust the pocketbook into an inner pocket. Then, with a swift movement, he replaced the paneling and turned about. It was the work of a moment, and as he turned about his right hand was gripping the butt of a revolver, ready and pointing at the door. "Charlie!" The revolver was slipped back into the man's pocket, and Charlie Bryant's furious face was turned toward the window opening, which now framed the features of his great blundering brother. "You, Bill?" he cried angrily. "What in hell are you doing here?" But Bill ignored the challenge, he ignored the tone of it. His big eyes were full of excitement. "Come out of there--quick!" he cried sharply. Charlie's dark eyes had lost some of their anger in the inquiry now replacing it. "Why?" But he moved toward the doorway. "Why? Because Fyles is behind me. I've seen him in the distance." Charlie came around the corner of the building with the door firmly closed behind him. Bill left the window and moved across to his horse, which was standing beside that of his brother. Charlie followed him. Neither spoke again until the horses were reached, and Bill had unhitched his reins from the corral fence. Then he turned his great blue eyes, so full of trouble, upon the small figure beside him, and he answered the other's half-angry, half-curious challenge with a question. "What's this place?" he demanded. Then he added, "And what's that cupboard in there?" He jerked his head in the direction of the hut, "I saw you close it." Charlie seemed to have recovered from the apprehension which had caused him to obey his brother unquestioningly. There was an angry sparkle in his eyes as he gazed steadily into Bill's face. "That's none of your damn business," he said, in a low tone of surly truculence. "I'm not here to answer any questions till you tell me the reason why you've had the impertinence to hunt me down. How did you know where to find me?" Just for one moment a hot retort leaped to the other's lips. But he checked his rising temper. His journey in pursuit of his brother had been taken after deep reflection and consultation with Helen. But the mystery of that hut, that cupboard, did more to keep him calm than anything else. His curiosity was aroused. Not mere idle curiosity, but these things, this place, were a big link in the chain of evidence that had been forged about his brother, and he felt he was on the verge of a discovery. Then there was Fyles somewhere nearby in the neighborhood. This last thought, and all it portended, destroyed his feelings of resentment. "I s'pose you think I followed you for sheer curiosity. Guess I might well enough do so, seeing we bear the same name, and that name's liable to stink--through you. But I didn't, anyway. I came out here to tell you something I heard this morning, and it's about--last night. Fyles says that the result of last night is that the gang, their leader, is now wanted for an armed attack on the police, and that the penalty is--anything up to twenty years in the penitentiary." Charlie's intense regard never wavered for one moment. "Who told you I was here?" he demanded angrily. "No one." There was a sting in the sharpness of Bill's reply. The big blue eyes were growing hot again. "Then how did you know where to find me?" Charlie's deep voice was full of suppressed fury. "I didn't know just where to find you," Bill protested, with rising heat. "The kid told me you'd gone up the valley, but didn't say where. I set out blindly and stumbled on your horse's tracks. I chanced those tracks, and they led me here. Will that satisfy you?" Charlie's eyes were still glittering. "Not quite. I'll ask you to get out of my ranch. And remember this, you've seen me at this shack, and you've seen that cupboard. If you'd been anybody but my brother I'd have shot you down in your tracks. Fyles--anybody. That cupboard is my secret, and if anyone learns of it through you--well, I'll forget you're my brother and treat you as though you were--Fyles." A sudden blaze of wrath flared up in the bigger man's eyes. But, almost as it kindled, it died out and he laughed. However, when he spoke there was no mirth in his voice. "My God, Charlie," he cried, holding out his big hands, "I could almost take you in these two hands and--and wring your foolish, obstinate, wicked neck. You stand there talking blasted melodrama like a born actor on the one-night stands. Your fool talk don't scare me a little. What in the name of all that's sacred do you think I want to send you to the penitentiary for? Haven't I come here to warn you? Man, the rye whisky's turned you crazy. I'm here to help, help, do you understand? Just four letters, 'help,' a verb which means 'support,' not 'destroy.'" Charlie's cold regard never wavered. "When will you clear out of--my ranch?" Bill started. The brothers' eyes met in a long and desperate exchange of regard. Then the big man brought his fist down upon the high cantle of his saddle with startling force. "When I choose, not before," he cried fiercely. "Do you understand? Here, you foolish man. I know what I'm up against. I know what you're up against, and I tell you right here that if Fyles is going to hunt you into the penitentiary he can hunt me, too. I'm not smart, like you, on these crook games, but I'm determined that the man who lags you will get it good and plenty. I sort of hate you, you foolish man. I hate you and like you. You've got grit, and, by God, I like you for it, and I don't stand to see you go down for any twenty years--alone. If Fyles gets you that way, you're the last man he ever will get. Damn you!" Charlie drew a deep breath. It was a sigh of pent feeling. He averted his gaze, and it wandered over the old corral inside which the wagon with its hay-rack was still standing, though its position was changed slightly. His eyes rested upon it, and passed on to the hut, about which the birds were once more gathering. They paused for some silent moments in this direction. Then they came back to the angry, waiting brother. "I wish you weren't such a blunderer, Bill," he said, and his manner had become peevishly gentle. "Can't you see I've got to play my own game in my own way? You don't know all that's back of my head. You don't know a thing. All you know is that Fyles wants to send me down, by way of cleaning up this valley. I want him to--if he can. But he can't. Not as long as the grass grows. He's beaten--beaten before he starts. I don't want help. I don't want help from anybody. Now, for God's sake, can't you leave me alone?" The tension between the two was relaxed. Bill gave an exclamation of impatience. "You want him to--send you down?" The warp of this man was too much for his common sense. "If he can." Charlie smiled now. It was a smile of perfect confidence. Bill threw up his hands. "Well, you've got me beat to a rag. I----" "The same as I have Fyles. But say----" Charlie broke off, and his smile vanished. "Maybe I'm a crook. Maybe I'm anything you, or anybody else likes to call me. There's one thing I'm not. I'm no bluff. You know of that cupboard in that shack. The thought's poison to me. If any other man had found it, he wouldn't be alive now to listen to me. Do you understand me? Forget it. Forget you ever saw it. If you dream of it, fancy it's a nightmare and--turn over. Bill, I solemnly swear that I'll shoot the man dead, on sight, who gives that away, or dares to look inside it. Now, we'll get away from here." He sprang into the saddle and waited while his brother mounted. Then he held out his hand. "Do you get me?" he asked. Bill nodded, and took the outstretched hand in solemn compact. "What you say goes," he said easily. "But your threat of shooting doesn't worry me a little bit." He gathered up his reins and the two men rode out of the clearing. * * * * * The last sound of speeding hoofs died away, and the clearing settled once more to its mysterious quiet. Only the twittering of the swarming birds on the thatched roof of the hut disturbed the silence, but, somehow, even their chattering voices seemed really to intensify it. Thus a few minutes passed. Then a breaking of bush and rustling of leaves gave warning of a fresh approach. A man's head and shoulders were thrust forward, out from amid the boughs of a wild cherry bush. His dark face peered cautiously around, and his keen eyes took in a comprehensive survey of both corral and hut. A moment later he stood clear of the bush altogether. Stanley Fyles swiftly crossed the intervening space and entered the corral. He strode up to the wagon and examined it closely, studying its position and the wheel tracks, with a minuteness that left him in possession of every available fact. Having satisfied himself in this direction, he passed out of the corral and went over to the hut. The screaming birds promptly protested, and flew once more from their nesting quarters in panicky dudgeon. Fyles watched them go with thoughtful eyes. Then he passed around to the door of the building and thrust it open. Another rush of birds swept past him, and he passed within. Again his searching eyes were brought into play. Not a detail of that interior escaped him. But ten minutes later he left the half-lit room for the broad light of day outside--disappointed. For a long time he moved around the building, examining the walls, their bases and foundations. His disappointment remained, however, and, finally, with strong discontent in his expression, and an unmistakable shrug of his shoulders, he moved away. Finally, he paused and gave a long, low whistle. He repeated it at intervals, three times, and, after awhile, for answer, the wise face of Peter appeared from among the bushes. The creature solemnly contemplated the scene. It was almost as if he were assuring himself of the safety of revealing himself. Then, with measured gait, he made his way slowly toward his master. CHAPTER XXVIII A WAGER The wild outbreak of excitement in Rocky Springs died out swiftly. After all, whisky-running was a mere traffic. It was a general traffic throughout the country. The successful "running" of a cargo of alcohol was by no means an epoch-making event. But just now, in Rocky Springs, it was a matter of more than usual interest, in that the police had expressed their intention of "cleaning" the little township up. So the excitement at their outwitting. So, more than ever, the excited rejoicing became a cordial expression of delight at the fooling of the purpose of a generally hated act. This sentiment was expressed by O'Brien before his bar full of men, among whom were many of those responsible for the defeat of the police. He addressed himself personally to Stormy Longton with the certainty of absolute sympathy. "Guess when the boys here have done with the p'lice they'll have the prohibition law wiped out of the statute book, Stormy," he said, with a knowing wink. "Ther's fellers o' grit around this valley, eh? Good boys and gritty. Guess it ain't fer us to open our mouths wide, 'cep' to swallow prohibition liquor, but there'll be some tales to tell of these days later, eh, Stormy? An'," he added slyly, "guess you'll be able to tell some of 'em." The badman displayed no enthusiasm at the personality. He considered carefully before replying. When he did reply, however, he set the saloonkeeper re-sorting some of his convictions, mixing them with a doubt which had never occurred to him before. "Sure," said Stormy, with a contemptuous shrug, "and I guess you, with the rest, will do some of the listenin'. You're all wise guys hereabouts--mostly as wise as the p'lice. Best hand the company a round of drinks. I've got money to burn." He laughed, but no amount of questioning could elicit anything more of interest to the curious minds about him. It was on the second day after the whisky-running that Kate Seton was returning home after an arduous morning in the village. She was feeling unusually depressed, and her handsome face was pathetically lacking in the high spirits and delight of living usual to it. It was not her way to indulge in the self-pitying joys of depression. On the contrary, her buoyancy, her spirit, were such as to attract the weaker at all times to lean on her for support. She was tired, too, physically tired. The day had been one of sweltering heat, one of those sultry, oppressive days, which are fortunately few enough in the brilliant Canadian summer. As she reached the wooden bridge across the river she paused and leaned herself against the handrail, and, propping her elbow upon it, leaned her chin upon the palm of her hand and abandoned herself to a long train of troubled thought. It may have been chance; it may have been that her thought inspired the direction of her gaze. It may have been that her attitude had nothing whatsoever to do with her thought. Certain it is, however, that her brooding eyes were turned, as they were so often turned, upon that little ranch house perched so high up on the valley slope. She remained thus for a while, her eyes almost unseeing in their far-away gaze, but, later, without shifting her attitude, they glanced off to the right in the direction of the old pine, rearing its vagabond head high above the surrounding wealth of by no means insignificant foliage. It was a splendid sight, and, to her imagination, it looked the personification of the rascality of the village she had so come to love. Look at it. Its trunk, naked as the supports of a scarecrow, suggesting mighty strength, indolence and poverty. There, above, its ragged garments--unwholesome, dirty, like the garments of some tramping, villainous, degraded loafer. And yet, with it all, the old tree looked so mighty, so wise. To her it seemed like some ages-old creature looking down from its immense height, and out of its experience of centuries, upon a world of struggling beings, with the pitying contempt of a wisdom beyond the understanding of man. It seemed to her the embodiment of evil, yet withal of wisdom, too. And somehow she loved it. Its evil meant nothing to her, nothing more than the evil of the life amid which she lived. It was no mere passing sentiment with her. Her nature was too strong for the softer, womanish sentiments, stirred in a moment and as easily set aside. For her to yield her affections to any creature or object, was to yield herself to a bondage more certain than any life of slavery. To think of this valley without---- Her thoughts were abruptly cut short as the sound of a cry reached her from the direction of her house. She turned, and, for a moment, stared hard and alertly in the direction whence it came. Her ears were straining, too. In a moment she became aware of a faint confusion of sounds which she had no power of interpreting. But somehow they conveyed an ominous suggestion to her keen mind. She bestirred herself. She set off at a run for her home. The distance was less than a hundred yards, and she covered it quickly. As she came nearer the sounds grew, and became even more ominous. They proceeded from somewhere in the direction of the barn behind the house. She darted into the house, and, after one comprehensive glance around the sitting room, where she found the rocker upset, and a china ornament fallen from its place on the table, and smashed in fragments upon the floor, as though someone had knocked it down in a hasty departure, she snatched a revolver from its holster upon the wall, and rushed out of the house through the back door. She was not mistaken. Her hearing had accurately conveyed to her the meaning of those sounds. Nevertheless she was wholly unprepared for the sight which actually greeted her as she turned the angle of the barn where the building faced away from the house. She stood stock still, her big eyes wide with wonder and swift rising anger. Twisting, struggling, writhing, cursing, two men lay upon the ground held in a fierce embrace, much in the manner of two wildcats. Beyond them, huddled upon the ground, her face covered with her hands, a picture of abject terror, crouched her younger sister, Helen. All this she beheld at the first glance. Then, keeping clear of the fighters she darted around to the terrified girl. With a cry Helen scrambled to her feet and clung to her sister's arm, and began to pour out a stream of hysterical thankfulness. "Oh, stop them," she cried. "Oh, thank God, thank God! Stop them, or they'll kill each other. Pete will kill him. He----" But Kate had no time for such feminine weakness. She dragged the girl away out of sight, and left her while she returned to the affray. Once in full view of it she made no effort to stop it. She stood looking on with the critical eye of an interested spectator, but her hand was grasping her revolver, nor was her forefinger far from the trigger of it. The men rolled this way and that, while deep-throated curses came up from their midst with a breathless, muttered force. But through the tangle of sprawling bodies and waving limbs Kate's quick eyes discovered all she required to satisfy herself. She saw no real life and death struggle here. Maybe, had the circumstances been changed, it would have been so, but one of the combatants was far too experienced a rough and tumble fighter for those circumstances to mature. The man on top at the moment had the other in a vice-like grip by the right wrist, keeping the heavy revolver, which the underman had in his hand, from becoming a serious danger. With the other hand he was dealing his adversary careful, well-timed smashes upon his bruised and battered face, with the object of warding off a fierce attack of strong, yellow teeth. The man on top had his adversary's measure to a fraction. He was dealing with him almost as he chose, and the onlooker knew that it could only be moments before the other finally "squealed," and dropped the murderous weapon from his hand. Down came the fist, a great, white fist, with a soggy sound upon the man's pulpy features, its force increased a hundred per cent. by the resistance of the hard ground on which his adversary lay. A fierce curse was the response, and a wild upward slash at the big face above. Then the big fist went up again. "Drop it, you son-of-a-moose," Kate heard, in Big Brother Bill's fiercest tones. "Drop it, or I'll kill you!" Down came his fist with a fearful smash on the other's gaping mouth. A splutter of oaths was his reply, and an even greater effort to throw the white man off. But the effort was unavailing. Then Kate saw something happen. The big white man changed his tactics. He desisted quite suddenly from belaboring his victim. He made no attempt to defend himself. He reached out his disengaged hand and added a second grip upon the man's revolver arm. Then, with a terrific jolt, he flung himself backwards, so that he was left in a kneeling position upon the other's middle. Then, in a second, with an agility absolutely staggering, he was on his feet. The next moment the other was jerked to his feet with his revolver arm twisted behind his back and nearly dislocated. With a frantic yell of agony the half-breed's hand relaxed its grip upon his revolver, and the weapon fell to the ground. The fight was over. With a mighty throw Pete Clancy was hurled headlong, and fell sprawling upon the ground at the foot of the barn wall, and his impact was like the result of a shot from a catapult. "Lie there, you dirty dog!" cried Big Brother Bill, in a fury of breathless indignation. "That'll maybe learn you a lesson not to get drinking rot gut, and, if you do, not to insult a white girl. You damnation nigger, for two beans I'd kick the life out of you where you lay." The man was scrambling to his feet, glaring an eternity of hatred at his white victor. "Did he insult--Helen?" Bill swung around with almost ludicrous abruptness. He had been utterly unaware of Kate's presence. He stared. Then, with a rush of passionate anger---- "Yes; but by God, he'll think some before he does it again." Kate's eyes were coldly commanding. "Go around to Helen, and--take that gun," she said authoritatively. "Leave Pete to me." "Leave him----?" Bill's protest remained uncompleted. "Do as I tell you--please." "But he'll----" Again Kate cut him short. "Please!" She pointed in the direction of the house. Bill was left with no alternative but to obey. He moved away, but his movements were grudging, and he looked back as he went, ready to hurl himself to Kate's succor at the slightest sign. Ten minutes later Kate entered the sitting room. Her handsome face was pale, and her eyes were shining. The spirit of the woman was stirred. There was no fear in her--only a sort of hard resentment that left her expression one of cold determination. Helen ran to her at once. But, for perhaps the first time in her life, she encountered something in the nature of a rebuff. Kate looked straight into her sister's eyes as she flung herself into a chair, and laid her loaded revolver upon the table. "Tell me about it. Just the plain facts," she said, and waited. Bill started up from his place in the rocker, but Kate signed him to be silent. "Helen can tell me," she said coldly. Helen, leaning against the table, glanced across at Bill. Her sister's attitude troubled her. She felt the resentment underlying it. She was at a loss to understand it. After a moment's hesitation she began to explain. Nor could she quite keep the sharp edge of feeling out of her tone. "It was my fault," she began. "At least, I s'pose it was. I s'pose I was doing a fool thing interfering, but I didn't just think you'd mind, seeing you'd ordered him to do work he hadn't done. You see, he hadn't touched those potatoes you'd told him to dig. He's been drinking instead." Suddenly her sense of humor got the better of her resentful feelings, and she began to laugh. "Well, I had to go and be severe with him. I tried to bully him, and stamped my foot at him, and--and called him a drunken brute. I took a chance. Being drunk, he might have proposed to me. Well, he didn't this time. It was far worse. He told me to go--to hell, first of all. But, as I didn't show signs of obeying him, he got sort of funny and tried to kiss me." "The swine!" muttered Bill, but was silenced by a look from Helen's humorous eyes. "That's what I thought--first," she said. Then, her eyes widening: "But he meant doing it, and I got scared to death. Oh, dear, I was frightened. Being a coward, I shouted for help. And Bill responded like--like a great angry steer. Then I got worse scared, for, directly Pete saw Bill coming, he pulled a gun, and there surely was murder in his eye." She breathed a deep sigh, and her eyes had changed their expression to one of delight and pride. "But he hadn't a dog's chance of putting Bill's lights out. He hadn't, true. Say, Kate, Bill was just like--like a whirlwind. Same as Charlie said. He was so quick I hardly know how it happened. Bill dropped Pete like a--a sack of wheat. He--he was on him like a tiger. Then I was just worse scared than ever, and--and began to cry." The girl's mouth drooped, but her eyes were laughing. Then, as Kate still remained quiet, she inquired: "Wasn't I a fool?" Kate suddenly looked up from the brown study into which she had fallen. Her big eyes looked straight across at Bill, and she ignored Helen's final remark. "Thanks, Bill," she said quietly. And her last suggestion of displeasure seemed to pass with her expression of gratitude. "I'm glad you were here, and"--she smiled--"you can fight. You nearly killed him." Then, after a pause: "It's been a lesson to me. I--shan't forget it." "What have you--done to him?" cried Helen suddenly. But Kate shook her head. "Let's talk of something else. There's things far more important than--him. Anyway, he won't do _that_ again." She rose from her seat and moved to the window, where she stood looking out. But she had no interest in what she beheld. She was thinking moodily of other things. Bill stirred in his chair. He was glad enough to put the episode behind him. "Yes," he said, taking up Kate's remark at once. "There certainly are troubles enough to go around." He was thinking of his scene of the previous day with his brother. "But--but what's gone wrong with you, Kate? What are the more important things?" "You haven't fallen out with Mrs. Day?" Helen put in quickly. Kate shook her head. "No one falls out with Mrs. Day," she said quietly. "Mrs. Day does the falling out. It isn't only Mrs. Day, it's--it's everybody. I think the whole village is--is mad." She turned back from the window and returned to her seat. But she did not sit down. She stood resting her folded arms on its back and leaned upon it. "They're all mad. Everybody. I'm mad." She glanced from one to the other, smiling in the sanest fashion, but behind her smile was obvious anxiety and trouble. "They've practically decided to cut down the old pine." Bill sat up. He laughed at the tone of her announcement. But Helen gasped. "The old pine?" She had caught some of her sister's alarm. Kate nodded. "You can laugh, Bill," she cried. "That's what they're all doing. They're laughing at--the old superstition. But--it's not a laughing matter to folks who think right along the lines of the essence of our human natures, which is superstition. The worst of it is I've brought it about. I told the meeting about a stupid argument about the building of the church which Billy and Dy had. Billy wants the tree for a ridge pole, because the church is disproportionately long. Well, I told the folks because I thought they wouldn't hear of the tree being cut. But Mrs. Day rounded on me, and the meeting followed her like a flock of sheep. Still, I wasn't done by that. I've been canvassing the village since, and, would you believe it, they all say it's a good job to cut the tree down. Maybe it'll rid the place of its evil influence, and so rid us of the attentions of the police. I tell you, Billy and Dy are perfect fools, and the folks are all mad. And I'm the greatest idiot ever escaped a home for imbeciles. There! That's how I feel. It's--it's scandalous." Bill laughed good-naturedly. "Say, cheer up, Kate," he cried. "You surely don't need to worry any. It can't hurt you. Besides----." He broke off abruptly, and, sitting up, looked out of the window. "Say, here comes Fyles." He almost leaped out of his seat. "What's the matter?" demanded Kate sharply. Then she looked around at her sister, who had moved away from the table. Bill laughed again in his inconsequent fashion. "Matter?" he cried. "Nothin's the matter, only--only----. Say, did you ever have folks get on your nerves?" "Plenty in Rocky Springs," said Kate bitterly. Bill nodded. "That's it. Say, I've just remembered I've got an appointment that was never made with somebody who don't exist. I'm going to keep it." Helen laughed, and clapped her hands. "Say, that's really funny. And I've just remembered something I'd never forgotten, that's too late to do anyway. Come on, Bill, let's go and see about these things, and," she added slyly, "leave Kate to settle Fyles--by herself." "Helen!" But Kate's remonstrance fell upon empty air. The lovers had fled through the open doorway, and out the back way. Nor had she time to call them back, for, at that moment, Fyles's horse drew up at the front door, and she heard the officer leap out of the saddle. * * * * * "Have you made your peace with--headquarters?" Kate and Stanley Fyles were standing out in the warm shade of the house. The woman's hand was gently caressing the velvety muzzle of Peter's long, fiddle face. It was a different woman talking to the police officer from the bitter, discontented creature of a few minutes ago. For the time, at least, all regrets, all thoughts of an unpleasant nature seemed to have been lost in the delight of a woman wholesomely in love. As she put her question her big eyes looked up into the man's keen face with just the faintest suspicion of raillery in their glowing depths. But her rich tones were full of a genuine eagerness that belied the look. The man was good to look upon. The strength of his face appealed to her, as did the big, loose shoulders and limbs, as strength must always appeal to a real woman. Her love inspired a subtle tenderness, even anxiety. "I hope so, but--I don't know yet." Fyles made no attempt to conceal his doubts. Somehow the official side of the man was becoming less and less sustained before this woman, who had come to occupy such a big portion of his life. "You mean you've sent in your report, and are now awaiting the--verdict?" Fyles nodded. "Like so many of the criminals I have brought before the courts," he said, bitterly. "And the chances?" "About equal to those of a convicted felon." The smile died out of Kate's eyes. They were full of regretful sympathy. "It's pretty tough," she said, turning from him. "It isn't as if you had made a mistake, or neglected your duty." "No, I was beaten." The man turned away coldly. But his coldness was not for her. "Is there no hope?" Kate asked presently, in a low tone. Fyles shrugged. "There might be if I had something definite to promise for the future. I mean a chance of--redeeming myself." Kate made no answer. The whole thing to her mind seemed impossible if it depended upon that. The thought of this strong man being broken through the police system, for no particular fault of his own, seemed very hard. Harder now than ever. She strove desperately to find a gleam of light in the darkness of his future. She would have given worlds to discover some light, and show him the way. But one thing seemed impossible, and he--well, he only made it harder. His very decision and obstinacy, she considered, were his chief undoing. "If you could reasonably hold out a prospect to them," she said, her dark eyes full of thought--strong and earnest thought. "Can't you?" She watched him closely. She saw him suddenly straighten himself up, throwing back his powerful shoulders as though to rid himself of the burden which had been oppressing him so long. He drew a step nearer. Kate's heart beat fast. Then her eyes drooped before the passion shining in his. "Maybe you don't realize why I am here, Kate," he said, in a low thrilling voice, while a warm smile grew in his eyes. "You see, weeks ago I made a mistake, a bad mistake--just such as I have made here. The liquor was run under my nose, while I--well, I just stood around looking on like some fool babe. That liquor was--for this place. After that I asked the chief to give me a free hand, and to allow me to come right along, and round this place up. My object was twofold. I knew I had to make good, and--I knew you were here. Guess you don't remember our first meeting? I do. It was up on the hillside, near the old pine. I've always wanted to get back here--ever since then. Well, I've had my wish. I'm here, sure. But I've not made good. The folks, here, have beaten me, and you--why, I've just contrived to make you my sworn adversary. Failure, eh? Failure in my work, and in my--love." For an instant the woman's eyes were raised to his face. She was trembling as no physical fear could have made her tremble. Peter nuzzled the palm of her hand with his velvety nose, and she quickly lowered her gaze, and appeared to watch his efforts. After a moment's pause the man went on in a voice full of a great passionate love. All the official side of him had gone utterly. He stood before the woman he loved baring his soul. For the moment he had put his other failures behind him. He wanted only her. "I came here because I loved you, Kate. I came here dreaming all those dreams which we smile at in others. I dreamed of a life at your side, with you ever before me to spur me on to the greater heights which I have thought about, dreamed about. And all my work, all my striving, was to be for you. I saw visions of the days, when, together, we might fill high office in our country's affairs, with an ambition ever growing, as, together, we mounted the ladder of success. Vain enough thought, eh? Guess it was not long before I brought the roof of my castle crashing about my ears. I have failed in my work a second time, and only succeeded in making you my enemy." Kate's eyes were shining. A great light of happiness was in them. But she kept them turned from him. "Not enemy--only adversary," she said, in a low voice. The man shook his head. "It is such a small distinction," he said bitterly. "Antagonists. How can I ever hope that you can care for me? Kate, Kate," he burst out passionately, "if you would marry me, none of the rest would matter. I love you so, dear. If you would marry me I should not care what the answer from headquarters might be. Why should I? I should then have all I cared for in the world, and the world itself would still be before us. I have money saved. All we should need to start us. My God, the very thought of it fills me with the lust of conquest. There would be nothing too great to aspire to. Kate, Kate!" He held his arms out toward her in supplication. The woman shook her head, but offered no verbal refusal. The man's arms dropped once more to his sides, and, for a moment, the silence was only broken by the champing of Peter's bit. Then once more the man's eyes lit. "Tell me," he cried, almost fiercely. "Tell me, had we not come into conflict over this man, Bryant, would--would it--could it have been different?" Then his voice grew soft and persuasive. "I know you don't dislike me, Kate." He smiled. "I know it, and you must forgive my--vanity. I have watched, and studied you, and--convinced myself. I felt I had the right to hope. The right of every decently honest man. Our one disagreement has been this man, Bryant. I had thought maybe you loved him, but that you have denied. You do not? There is no one else?" Again Kate silently shook her head. The man was pressing her hard. All her woman's soul was crying out for her to fling every consideration to the winds, and yield to the impulse of the love stirring within her. But something held her back, something so strong as to be quite irresistible. The man went on. He was fighting that last forlorn hope amid what, to him, seemed to be a sea of disaster. "No. You have told me that before," he said, almost to himself. "Then why," he went on, his voice rising with the intensity of his feelings. "Why--why----? But no, it's absurd. You tell me you don't--you can't love me." For one brief instant Kate's eyes were shyly raised to his. They dropped again at once to the brown head of the horse beside her. "I have told you nothing--yet," she said, in a low voice. The man snatched a brief hope. "You mean----?" Kate looked up again, fearlessly now. "I mean just what I say." "You have told me nothing--yet," the man repeated. "Then you have something--to tell me?" Kate nodded and pushed Peter's head aside almost roughly. "The man I can care for, the man I marry must have no thought of hurt for Charlie Bryant in his mind." "Then you----" Kate made a movement of impatience. "Again, I mean just what I say--no more, no less." But it was Fyles's turn to become impatient. "Bryant--Charlie Bryant? It is always Charlie Bryant--before all things!" Kate's eyes looked steadily into his. "Yes--before even myself." The man returned her look. "Yet you do not love him as--I would have you love me?" "Yet I do not love him, as you would have me love you." The man thrust out his arms. "Then, for God's sake, tell me some more." The insistent Peter claimed Kate once more. His long face was once more thrust against her arm, and his soft lips began to nibble at the wrist frill of her sleeve. She turned to him with a laugh, and placed an arm about his crested neck. "Oh, Peter, Peter," she said smiling, and gently caressing the friendly creature. "He wants me to tell him some more. Shall I? Shall I tell him something of the many things I manage to learn in this valley? Shall I try and explain that I contrive to get hold of secrets that the police, with all their cleverness, can never hope to get hold of? Shall I tell him, that, if only he will put Charlie out of his mind, and leave him alone, and not try to fix this--this crime on him, I can put him on the track of the real criminal? Shall I point out to him the absurdity of fixing on this one man when there are such men as O'Brien, and Stormy Longton, and my two boys, and Holy Dick, and Kid Blaney in the place? Shall I? Shall I tell him of the things I've found out? Yes, Peter, I will, if he'll promise me to put Charlie out of his mind. But not unless. Eh? Not unless." The man shook his head. "You make the condition impossible," he cried. "You have faith in that man. Good. I have overwhelming evidence that he is the man we are after. Until he is caught the whisky-running in this place will never cease." Kate refused to display impatience. She went on talking to the horse. "Isn't he obstinate? Isn't he? And here am I offering to show him how he can get the real criminals." Fyles suddenly broke into a laugh. It was not a joyous laugh. It was cynical, almost bitter. "You are seeking to defend Bryant, and yet you can, and will, put me on the track of the whisky-runners. It's farcical. You would be closing the door of the penitentiary upon your--friend." Kate's eyes flashed. "Should I? I don't think so. The others I don't care that for." She flicked her fingers. "They must look to themselves. I promise you I shall not be risking Charlie's liberty." "I'll wager if you show me how I can get these people, and I succeed--you will." The angry sparkle in the woman's eyes died out, to be replaced with a sudden light of inspiration. "You'll wager?" she cried, with an excited laugh. "You will?" The policeman nodded. "Yes--anything you like." Kate's laugh died out, and she stood considering. "But you said my conditions were--impossible. You will leave Charlie alone until you capture him running the whisky? You will call your men off his track--until you catch him red-handed? You will accept that condition, if I show you how you can--make good with your--headquarters?" The man suddenly found himself caught in the spirit of Kate's mood. "But the conditions must not be all with you," he cried, with a short laugh. "You are too generous to make it that way. If I accept your conditions, against my better judgment, will you allow me to make one?" "But I am conferring the benefit," Kate protested. "All of it? What about your desire to protect Bryant?" Kate nodded. "What is your condition?" Fyles drew a deep breath. "Will you marry me after I have caught the leader of the gang, if he be this man, Bryant? That must be your payment--for being wrong." In a moment all Kate's lightness vanished. She stared at him for some wide-eyed moments. Then, again, all in a moment, she began to laugh. "Done!" she cried. "I accept, and you accept! It's a wager!" But her ready acceptance of his offer for the first time made the police officer doubt his own convictions as to the identity of the head of the gang. "You are accepting my condition because you believe Bryant is not the man, and so you hope to escape marrying me," he said almost roughly. "I accept your condition," cried Kate staunchly. Slowly a deep flush mounted to the man's cheeks and spread over his brow. His eyes lit, and his strong mouth set firmly. "But you will marry me," he cried, with sudden force. "Whatever lies behind your condition, Kate, you'll marry me, as a result of this. The conditions are agreed. I take your wager. I shall get the man Bryant, and he'll get no mercy from me. He's stood in my way long enough. I'm going to win out, Kate," he cried; "I know it, I feel it. Because I want you. I'd go through hell itself to do that. Quick. Tell me. Show me how I can get these people, and I promise you they shan't escape me this time." But Kate displayed no haste. Now that the wager was made she seemed less delighted. After a moment's thought, however, she gave him the information he required. "I've learned definitely that on Monday next, that's nearly a week to-day, there's a cargo coming in along the river trail, from the east. The gang will set out to meet it at midnight, and will bring it into the village about two o'clock in the morning. How, I can't say." Fyles's desperate eyes seemed literally to bore their way through her. "That's--the truth?" "True as--death." CHAPTER XXIX BILL'S FRESH BLUNDERING The change in the man that rode away from Kate Seton's home as compared with the man who had arrived there less than an hour earlier was so remarkable as to be almost absurd in a man of Stanley Fyles's reputation for stern discipline and uncompromising methods. There was an almost boyish light of excited anticipation and hope in the usually cold eyes that looked out down the valley as he rode away. There was no doubt, no question. His look suggested the confidence of the victor. And so Charlie Bryant read it as he passed him on the trail. Charlie was in a discontented mood. He had seen Fyles approach Kate's home from his eyrie on the valley slope, and that hopeless impulse belonging to a weakly nature, that self-pitying desire to further lacerate his own feelings, had sent him seeking to intercept the man whom he felt in his inmost heart was his successful rival for all that which he most desired on earth. So he walked past Fyles, who was on the back of his faithful Peter, and hungrily read the expression of his face, that he might further assure himself of the truth of his convictions. The men passed each other without the exchange of a word. Fyles eyed the slight figure with contempt and dislike. Nor could he help such feelings for one whom he knew possessed so much of Kate's warmest sympathy and liking. Besides, was he not a man whose doings placed him against the law, in the administration of which it was his duty to share? Charlie's eyes were full of an undisguised hatred. His interpretation of the officer's expression left him no room for doubting. Delight, victory, were hall-marked all over it. And victory for Fyles could only mean defeat for him. He passed on. His way took him along the main village trail, and, presently, he encountered two people whom he would willingly have avoided. Helen and his brother were returning toward the house across the river. Helen's quick eyes saw him at once, and she pointed him out to the big man at her side. "It's Charlie," she cried, "let's hurry, or he'll give us the slip. I must tell him." "Tell him what?" But Helen deigned no answer. She hurried on, and called to the dejected figure, which, to her imagination, seemed to shuffle rather than walk along the trail. Charlie Bryant had no alternative. He came up. He felt a desperate desire to curse their evident happiness in each other's society. Why should these two know nothing but the joys of life, while he--he was forbidden even a shadow of the happiness for which he yearned? But Helen gave him little enough chance to further castigate himself with self-pity. She was full of her desire to impart her news, and her desire promptly set her tongue rattling out her story. "Oh, Charlie," she cried, "I've had such a shock. Say, did you ever have a cyclone strike you when--when there wasn't a cyclone within a hundred miles of you?" Then she laughed. "That surely don't sound right, does it? It's--it's kind of mixed metaphor. Anyway, you know what I mean. I had that to-day. Bill's nearly killed one of our boys--Pete Clancy. Say, I once saw a dog fight. It was a terrier, and one of those heavy, slow British bulldogs. Well, I guess when he starts the bully is greased lightning. Bill's that bully. That's all. Pete tried to kiss me. He was drunk. They're always drunk when they get gay like that. Bill guessed he wasn't going to succeed, and now I sort of fancy he's sitting back there by our barn trying to sort out his face. My, Bill nearly killed him!" But the girl's dancing-eyed enjoyment found no reflection in Bill's brother. In a moment Charlie's whole manner underwent a change, and his dark eyes stared incredulously up into Bill's face, which, surely enough, still bore the marks of his encounter. "You--thrashed Pete?" he inquired slowly, in the manner of a man painfully digesting unpleasant facts. But Bill was in no mood to accept any sort of chiding on the point. "I wish I'd--killed him," he retorted fiercely. Charlie's eyes turned slowly from the contemplation of his brother's war-scarred features. "I guess he deserved it--all right," he said thoughtfully. Helen protested indignantly. "Deserved it? My word, he deserved--anything," she cried. Then her indignation merged again into her usual laughter. "Say," she went on. "I--I don't believe you're a bit glad, a bit thankful to Bill. I--I don't believe you mind that--that I was insulted. Oh, but if you'd only seen it you'd have been proud of Big Brother Bill. He--he was just greased lightning. I don't think I'd be scared of anything with him around." But her praise was too much for the modest Bill. He flushed as he clumsily endeavored to change the subject. "Where are you going, Charlie?" he inquired. "We're going on over the river. Kate's there. You coming?" Just for a moment a look of hesitation crept into his brother's eyes. He glanced across the river as though he were yearning to accept the invitation. But, a moment later, his eyes came back to his brother with a look of almost cold decision. "I'm afraid I can't," he said. Then he added, "I've got something to see to--in the village." Bill made no attempt to question him further, and Helen had no desire to. She felt that she had somehow blundered, and her busy mind was speculating as to how. They parted. And as Charlie moved on he called back to Bill. "I'll be back soon. Will you be home?" "I can be. In an hour?" Charlie nodded and went on. The moment they were out of earshot Helen turned to her lover. "Say, Bill," she exclaimed. "What have I done wrong?" The laughter had gone out of her eyes and left them full of anxiety. Bill shrugged gloomily. "Nothing," he said. "It's me--again." Then he added, still more gloomily, "Pete's one of the whisky gang, and--I'm Charlie's brother. Say," he finished up with a ponderous sigh. "I've mussed things--surely." * * * * * "I'm sorry for that scrap, Bill." Charlie Bryant was leaning against a veranda post with his hands in his pockets, and his gaze, as usual, fixed on the far side of the valley. Bill completely filled a chair, where he basked in the evening sunlight. "So am I--now, Charlie." The big man's agreement brought the other's eyes to his battered face. "Why?" he demanded quickly. Bill looked up into the dark eyes above him, and his own were full of concern. "Why? Is there need to ask that?" A shadowy smile spread slowly over the other's face. "No, I don't guess _you_ need to ask why." There was just the slightest emphasis on the pronoun. "You've remembered he's one of the gang--my gang. You sort of feel there's danger ahead--in consequence. Yes, there is danger. That's why I'm sorry. But--somehow I wouldn't have had you act different--even though there's danger. I'm glad it was you, and not me, though. You could hammer him with your two big fists. I couldn't. I should have shot him--dead." Bill stared incredulously at the other's boyish face. His brother's tone had carried such cold conviction. "Charlie," he cried, "you get me beat every time. I wouldn't have guessed you felt that way." The other smiled bitterly. "No," he said. Then he shifted his position. "I'm afraid there's going to be trouble. I've thought a heap since Helen told me." "Trouble--through me?" said Bill, sharply. "Say, there's been nothing but blundering through me ever since I came here. I'd best pull up stakes and get out. I'm too big and foolish. I'm the worst blundering idiot out. I wish I'd shot him up. But," he added plaintively, "I hadn't got a gun. Say, I'm too foolishly civilized for this country. I sure best get back to the parlors of the East where I came from." Charlie shook his head, and his smile was affectionate. "Best stop around, Bill," he said. "You haven't blundered. You've acted as--honesty demanded. If there's trouble comes through it, it's no blame to you. There's no blame to you anyway. You're honest. Maybe I've cursed you some, but it's me who's wrong--always. Do you get me? It don't make any difference to my real feelings. You just stop around all you need, and don't you act different from what you are doing." Bill stirred his bulk uneasily. "But this trouble? Say, Charlie, boy," he cried, his big face flushing painfully, "it don't matter to me a curse what you are. You're my brother. See? I wouldn't do you a hurt intentionally. I'd--I'd chop my own fool head off first. Can't anything be done? Can't I do anything to fix things right?" The other had turned away. A grave anxiety was written all over his youthful face. "Maybe," he said. "How? Just tell me right now," cried Bill eagerly. "Why----" Charlie broke off. His pause was one of deep consideration. "It don't matter what it is, Charlie," cried Bill, suddenly stirred to a big pitch of enthusiasm. "Just count me on your side, and--and if you need to have Fyles shot up, why--I'm your man." Charlie shook his head. "Don't worry that way," he cried. "Just stop around. You needn't ask a whole heap of questions. Just stop around, and maybe you can bear a hand--some day. I shan't ask you to do any dirty work. But if there's anything an honest man may do--why, I'll ask you--sure." CHAPTER XXX THE COMMITTEE DECIDE The earlier days of summer were passing rapidly. And with their passage Kate Seton's variations of mood became remarkable. There were times when her excited cheerfulness astounded her sister, and there were times when her depression caused her the greatest anxiety. Kate was displaying a variableness and uncertainty to which Helen was quite unaccustomed, and it left the girl laboring under a great strain of worry. She strove very hard to, as she termed it, localize her sister's changes of mood, and in this she was not without a measure of success. Whenever the doings of the church committee were discussed Kate's mood dropped to zero, and sometimes below that point. It was obvious that the decision to demolish the old landmark in the service of the church was causing her an alarm and anxiety which would far better have fitted one of the old village wives, eaten up with superstition, than a woman of Kate's high-spirited courage. Then, too, the work of her little farm seemed to worry her. Her attention to it in these days became almost feverish. Whereas, until recently, all her available time was given to church affairs, now these were almost entirely neglected in favor of the farm. Kate was almost always to be found in company of her two hired men, working with a zest that ill suited the methods of her male helpers. On one occasion Helen ventured to remark upon it in her inconsequent fashion, a fashion often used to disguise her real feelings, her real interest. Kate had just returned from a long morning out on the wheat land. She was weary, and dusty, and thirsty. And she had just thirstily drained a huge glass of barley water. "For the Lord's sake, Kate!" Helen cried in pretended dismay. "When I see you drink like that I kind of feel I'm growing fins all over me." Kate smiled, but without lightness. "Get right out in this July sun and try to shame your hired men into doing a man's work, and see how you feel then," she retorted. "Fins?--why, you'd give right up walking, and grow a full-sized tail, and an uncomfortable crop of scales." Helen shook her head. "I wouldn't work that way. Say, you're always chasing the boys up. Are they slacking worse than usual? Are they on the 'buck'?" Kate shot a swift glance into the gray eyes fixed on her so shrewdly. "No," she said quite soberly. "Only--only work's good for folks, sometimes. The boys are all right. It just does me good to work. Besides, I like to know what Pete's doing." "You mean----?" "Oh, it doesn't matter what I mean," Kate retorted, with a sudden impatience. "Where's dinner?" This was something of her sister's mood more or less all the time, and Helen found it very trying. But she made every allowance for it, also the more readily as she watched the affairs of the church, and understood how surely they were upsetting to her sister through her belief in the old Indian legend of the fateful pine. But Kate's occasional outbursts of delirious excitement were far more difficult of understanding. Helen read them in the only way she understood. Her observation warned her that they generally followed talk of the doings of Inspector Fyles, or a distant view of him. As the days went by Kate seemed more and more wrapped up in the work of the police. Every little item of news of them she hungrily devoured. And frequently she went out on long solitary rides, which Helen concluded were for the purpose of interested observation of their doings. But all this display of interest was somewhat nullified by another curious phase in her sister. It quickly became obvious that she was endeavoring by every artifice to avoid coming into actual contact with Stanley Fyles. Somehow this did not seem to fit in with Helen's idea of love, and again she found herself at a loss. Thus poor Helen found herself passing many troubled hours. Things seemed to be going peculiarly awry, and, for the life of her, she could not follow their trend with any certainty of whither it was leading. Even Bill was worse than of no assistance to her. Whenever she poured out her long list of anxieties to him, he assumed a perfectly absurd air of caution and denial that left her laboring under the belief that he really was "one big fool," or else he knew something, and had the audacity to keep it from her. In Bill's case, however, the truth was he felt he had blundered so much already in his brother's interests that he was not prepared to take any more chances, even with Helen. Then came one memorable and painful day for Helen. It was a Saturday morning. She had just returned from a church committee meeting. Kate had deliberately absented herself from her post as honorary secretary ever since the decision to fell the old pine had been arrived at. It was her method of protest against the outrage. But Mrs. John Day, quite undisturbed, had appointed a fresh secretary, and Kate's defection had been allowed to pass as a matter of no great importance. The noon meal was on the table when Helen came in. Kate was at her little bureau writing. The moment her sister entered the room she closed the desk and locked it. Helen saw the action and almost listlessly remarked upon it. "It's all right, Kate," she said. "Bluebeard's chamber doesn't interest me--to-day." Kate started up at the other's depressed tone. She looked sharply into the gray eyes, in which there was no longer any sign of their usual laughter. "What's the matter, dear?" she asked, with affectionate concern. "Mrs. John?" Helen nodded. Then at once she shook her head. "Yes--no. Oh, I don't know. No, I don't think it's Mrs. John. It's--it's everybody." Kate had moved to the head of the table, and stood with her hands gripping the back of her chair. "Everybody?" she said, with a quiet look of understanding in her big eyes. "You mean--the tree?" Helen nodded. She was very near tears. But Kate rose to the occasion. She knew. She pointed at Helen's chair. "Sit down, dear. We'll have food," she said, quietly. "I'm as hungry as any coyote." Helen obeyed. She was feeling so miserable for her sister, that she had lost all inclination to eat. But Kate seemed to have entirely risen above any of the feelings she had so lately displayed. She laughed, and, with gentle insistence, forced the other to eat her dinner. Strangely enough her manner had become that which Helen seemed to have lost sight of for so long. All her actions, all her words, were full of confident assurance, and quiet command. Gradually, under this new influence, the anxiety began to die out of Helen's eyes, and the watchful Kate beheld the change with satisfaction. Then, when the girl had done full justice to the simple meal, she pushed her own plate aside, planted her elbows upon the table, and sat with her strong brown hands clasped. "Now tell me," she commanded gently. In a moment Helen's anxiety returned, and her lips trembled. The next she was telling her story--in a confused sort of rush. "Oh, I don't know," she cried. "It's--it's too bad. You see, Kate, I didn't sort of think about it, or trouble anything, until you let me know how you felt over that--that old story. It didn't seem to me that old tree mattered at all. It didn't seem to me it could hurt cutting it down, any more than any other. And now--now it just seems as if--as if the world'll come to an end when they cut it down. I believe I'm more frightened than you are." "Frightened?" Kate smiled. But the smile scarcely disguised her true feelings. "Yes, I'm scared--to death--now," Helen went on, "because they're going to cut it down. They've fixed the time and--day." "They've fixed the time--and day," repeated Kate dully. "When?" Her smile had completely gone now. Her dark eyes were fixed on her sister's face with a curious straining. "Tuesday morning at--daybreak." "Tuesday--daybreak? Go on. Tell me some more." "There's no more to tell, only--only there's to be a ceremony. The whole village is going to turn out and assist. Mrs. Day is going to make an ad-dress. She said if she'd known there was a legend and curse to that pine she's have had it down at the start of building the church. She'd have had it down 'in the name of religion, honesty and righteousness'--those were her words--'as a fitting tribute at the laying of the foundations of the new church.' Again, in her own words, she said, 'It's presence in the valley is a cloud obscuring the sun of our civilization, a stumbling block to the progress of righteousness.' And--and they all agreed that she was right--all of them." Kate was no longer looking at her sister. She was gazing out straight ahead of her. It is doubtful even if she had listened to the pronouncements of Mrs. John Day, with her self-satisfied dictatorship of the village social and religious affairs. She was thinking--thinking. And something almost like panic seemed suddenly to have taken hold of her. "Tuesday--at daybreak," she muttered. Then, in a moment, her eyes flashed, and she sprang from her chair. "Daybreak? Why, that--that's practically Monday night! Do you hear? Monday night!" Helen was on her feet in a moment. "I--I don't understand," she stammered. "Understand? No, of course you don't. Nobody understands but me," Kate cried fiercely. "I understand, and I tell you they're all mad. Hopelessly mad." She laughed wildly. "Disaster? Oh, blind, blind, fools. There'll be disaster, sure enough. The old Indian curse will be fulfilled. Oh, Helen, I could weep for the purblind skepticism of this wretched people, this consequential old fool, Mrs. Day. And I--I am the idiot who has brought it all about." CHAPTER XXXI ANTAGONISTS Fyles endured perhaps the most anxious time that had ever fallen to his lot, during the few days following his momentous interview with Kate. An infinitesimal beam of daylight had lit up the black horizon of his threatened future. It was a question, a painfully doubtful question, as to whether it would mature and develop into a glorious sunlight, or whether the threatening clouds would overwhelm it, and thrust it back into the obscurity whence it had sprung. He dared not attempt to answer the question himself. Everything hung upon that insecure thread of official amenability. Such was his own experience that he was beset by the gravest doubts. His only hope lay in the long record of exceptional work he possessed to his credit in the books of the police. This, and the story he had to tell them of future possibilities in the valley of Leaping Creek. Would Jason listen? Would he turn up the records, and count the excellence of Inspector Fyles's past work? Or would he, with that callous severity of police regulations, only regard the failures, and turn a deaf official ear to the promise of the future? Supersession was so simple in the force, it was the usual routine. Would the superintendent in charge interest himself sufficiently to get away from it? These were some of the doubts with which the police officer was assailed. These were some of the endless pros and cons he debated with his lieutenant, Sergeant McBain, when they sat together planning their next campaign, while awaiting Amberley's reply to both the report of failure, and plea for the future. But Fyles's anxieties were far deeper than McBain's, who was equally involved in the failure. He had far more at stake. For one thing he belonged to the commissioned ranks, and his fall, in conjunction with his greater and wider reputation, would be far more disastrous. For McBain, reduction in rank was of lesser magnitude. His rank could be regained. For Fyles there was no such redemption. Resignation from the force was his alternative to being dismissed, and from resignation there was no recovery of rank. At one time this would have been his paramount, almost sole anxiety. It would have meant the loss of all he had achieved in the past. Now, curiously enough, it took a second place in his thoughts. A greater factor than ambition had entered into his life, a factor to which he had promptly become enslaved. Far above all thoughts of ambition, of place, of power, of all sense of duty, the figure of a handsome dark-eyed woman rose before his mind's eye. Kate Seton had become his whole world, the idol of all his thoughts and ambitions, and longings, which left every other consideration lost in the remotest shadows far below. His earlier love for her had suddenly burst into a passionate flame that seemed to be devouring his very soul. And he had a chance of winning her. A chance. It seemed absurd--a mere chance. It was not his way in life to wait for chances. It was for him to set out on a purpose, and achieve or fail. Here--here, where his love was concerned, he was committing himself to accepting chances, the slightest chances, when the winning of Kate for his wife had become the essence of all his hopes and ambitions. Chance? Yes, it was all chance. The decision of Superintendent Jason. The leadership of this gang. His success in capturing the man, when the time came. In a moment his whole life seemed to have become a plaything to be tossed about at the whim of chance. So the days passed, swallowed up by feverish work and preparation. It was work that might well be all thrown away should his recall be insisted upon at Amberley, or, at best, might only pave the way to his successor's more fortunate endeavors. It was all very trying, very unsatisfactory, yet he dared not relax his efforts, with the knowledge which he now possessed, and the thought of Kate always before him. Several times, during those anxious days, he sought to salve his troubled feelings by stealing precious moments of delight in the presence of this woman he loved. But somehow Fate seemed to have assumed a further perverseness, and appeared bent on robbing him of even this slight satisfaction. At such times Kate was never to be found. Small as was that little world in the valley, it seemed to Fyles that she had a knack of vanishing from his sight as though she had been literally spirited away. Nor for some time could he bring himself to realize that she was deliberately avoiding him. She was never at home when he rode up to the house on the back of his faithful Peter. And, furthermore, at such times as he found Helen there, she never by any chance knew where her sister was. Even when he chanced to discover Kate in the distance, on his rare visits to the village, she was never to be found by the time he reached the spot at which he had seen her. She was as elusive as a will-o'-th'-wisp. But this could not go on forever, and, after one memorable visit to the postoffice, where he found a letter awaiting him from headquarters, Fyles determined to be denied no longer. His task was less easy than he supposed, and it was not until evening that he finally achieved his purpose. It was nearly eight o'clock in the evening. Up to that time his search had been utterly unavailing, and he found himself riding down the village trail at a loss, and in a fiercely impatient mood. He had just reached the point where the trail split in two. The one way traveling due west, and the other up to the new church, and on, beyond, to the Meeting House. The inspiration came to him as Peter, of his own accord, turned off up the hill in the direction of the church. Then he remembered that the day was Saturday, and on Saturday evening it was Kate's custom to put the Meeting House in order for the next day's service. In a moment he bustled his faithful horse, and, taking the grassy side of the trail for it, to muffle his approach, hurried on toward the quaint old building. To his utmost delight he realized that, for once, Fate had decided to be kind to him. There was a light in one of the windows, and he knew that nobody but Kate had access to the place at times other than the hours of service. In that moment of pleasant anticipation he was suddenly seized by an almost childish desire to take her unawares. The thought appealed to him strongly after his long and futile search, and, with this object, he steadied his horse's gait lest the sound of its plodding hoofs should betray his approach. Twenty yards from the building he drew up and dismounted. Once on foot he made his way across the intervening space and reached the window. A thin curtain, however, was drawn across it, and, though the light shone through, the interior remained hidden. So he pressed on toward the door. Here he paused. And as he did so the sound of something heavy falling reached him from within. Kate was evidently moving the heavy benches. He hesitated only for an instant, then he placed his hand cautiously on the latch and raised it. In spite of his precautions the heavy old iron rattled noisily, and again he hesitated. Then, with a thrust, he pushed the aged door open and passed within. He stood still, his eyes smiling. Kate was at the far end of the room on her knees. She was looking round at him with a curious, startled look in her eyes, which had somehow caught the reflection of the light from the oil bracket lamp on the floor beside her, and set them glowing a dull, golden copper. The long strip of coco-matting was rolled back from the floor, and she seemed to be in the act of resetting it in its place. Just for a moment they remained staring at each other. Then Kate turned back to her work, and finished rolling out the matting. "I'll be glad, mighty glad, when--when we discontinue service in this place," she said. "The dirt's just--fierce." Fyles moved up toward her. The matting was in its place. "Is it?" he said. Then, as he came to a halt, "Say, I've been chasing the village through half the day to find you, Kate. Then Peter led me here, and I remembered it was Saturday. I guessed I'd have a surprise on you, and I thought I'd succeeded. But you don't 'surprise' worth a cent. Say, I'm to remain here till--after Monday." Kate slowly rose to her feet. She was clad in a white shirtwaist and old tailored skirt. She made a perfect figure of robust health and vigorous purpose. Her eyes, too, were shining, and full of those subtle depths of fire which held the man enthralled. "Monday?" she said. Then in a curiously reflective way she repeated the word, "Monday." Fyles waited, and, in a moment, Kate's thought seemed to pass. She looked fearlessly up into the man's eyes, but there was no smile in response to his. "I'm--going away until after--Monday," she said. "Going away?" The man's disappointment was too evident to be mistaken. "Why?" he asked, after a moment's pause. Quite suddenly the woman flung her arms out in a gesture of helplessness, which somehow did not seem to fit her. "I can't--bear the strain of waiting here," she said, with an impatient shrug. "It's--it's on my nerves." The man began to smile again. "A wager like ours takes nerve to make, but a bigger nerve to carry through. Still, say, I can't see how running from it's going to help any. You'll still be thinking. Thoughts take a heap of getting clear of. Best stop around. It'll be exciting--some. I'm going to win out," he went on, with confidence, "and I guess it'll be a game worth watching, even if you--lose." Kate stooped and picked up the lamp. As she straightened up she sighed and shook her head. It seemed to the man that a grave trouble was in her handsome eyes. "It's not that," she cried, suddenly. "Lose my wager? I'm not going to lose, but even if I were--I would pay up like a sportsman. No, it's not that. It's these foolish folk here. It's these stupid creatures who're just ready to fly at the throat of Providence and defy all--all superstition. Oh, yes, I know," she hurried on, as the man raised his strongly marked brows in astonishment. "You'll maybe think me a fool, a silly, credulous fool. But I know--I feel it here." She placed her hands upon her bosom with a world of dramatic sincerity. "What--what's troubling you, Kate? I don't seem to get your meaning." It was the woman's turn to express surprise. "Why, you know what they're going to do here, practically on Monday night. You've heard? Why, the whole village is talking of it. It's the tree. The old pine. They're going to cut it down." Then she laughed mirthlessly. "They'll use it as a ridge pole for the new church. That wicked old, cursed pine." "Wicked--cursed? I don't understand," Fyles said perplexed. "I heard about the felling of it all right--but, the other I don't understand." Kate set the lamp down on one of the benches. "Listen. I'll tell you," she cried. "Then maybe you'll understand my feelings--since making my wager with you. Oh, the old story wouldn't matter so much to me, only--only for that wager. Listen." Then she hurriedly told him the outline of the curse upon the tree, and further added an analysis of the situation in conjunction with the matter which stood between themselves. At the finish she pointed her argument. "Need I say any more? Need I tell you that no logic or reason of any kind can put the conviction out of my mind that here, and now, we are to be faced with some dreadful tragedy as the price we must pay for the--the felling of that tree? I can't help it--I know calamity will befall us." Fyles shook his head. The woman's obvious convictions left him quite untouched. Had it been any other who spoke of it he would have derided the whole idea. But since it was Kate's distress, Kate's belief in the old legend, he refrained. "The only calamity that can affect you, Kate, is a calamity for young Bryant," he said seriously. "And yet you refuse to believe him concerned with the affairs of--Monday night. Surely you can have no misgivings on that score?" Kate shook her head. "Then what do you fear?" Fyles went on patiently. Quite slowly the woman raised her big eyes to her companion's face. For some moments they steadily looked into his. Then slowly into her gaze there crept an inscrutable expression that was not wholly without a shadow of a smile. "It is your reason against my--superstition," she said slowly. "On Monday night you will capture, or fail to capture, the gang you are after. Maybe it will be within an hour of the cutting down of that tree. Disaster will occur. Blood will flow. Death! Any, or all of these things. For whom? I cannot--will not--wait to see. I shall leave to-morrow morning after service--for Myrtle." * * * * * Kate locked the door of the Meeting House behind them. Then she held out her hand. Fyles took it and pressed it tenderly. "Why," he asked gently, almost humbly, "have you so deliberately avoided me lately?" The woman stroked Peter's brown head as it was pushed forward beside the man's shoulder. "Why?" she echoed. Then she smiled up into the man's face. "Because we are--antagonists--until after Monday. Good-bye." CHAPTER XXXII TREACHERY On his westward journey to camp Stanley Fyles did a good deal of thinking. Generally speaking he was of that practical turn which has no time for indulgence in the luxury of visions, and signs. Long experience had made him almost severe in his practice. But, as he rode along pondering upon the few pleasant moments spent in Kate's presence, his imagination slowly began to stir, and he found himself wondering; wondering, at first, at her credulity, and, presently, wondering if it were really possible that an old curse, uttered in the height of impotent human passion, could, by any occult process, possess a real effect. He definitely and promptly denied it. He told himself more. He believed that only women, highly emotional women, or creatures of weaker intellect, could possibly put faith in such things. Kate belonged to neither of these sections of her sex. Then how did this strange belief come in a woman so keenly sensible, so full of practical courage? Maybe it was the result of living so closely in touch with the soil. Maybe the narrow life of such a village as Rocky Springs had had its effect. However, her belief, so strong, so passionate, had left an uncomfortable effect upon him. It was absurd, of course, but somehow he wished he had not heard the story of the old pine. At least not till after Monday. Kate had said they were to fell that tree at dawn. It was certainly a curious coincidence that they should have selected, as Kate had said, practically Monday night. The night of the whisky-running. He smiled. However, the omen was surely in favor of his success. According to the legend the felling of the tree meant the end of crime in the valley, and the end of crime meant his----But blood would flow. Death. Whose blood? Whose--death? His smile died out. In these contingencies it meant a--hand to hand conflict. It meant----Who's death did she dread? Surely she was not thinking of the police? They always carried their lives in their hands. It was part of their profession. She denied Charlie Bryant's leadership, so----But in her own secret mind did she deny it? He wondered. So he rode on probing the problem. Later he smiled again. She was thinking of himself. The vanity of the thought amused him, and he found himself shaking his head. Not likely. It was not her regard for him. He was certain in his mind that her wager was made in the full conviction that he would not win, and, consequently, she would not have to marry him. She certainly was a strange creature, and--charming. However, she was concerned that somebody was to meet death, and she dreaded it. Furthermore, now he came to think of it, a similar belief, without the accompanying dread, was growing in him. He pulled himself together. The old superstition must not get hold of him. That would indeed be the height of folly. But once the seed had been sown in his imagination the roots quickly strove to possess themselves of all the fertility such a rich soil afforded. He could not shake clear of their tendrils. Maybe it was the effect of his sympathy and regard for the woman. Maybe he was discovering that he, too, deep down beneath the veneer in which his work armored him, was possessed of that strange superstition which seems to possess all human life. He hated the thought, and still more hated the feeling the thought inspired. He touched Peter's flank with his heels, and the unaccustomed spur sent the highly strung beast plunging into a headlong gallop. He was far beyond the village now, and more than half way to the camp, and presently he slowed down to that steady canter which eats up distance so rapidly without undue exertion for either man or beast. He strove to turn the course of his thoughts. He pondered upon the ungracious official letter of his superior, begrudging, but yielding to his persuasions. Things certainly were "coming his way." At last he was to be given his final chance, and it was something to obtain such clemency in a force which existed simply by reason of its unfailing success. He had much to be thankful for. McBain would have fresh heart put into him. It would be something like a taste of hell for McBain to find himself reduced to the rank of trooper again, after all his years of successful service. Yes, he was glad for McBain's---- Suddenly he checked the willing Peter, and drew him down to a walk. There was a horseman on the trail, some thirty or forty yards ahead. He had just caught sight of his dim outline against the starlit sky line. It was only for a moment. But it was sufficient for his trained eyes. He had detected the upper part of the man's body, and the shadowy outline of a wide-brimmed prairie hat. Now, as Peter moved at that shuffling, restful amble which all prairie horses acquire, he leaned down over the horn of his saddle and peered ahead. The man was sitting stock still upon his horse. Instinctively Fyles's hand went to his revolver, and remained there. When a man waits upon a western trail at night, it is as well that the traveler take no undue chances, particularly when he be one of the none too well loved red coats. The policeman kept on. He displayed no hesitation. Finally he drew his horse to a standstill with its nose almost touching the shoulder of the stranger's horse. Fyles was peering forward in the darkness, and his revolver was in that position which, all unseen, kept its muzzle directly leveled at the horseman's middle. "Kind of lonesome sitting around here at night," he said, with a keenly satirical inflection. "You can put up your darn gun, inspector," came the startling response. "Guess I had you covered from way back there, if I'd had a notion to shoot. Guess I ain't in the 'hold-up' bizness. But I've been waiting for you--anyway." The man's assurance had no effect upon the policeman. The latter pressed his horse up closer, and peered into the other's face. The face he beheld startled him, although he gave no outward sign. "Ah, Pete--Pete Clancy," he said quietly. "Guess my gun's always pretty handy. It won't hurt where it is, unless I want it to. It's liable to be more effective than your's would have been--way back there." The man seemed to resign himself. "Guess it don't pay shootin' up red coats," he said, with a rough laugh. "No." Then in a moment Fyles put a sharp question. "You are waiting for--me? Why?" Pete laughed, but his laugh was uneasy. "Because I'm sick to death being agin the law." "Ah. Been taking a hand building the church back there?" The sarcasm was unmistakable, but it passed the other by. "Ben takin' a hand in most things--back there." "Sure. Find some of 'em don't pay?" The man shook his head. "Guess they pay--mostly. 'Tain't that." "What then?" "Sort o' feel it's time to quit--bizness." "Oh. So you waited around for--me?" Fyles understood the type of man he was dealing with. The half-breed was a life study of his. In the great West he was always of more interest to the police than any white man. "We mostly wait around for the p'lice when we want to get out of business," the man replied with meaning. "Yes, some folks find it difficult getting out of business without the help of the police." "Sure," returned Pete easily. "They need to do it right. They need to make things square." "For themselves?" "Jest so--for 'emselves." The half-breed leaned over his horse's shoulder and spat. Then he ostentatiously returned the gun he was holding to its holster. "Maybe I'll need him no more," he said, with an obviously insincere sigh. Fyles was quite undeceived. "Surely--if you're going out of business. What's your--business?" The man laughed. "I used to be runnin' whisky." Then he chuckled softly. "Y'see, that chu'ch has got a hold on me. I'm feelin' that pious I can't bear the thought of runnin' whisky--an' I can't bear the thought of--other folk runnin' it. No, I'm quittin' that bizness. I'm jest goin' in fer straight buyin' and sellin'--inside the law." Fyles was watching the man closely in the dim night light. He knew exactly what the man was there for now. Furthermore he knew precisely how to deal with him. He was weighing in his mind the extent to which he could trust him. His detestation of the race increased, while yet every nerve was alert to miss no chance. "Straight buying and selling is good when you've found a buyer, and got--something to sell," he said. The man shrugged. "I sure got something to sell, an' I guess you ought to be the buyer." Fyles nodded. "I mostly buy--what I need. What's your line?" Again the man laughed. His uneasiness had passed. He felt they understood each other. "Mostly hot air," he said carelessly. Fyles hated the man's contemplated treachery. However, his duty was plain. "Well, I might buy hot air--if it's right, and the price is right." The man turned with an alert look and peered into the police officer's face. "They're both right," he said sharply. Then his manner changed abruptly to one of hot intensity. "Here let's quit talkin' fool stuff. I can tell you what you're needin' to know. And I'll tell you, if you'll pass me over, and let me quit clear without a question. I need to get across the border--an' I don't want to see the inside of no penitentiary, nor come up before any court. I want to get right away quick. See? I can tell you just how a big cargo's comin' into Rocky Springs. I know, because I'm one of 'em bringing it in. See? And when I've told you I've still got to bring it in, or those who're running it with me would guess things, and get busy after me, or--or change their plans. See? Give us your word of a free run for the border, an' I'll put you wise. A free run clear, on your honor, in the name of the Government." "Why are you doing this?" demanded Fyles sharply. "That's up to me." "Why are you doing this?" Fyles insisted. "I need to know before I make any deal." "Do you?" Pete thought for some moments, and Fyles waited. At last the man looked up, and his evil face was full of the venom of his words. "I want to give 'em away," he cried with bitter hatred. "I want to see the boss pass on to the penitentiary. See? I want to see the boss rot there for five good, dandy years." "Who's the boss?" demanded Fyles sharply. The man's eyes grinned cunningly. "Why, the feller you're going to get Monday night, with fifty gallons of good rye." Fyles sat up. "Monday night?" Then he went on. "Say, why do you want to put him away?" "Ah." "Well?" Again the half-breed hesitated. Then with a sudden exclamation of impatience his desire for revenge urged him on. "Tcha! What's the use?" he cried fiercely. "Say, have you ever had hell smashed out of your features by a lousy dude? No. Well, I owe a bit--a hell of a bit--to some one, and I guess I don't owe nothing in this world else but money. Debts o' this sort I generally pay when I get the chance. You're goin' to give me that chance." Fyles had satisfied himself. The man sickened him. Now he wanted to be done with him. "What's your story? I'll pay you the price," he cried, with utter contempt. But the man wanted added assurance. "Sure?" he cried eagerly. "You're goin' to get me with the rest? Savee? You're goin' to get me, an' when you get me, you're goin' to give me twenty-four hours' free run for the border?" "If I get you you can go free--for twenty-four hours." The man's face lit with a devilish grin of cruelty. "Good. You'll shake on it?" He held out his hand. Fyles shook his hand. "Guess it's not necessary. My word goes. You've got to take my word, as I've got to take yours. Come on. I've no more time to waste." Pete withdrew his hand. He understood. His venom against the white race was only the further increased. "Say," he growled, his eyes lighting with added ferocity. "That cargo is to be run down the river on Monday night about midnight. There'll be a big rack of hay come in by trail--the river trail--and most of the gang'll be with it. If you locate it they calculate you'll get busy unloading to find the liquor. Meanwhile the cargo'll slip through on the river, in a small boat. Savee? Guess there'll be jest one feller with that boat, an'--he'll be the feller that's--that's had you red coats skinned a mile all these months an' years." Fyles gathered up his reins. "Just one word," he said coldly. "I hate a traitor worse than poison, but I'm paid to get these people. So my word goes, if your story's true. If it isn't--well, take my advice and get out quick, or--you won't have time." Before the half-breed had time to reply Peter threw up his head, and set off at the touch of his master's spurs. CHAPTER XXXIII PLAYING THE GAME For some moments the two men faced each other in a sort of grim silence. It was already daylight. Sunday morning was breaking under a cloudless sky. At last McBain rose from his seat at the deal table which served him for a desk. He reached out and turned out the lamp. Its light was no longer needed. Then he stretched himself and yawned. "Had enough of it?" inquired Fyles, catching the infection and stifling a yawn. "Just what you might notice, sir." A shadowy smile played about the Scot's hard mouth, but it was gone in a moment. Fyles nodded. "So have I," he agreed. "But we've broke the back of things. And--you'll be kept busy all day to--I was going to say to-morrow. I mean to-day." McBain sat down again. "Yes, sir. A couple of hours' sleep'll do me, though. We daren't spare ourselves. It's sort of life and death to us." Fyles shot a keen look into the other's face. "I shouldn't be surprised if it were literally so." "You think, sir----?" McBain's voice was sharply questioning. But Fyles only laughed. There was no mirth in his expression, and McBain understood. "Never mind," the officer went on, with a careless shrug. "Best turn in. We'll know all about it when the time comes." He rose from his seat, and McBain, with a brief "Good night, sir," disappeared into the inner room. But Fyles did not follow his example for a few moments. He went to the door and flung it open. Then he stood for awhile gazing out at the wonderful morning daylight, and drinking in the pure prairie air. While he stood thus his thoughts were busy, and a half smile was in his eyes. He was thinking of the irony of the fact that Kate Seton's superstition had completely taken possession of him. * * * * * Two hours after sunrise McBain and his superior were at work again. They had snatched their brief sleep, but it was sufficient for these hardy riders of the plains. The camp was full of activity. Each man of the patrol had to be interviewed, and given minute instructions, also instructions for the arising of unforeseen circumstances, where individual initiative would require to be displayed. Then there were rations to be served out, and, finally, messengers must be sent to the supernumerary camp higher up the valley. But there was no undue bustle or haste. It was simply activity. At ten o'clock Stanley Fyles left the camp. McBain would continue the work, which, by this time, had returned to conditions of ordinary routine. Peter ambled gently down the valley. His rider seemed in no hurry. There was no need for hurry. The village was five miles away, and he had no desire to reach it until just before eleven. So he could take his leisure, sparing both himself and his horse for the great effort of the morrow. Just for one brief moment he contemplated a divergence from his course. It was at the moment when he left the cattle track which led to his camp and joined the old Indian trail to the village. He reached the branching cattle track on the other side of it which would have led him to the mysterious corral, which was possessed of so much interest and suspicion. But he remembered that a visit thither would violate the conditions of his wager with Kate. The place belonged to Charlie Bryant. So he pushed on. As he rode he thought of Kate Seton's determination to absent herself during the critical events about to happen in the village. On the whole he was pleased with her decision. Somehow he felt he understood her feelings. The grip of her superstition had left him more understanding of her desire to get away. Then, too, he would rather she were away when his own big effort came. Should he fail again, which now he believed impossible, he would rather she were not there to witness that failure. He knew, only too well, from bitter experience, how easy it was for the most complete plans to go awry when made against the genius of crime. No, he did not want her to witness his failure. Nor would he care to flaunt the success he anticipated, and consequently the error she had fallen into, before her distressed eyes. He felt very tender toward her. She was so loyal, so courageous in her beliefs, such a great little sportswoman. No, he must spare her all he could when he had won that wager. He would not demand his pound of flesh. He would release her from her debt, and just appeal to her through his love. And, somehow, when he had caught this man, Bryant, and so proved how utterly unworthy he was of her regard, he felt that possibly he would not have to appeal in vain. He reached the old Meeting House as the earliest of the village folk were gathering for service. He did not ride up, but left Peter, much to that creature's disquiet, tied in the bush some fifty yards from the place. His interest became at once absorbed. He chatted pleasantly for a few moments with Mr. Blundell, the traveling Methodist minister, and greeted those of the villagers whom he had come to know personally. But all the while his eyes and ears were fully alert for the things concerning his purpose. He noted carefully all those who were present, but the absentees were his greatest interest. Not one of those who constituted the gang of smugglers was present, and particularly he noted Charlie Bryant's absence. Among the last to arrive were Big Brother Bill and Helen, and Fyles smiled as he beheld the careful toilet of the big city man. Helen, as usual, was clad in her best tailored suit, and looked particularly bright and smart when he greeted her. "Miss Kate not at--service?" he inquired, as they paused at the door of the building. Helen shook her head, and her face fell. "No. She's preparing for her journey to Myrtle," said the girl. "How she can do with that noisy old creature Mrs. Radley I--I--well, she gets me beat every time. But Kate's just as obstinate as a fifty-year-old mule. She's crazy to get away from here, and--and I left her about to dope the wheels of the wretched old wagon she's going to drive this afternoon. Oh, dear! But come along, Bill, they're beginning service." A moment later the police officer was left alone outside the building. It was not his way to take long arriving at a decision. He walked briskly away, and vanished amid the bush. A minute later he was once more in the saddle, heading for the bridge in front of Kate's house. Kate was still at her wagon when Fyles arrived. At the sound of his approach she straightened herself up with a smiling, half-embarrassed welcome shining in her eyes. "Don't you come too near," she exclaimed. "I'm all over axle dope. It truly is the messiest job ever. But what are you to do when the boys clear out, and--and play you such a scurvy trick? I've been relying on Nick to drive me out and bring the wagon back. Now I'll have to drive myself, and keep the wagon there, unless I can hire some one to bring it back, so Charlie can haul his last hay to-morrow." The policeman ran his eyes over the wagon. At the mention of Charlie Bryant's name, his manner seemed to freeze up. He recognized the vehicle at once. "It's Bryant's wagon?" he said shortly. Kate nodded. "Sure. He always lends it me when I want one. I haven't one of my own." "I see." Fyles's manner became more easy. Then he went on. "Where are your boys? Where's Pete?" Kate's eyes widened. "Gracious goodness only knows," she said, in sheer exasperation. "I only hope Nick turns up to drive me. I surely will have to get rid of them both. I've had enough of Pete since he got drunk and insulted Helen. Still, he got his med'cine from Bill all right. And he got the rough side of my tongue, too. Yes, I shall certainly get rid of both. Charlie's always urging me to." She wiped her hands on a cloth. "There, thank goodness I've finished that messy job." She released the jack under the axle, and the wheel dropped to the ground. "Now I can load up my grips," she exclaimed. Fyles looked up from the brown study into which he had fallen. "This Bill--this Big Brother Bill hammered master Pete to a--pulp?" he inquired, with a smile of interest. "He certainly did," laughed Kate. "And when he'd done with him I'm afraid my tongue completed the--good work. That's why this has happened." She indicated the wagon with a humorous look of dismay. Fyles laughed. Then he sobered almost at once. "I came here for two reasons," he said curiously. "I came to--well--because I couldn't stay away, for one thing. You see, I'm not nearly so much of a police officer as I am a mere human creature. So I came to see you before you went away. You see, so many things may happen on--Monday. The other reason was to tell you I've had a wonderful slice of--hateful good luck." "Hateful good luck?" Kate raised a pair of wondering eyes to his face. "Yes, hateful." The man's emphasis left no sort of doubt as to his feelings. "Of course," he went on, "it's ridiculous that sort of attitude in a policeman, but I can admire a loyal crook. Yes, I could have a friendly feeling for him. A traitor turns me sick in the stomach. One of the gang has turned traitor. He's told me that detail you couldn't give me. I've got their complete plan of campaign." The wonder in Kate's eyes had become one steady look of inquiry. "Their complete plan of campaign?" she echoed. Then in a moment a great excitement seemed to rise up in her. It found expression in the rapidity of her words. "Then you know that--Charlie is innocent? You know now how wrong you were? You know that I have been right all the way through, and that you have been wrong? Tell me! Tell me!" she cried. Stanley Fyles shook his head. "I'm sorry. The man had the grace to refuse me the leader's identity. I only got their plan--but it's more than enough." Kate breathed a sigh as of regret. "That's too bad," she cried. "If he'd only told you that, it might--it might have cleared up everything. We should have had no more of this wretched suspicion of an innocent man. It might have altered your whole plan of campaign. As it is----" "It leaves me more than ever convinced I am on a red-hot scent which must now inevitably lead me to success." For a few moments Kate looked into the man's face as though waiting for him to continue. Then, at last, she smiled, and the man thought he had never beheld so alluring a picture of feminine persuasion. "Am I to--know any more?" she pleaded. The appeal became irresistible. "There can be no harm in telling you," he said. "You gave me the first help. It is to you I shall largely owe my success. Yes, you may as well know, and I know I can rely on your discretion. You were able to tell me of the coming of the liquor, but you could not tell me exactly how it was coming. The man could tell me that--and did. It is coming in down the river in a small boat. One man will bring it--the man who runs the gang. While this is being done a load of hay, accompanied by the whole gang, will come into the town as a blind. It is obvious to me they will come in on the run, hoping to draw us. Then, when caught, they rely on our search of the wagon to delay us--while the boat slips through. It's pretty smart, and," he added ruefully, "would probably have been successful--had I not been warned. Now it is different. Our first attention will be that boat." Kate's eyes were alight with the warmest interest. She became further excited. "It's smart," she cried enthusiastically. "They're--they're a clever set of rascals." Then, for a moment, she thought. "Of course, you must get that boat. What a sell for them when you let the wagon go free. Say, it's--it's the greatest fun ever." Fyles smilingly agreed. This woman's delight in the upsetting of the "runners" plans was very pleasant to him. There could be no doubt as to her sympathies being with him. If only she weren't concerned for Bryant he could have enjoyed the situation to the full. Suddenly she looked up into his face with just a shade of anxiety. "But this--informer," she said earnestly. "They'll--kill him." Fyles laughed. "He'll be over the border before they're wise, and they'll be held safe--anyway." Kate agreed. "I'd forgotten that," she said thoughtfully. Then she gave a shiver of disgust. "I--I loathe an informer." "Everybody with any sense of honor--must," agreed Fyles. "Informer? I'd sooner shake hands with a murderer. And yet we have to deal and bargain with them--in our work." "I was just wondering," said Kate, after another pause, "who he could be. I--I'm not going to ask his name. But--do I know him?" The policeman laughingly shook his head. "I must play the game, even--with an informer. Say, there's an old saw in our force, 'No names, no pack-drill.' It fits the case now. When the feller's skipped the border, maybe you'll know who he is by his absence from the village." Suddenly Kate turned to her wagon. She gazed at it for some moments. Then she turned about, and, with a pathetic smile, gave vent to her feelings. "Oh, dear," she cried. "I--I wish it was after dinner. I should be away then. I feel as if I never--never wanted to see this valley again--ever. It all seems wrong. It all seems like a nightmare now. I feel as if at any moment the ground might open up, and--and swallow me right up. I--I feel like a dizzy creature standing at the edge of a precipice. I--I feel as if I must fall, as if I wanted to fall. I shall be so glad to get away." "But you'll come back," the man cried urgently. "It's--only till after Monday." Then he steadied himself, and smiled whimsically. "Remember, we have our wager. Remember, in the end you either have to--laugh at me, or--marry me. It's a big stake for us both. For me especially. Your mocking laughter would be hard to bear in conjunction with losing you. Oh, Kate, we entered on this in a spirit of antagonism, but--but I sort of think it'll break my heart to--lose. You see, if I lose, I lose you. You, I suppose, will feel glad--if you win. It's hard." His eyes grew dark with the contemplation of his possible failure. "If I could only hope it would be otherwise. If I could only feel that you cared, in however slight a degree. It would not seem so bad. If I win I have only won you. I have not won your love. The whole thing is absurd, utterly ridiculous, and mad. I want your love, not--not--just you." Kate made no answer, and the man went on. "Do you know, Kate, as the days go on in this place, as the moment of crisis approaches, I am growing less and less of a policeman. I'm even beginning to repent of my wager with you, and but for the chance of winning you, I should be glad to abandon it. Love has been a hidden chapter in the book of life to me up till now, and now, reading it, it quite overwhelms me. Do you know I've always despised people who've put true love before all other considerations? I thought them weak imbeciles, and quite unfit. Now I am realizing how much I had to learn all the while, and have since learned." He paused, and, after a moment's thought, went on again. "Do you know a curious thought, desire, has grown up in me since our compact. I know it's utterly--utterly mad, but I can't help it. Believing now, as I do, that Bryant is no more to you than you say, I feel that when I get him--I feel I cannot, dare not keep him. I feel a crazy longing to let him go free. Do you know what that means to me? It means giving up all I have struggled for all these years. Do you know why I want to do it? Because I believe it would make you happy." Kate's eyes were turned from him. They were full of a great burning joy and love. And the love was all for this man, so recklessly desirous of her happiness. She shook her head without turning to him. "You must not," she said, in deep thrilling tones. "You must not forego the duty you owe yourself. If you capture Charlie he must pay the price. No thought of me must influence you. And I--I am ready to pay the forfeit. I made the wager with my eyes wide open--wide, wide." Fyles stirred uneasily. He meant every word he had said, and somehow he felt he was still beyond the barrier, still outside the citadel he was striving to reduce. "Yes, I know," he said almost bitterly. "It is just a wager--a wager between us. It is a wager whereby we can force our convictions upon each other." Kate nodded, and the warm light of her eyes had changed to a look of anxiety. "There is a whole day and more before the--settlement, a day and night which may be fraught with a world of disaster. Let us leave it at that--for the present." Then, with an effort, she banished the seriousness from her manner. "But I am delaying. I must pack my grip, and harness my team. You see, I must leave directly after dinner." Fyles accepted his dismissal. He turned to his horse and prepared to mount. Kate followed his every movement with a forlorn little smile. She would have given anything if he could have stayed. But----. "Good luck," she cried, in a low tone. "Good luck? Do you know what that means?" Fyles turned abruptly. "It means my winning the wager, Kate." "Does it?" Kate smiled tenderly across at him. "Well, good luck anyway." CHAPTER XXXIV AN ENCOUNTER Service was still proceeding at the Meeting House. The valley was quiet. Scarcely a sound broke the perfect peace of the Sabbath morning. The sun blazed down, a blistering fragrant heat, and the laden atmosphere of the valley suggested only the rusticity, the simple innocence of a pastoral world. At Kate Seton's homestead a profound quiet reigned. There was the occasional rattle of a collar chain to be heard proceeding from the barn; the clucking of a foolish hen, fussing over a well-discovered worm of plump proportions, sounded musically upon the air, and in perfect harmony with the radiant, ripening sunlight. A stupid mongrel pup stretched itself luxuriantly upon the ground in the shade of the barn, and drowsily watched the busy hens, with one eye half open. Another, evidently the brother of the former, was more actively inclined. He was snuffing at the splashes of axle "dope" on the ground beneath the wagon. He was young enough to eat, and appreciate, anything he could get his baby teeth into. There was scarcely a sign of life about the place otherwise. The whole valley was enjoying that perfect, almost holy, calm, to be found pretty well all the world over, yielded by man to the hours of worship. Inside the house there was greater activity. Kate Seton was in her homely parlor. She was at her desk. That Bluebeard's chamber, which roused so much curiosity in her sister, was open. The drawers were unlocked, and Kate was sorting out papers, and collecting the loose paper money she kept there. She was very busy and profoundly occupied. But none of her movements were hurried, or suggested anything but the simple preparations of one about to leave home. Her work did not take her long. All the loose money was collected into a pocketbook, bearing her initials in silver on its outer cover. This she bestowed in the bosom of her dress. Then, very deliberately, she tore up a lot of letters and loose papers, thrust them in the cookstove, and watched them burn in the fragment of fire smouldering there. Next she passed across to the wall where her loaded revolvers were hanging, and took one of them from its nail. Then, with an air of perfect calm and assurance, she passed out of the room to her bedroom, where a grip lay open on the simple white coverlet of her bed. Her packing was proceeded with leisurely. Yet the precision of her movements and the certainty with which she understood her needs made the process rapid. Everything was completed. The grip was full to overflowing. She stood looking at it speculatively. She was assuring herself that nothing was forgotten for her few days' sojourn away from home. In the midst of her contemplation she abruptly raised her eyes to the window and inclined her head in an attitude of listening. A sound had reached her, a sound which had nothing to do with the two puppies, or the hens, outside. It was a sound that brought a swift, alert expression into her handsome eyes, the look of one who belongs to a world where the unusual is generally looked upon with suspicion. A moment later she was peering out of the window into the radiant sunlight. The sound was plainer now, and she had recognized it. It was the sound of a horse galloping, and approaching her home. Still the doubtful questioning was in her eyes. She left the window and passed out of the room. The next moment she was standing in the doorway at the back of the house, and in front of her stood the wagon that was to bear her to Myrtle. The slumberous pup was on its feet standing alertly defiant. Its brother was already yapping truculently in its baby fashion. The old hen had abandoned its search for more delectable provender, and had fled incontinently. A horseman dashed up to the house. He had ignored the front door and made straight for the barn. He drew up with a jerk, and sat looking at the wagon standing there. Then, with an excited, impatient ejaculation, he flung out of the saddle. The next moment he became aware of Kate's presence in the doorway. With eyes alight and half-angry, half-impatient, Charlie Bryant turned upon her. "Why have you taken this wagon, Kate?" he demanded, going to the point of his concern without preamble. The woman drew a sharp breath. It was as though she realized that a vital moment had arrived, a moment when she must grip the situation, and use all her power of domination over the questioner. "You've placed it at my disposal at all times," she said, smiling into his excited eyes. The man rushed on. "Yes, yes, I know; but why have you taken it now? You say you are going to Myrtle. You don't need it. You could ride to Myrtle--in the ordinary way. You are welcome to the wagon at all times. To anything I have. But why are you taking it now? I only found out it had gone this morning. I--" he averted his gaze--"I only happened to go over to the corral this morning--and I found it--gone." Quick as a shot Kate's answer was formulated and fired at him. "Why did you go to the corral--this morning?" The man's reply was slow in coming. His cheeks flushed, and it looked as though he were seeking excuse. "I had to go there. I--needed my wagon for to-morrow's work." Kate smiled. She was feeling more confident. "For hauling your hay? Won't it wait? You see, I can't carry a grip on the saddle." Great beads of sweat were standing on Charlie's youthful face. He raised one nervous hand and brushed it across his forehead. He cleared his throat. "Say, why--why must you go now, Kate? What is this absurd talk I have heard? You going away because--because of that tree business? Kate, Kate, such an idea isn't worthy of you. You going? You flying from superstition? No, no, it's not worthy of you. Kate----" he paused. Then, with a gulp: "You can't have the wagon. I refuse to--lend it you. I simply must have it." Kate was leaning against the door casing. She made no move. Her smile deepened, that was all. She understood all that lay behind the man's desperate manner, and--she had no intention of yielding. "If you must have it, you must," she said, in her deep voice, so like his own. "You had better send for it, but--" her look suddenly hardened--"don't ever speak to me again. That is all I have to say." The man's determination wavered before the woman's coldness. He looked into her dark eyes desperately. They were cold and hard. They had never looked at him like that before. "D'you mean that, Kate?" he demanded desperately. "Do you mean that if I take that wagon you have--done with me forever? Do you?" "I meant precisely what I said." Kate suddenly bestirred herself. The coldness in her eyes turned to anger, a swift, hot anger, to which the man was unused, and he shrank before it. "If you are sane you will leave that wagon to me. You _do not_ want it for your haying to-morrow. Anyway, your haying excuse is far too thin for me. I know why you want it. If you take it I wash my hands of you entirely. You must choose now between these things, once and for all. I am in no trifling mood. You must choose now--at once. And your choice must stand for all time." Kate watched the effect of every word she spoke, and she knew, long before she finished speaking, she was to have her way. It was always so. This man had no power to refuse her anything. It was only in her absence, when his weakness overwhelmed him, that her influence lost power over him. All the excitement had died out of his eyes. Anger gave way to despair, decision to weakness and yielding. And through it all a great despair and hopelessness sounded in his voice. "Oh, Kate," he cried, "I can't believe this is you--I can't--I can't. You are cruel--crueller than ever I would have believed. You know why I want to keep the wagon just now. I implore you not to do this thing. I will do most anything else you ask me, but--leave that wagon." Kate shook her head in cold decision. "My mind is quite made up," she said. "There is nothing more to be said. You must choose here--and now." The man hesitated. Just for a moment a gleam of anger flashed into his eyes, but it died almost at its birth, and he made a gesture of something like despair. "You must do as you see fit," he said, yielding. Then, in a moment, his weakness was further displayed in an impotent obstinacy. "You must do as you see fit, and I shall do the same. My mind, too, is made up. I shall carry out the plans I have already made, and if harm comes--blame yourself." He turned away abruptly. He refused even to look in her direction again. He sprang into the saddle with remarkable agility and galloped off. * * * * * Charlie Bryant raced back to his house. For the moment a sort of frenzy was upon him. He flung out of the saddle, and left his horse at the veranda. He rushed into his sitting room, and, in a sort of impotent excitement and anger, he paced the floor. He went through the little house without object or reason. At the kitchen door he stood staring out, lost in a troubled sea of racing thought. Presently he returned to the sitting room. He was about to pass out on to the veranda, but abruptly paused. With a gesture of impatient defiance he returned to his bedroom and drew a black bottle of rye whisky from beneath the mattress of his bed. Without waiting to procure a glass he withdrew the cork, and, thrusting the neck of the bottle into his mouth, took a long "pull" at the contents. After a moment he removed it, and gasped with the scorch of the powerful liquor. Then he took another long drink. Finally he replaced the cork and returned the bottle to its hiding place. A few moments later he was on the veranda again looking out over the village with brooding eyes. For a long while he stood thus, his stimulated thought rushing madly through his brain. Then, later, he became aware of movement down there in the direction of the Meeting House. He realized that service was over. In a few moments Bill would return for the mid-day meal which was all unprepared. With a short, hard laugh he left the veranda and mounted his patient horse. Then, at another headlong gallop, he raced down toward the village. * * * * * It was sundown the following day. A horse stood grazing in the midst of a small grass patch surrounded by a thick bush of spruce, and maple, and blue gums. A velvet twilight was gathering over all, and the sky above was melting to the softer hues of evening. The horse hobbled about in that eager equine fashion when in the midst of a generous feed of sweet grass. Its saddle was slightly awry upon its back, and its forelegs were through the bridle reins, which trailed upon the ground. The creature seemed more than content with its lot, and the saddle disturbed it not at all. Once or twice it looked up from its occupation. Then it went on grazing. Then, quite suddenly, it raised its head with a start, and the movement caused it to raise a foreleg caught in the trailing reins. Something was moving in the bushes. It stood thus for some moments. Its gaze was apprehensively fixed upon the recumbent figure of a man just within the bush. The figure had rolled over, and a pair of arms were raised above its head in the act of stretching. Presently the figure sat up and stared stupidly about it. Charlie Bryant had awakened with a parching thirst, and a head racked and bursting with pain. It was some minutes before his faculties took in the meaning of his surroundings. Some minutes before they took in anything but the certainty of his parched throat and racking head. He stared around him stupidly. Then, with a dazed sort of movement, he rubbed his bloodshot eyes with the knuckles of his clenched fists. After that he scrambled to his feet and stood swaying upon his aching limbs. Then he moved uncertainly out into the open. He felt stiff, and sore, and his head was aching maddeningly. Now he beheld his horse, and the animal's wistful eyes were steadily fixed upon him. Every moment now his mind was growing clearer. He was striving to recollect. Striving to remember what had happened. He remembered going to the saloon. Yes, he had stayed there all day. That he was certain of, for he could recall the lamps being lit--and yet now it was daylight. For a moment his dazed condition left him puzzled. How did this come about? Then, all in a flash he understood. This must be Monday. He must have left the saloon--drunk, blind drunk. He must have ridden--where? Ah, yes, now it was all plain. He must have ridden till he fell off his horse, and then slept where he fell. Monday--Monday. He seemed to remember something about Monday. What was it--ah! In a moment the cobwebs of his debauch began to fall from him, and he became alert. He felt ill--desperately ill--but the swift action of his brain left him no time to dwell upon it. He moved across to his horse, and set the saddle straight upon its back. Then he disentangled the reins from about its feet, and threw them over its head. The next moment he was in the saddle and riding away. It was some moments before he could make up his mind as to his exact whereabouts. He knew he was in the valley, but----. At that instant he struck a cattle track and promptly followed it. It must lead somewhere, and, sooner or later, he knew that he would definitely locate his position. He rode on down the track, pondering upon all that must have occurred to him. He must have slept for eighteen hours at least. He knew full well he was not likely to have left O'Brien's until the place was closed, and now it was sundown--the next day. Sundown on Monday. He quickened his pace. His nerves were shaking, and--he wondered in what direction the river lay. He was consumed with a fierce thirst. Suddenly his horse threw up its head and pricked its ears. Charlie sat up, startled, and peered out ahead. The next moment he had reduced his horse's gait to a walk. He knew where he was, and--he heard a sound like a distant neigh. In a moment he was out of the saddle. He tied his horse just inside the bush and then proceeded on foot. The old corral lay ahead of him. That corral where he usually kept his wagon, and where the old hut stood. He moved rapidly forward, and, as he neared the clearing, he left the cattle track and took to the bush. That tell-tale sound, his horse's pricked ears, had aroused his suspicions. A few moments later he reached the fringe of the clearing. Keeping himself well hidden, he pressed to the very edge, and peered out from amid the bush. As he did so he breathed a sigh of thankfulness. Two horses were tied to the corral fence, and the door of the little old shack was wide open. One of the horses he recognized as belonging to Inspector Fyles--the other didn't matter. So he waited breathlessly, while one hand went to his coat pocket, an unconscious movement, and rested on the revolver it found there. He had not long to wait. The sound of voices reached him presently. Then they grew louder. And presently he beheld two men appear from within the hut. Inspector Fyles came first, closely followed by a half-breed whom he recognized at once. It was Pete--Pete Clancy. In a moment the waiting man understood. A sort of blind fury mounted to his brain and set his head swimming. Now, too, his right hand was withdrawn from his gun pocket, and the weapon was gripped tightly, and his finger was around the trigger. But the men were talking, and the watcher strained to catch their words. He felt he must know. He must know what treachery was afoot, and how far it affected---- "The game's a pretty bright one," Pete was saying; and the waiting man ground his teeth as he realized the swagger in the man's tones, and the grin of triumph on his still scarred features. "Maybe it ain't a new sort of play, but I guess it ain't none the worse for that. Y'see, that wagon is kept here right along. It's allers my work runnin' it back here, and fetchin' it along when it's needed. That's how I know about things here," he added, with a jerk of the head in the direction of the hut. "It's far enough from the village for folks not to know when it's here or not. Then the feller runnin' this layout keeps other things here. Y'see, when a job's on he don't fancy folks gettin' to know him. So he keeps an outfit o' stuff back in the hut there as 'ud hide up a Dago ice-cream seller. Maybe he has other uses for that shack. I ain't wise. But that hidin' hole I located dead easy. Guess he figgers it's a dead secret--but it ain't." Then Fyles's voice, sharply imperious, carried to the listening man. "Who is he?" he demanded, turning suddenly upon his companion as they reached the horses. The grin left the half-breed's face, and Charlie held his breath. The half-breed halted. An ironical light possessed his discolored eyes. "Why, the feller you're getting to-night--in the boat." Fyles eyed his man sternly. "That's the second time you've answered me in that way. I'm not to be played with. Who is this man?" A curious truculence grew in the half-breed's face. "I've told you all I'm going to tell you. Guess you'll be askin' me to lay hands on him for you, next. I've earned my freedom, and when you get these folks I'll be square with the game. You can't bluff me on this game. No, sir. I got the law clear. You can't touch me for a thing. It's up to you to get your man. I showed you the way." Charlie breathed again, though his fury at the miserable traitor was no less. Fyles swung himself into the saddle. He bent down, and his voice was harshly commanding. "Maybe I can't touch you--now," he cried. "But see you play the game to-night. You get your free run, only if I get the man I'm after. The rest of the gang don't count a lot, nor the liquor. It's the boss of the gang I need. If you've lied to me you'll get short shrift." "You'll get him all right." The half-breed grinned insolently up into the officer's face. Then Fyles rode away, and, from the moment his horse began to move until it vanished down the cattle track, the muzzle of Charlie Bryant's gun was covering him. His impulse was homicidal. To bring this man down might be the best means of nullifying the effect of Pete's treachery. Then, in time, he remembered that there were others to replace him, and, in all probability, they knew already the story Pete had told their chief. There was one thing certain, however, that liquor must not be run to-night. Urgent as was the moment Charlie had not yet finished here. The moment Stanley Fyles had disappeared he turned back to the half-breed. He saw Pete take his horse and lead it on to the grass some distance from the corral fence, and his gun held him covered. Then he watched him go back to the hut and carefully close the door. After that he watched him disturb his own footmarks and those of the policeman in the neighborhood of the doorway. Charlie moved. The bushes parted, and he made his way into the open. The half-breed's back was turned. Then, quite suddenly, a deep, harsh challenge rang out, breaking up entirely the sylvan peace. "You damned traitor!" With a leap the half-breed swung about. As he did so the gleaming barrel of his gun flashed with a sharp report. A bullet whistled through Charlie Bryant's hat, another tore its way through the sleeve of his jacket. But before a third could find a vital spot in his body his own gun spat out certain death. The half-breed flung up his hands, and, with a sharp oath, his knees crumpled up under him, and he fell in a heap on the ground. His face livid with passion, Charlie hurried across the intervening space. For one moment he stood gazing down upon the fallen man. Then he aimed a kick of spurning at the dead man's body and moved away. It was some minutes before he left the precincts of the old corral with its evil history. He went into the hut and opened the secret cupboard. It was quite empty, and he closed it again. Then he passed out, and removed the saddle and bridle from the half-breed's horse, and turned it loose. Then, after one last look of hatred and loathing at the dead man, he moved away and vanished among the trees. CHAPTER XXXV ON MONDAY NIGHT Big Brother Bill, after an evening of considerable worry, had retired to his little lean-to bedroom with its low, camp bedstead. It was useless sitting up any longer attempting one of those big worrying "thinks" which, usually, he was rather proud of achieving. On this occasion thinking led him nowhither. His worries had come swiftly and significantly. In the first place, on Sunday afternoon he had been seriously concerned about Helen. It was not until Kate's going that either he or Helen had realized the girl's lonely position in the house on the river bank. It came home to them both as they returned thither at about sundown, to find that neither of the hired men had shown up again, and the work, even to the "chores" of the homestead, was at a standstill. He really became angry in his anxiety. Angry with Kate, angry with the men. However, his displeasure was not likely to help matters, so he and Helen turned to and fed the few livestock, made them snug for the night, and then proceeded to consider Helen's position. After some debate it was decided to appeal to Mrs. John Day. This was promptly done, and the leading citizeness, after a closer cross-examination, consented to take the girl under her brusque wing, and lodged her in her own rather resplendent house. This was comparatively satisfactory, and Bill breathed his relief. But hard upon this came the more alarming realization that Charlie did not return home on Sunday night. Not only that, but nothing was heard of him the whole of Monday. All the alarmed brother was able to discover was the fact that Charlie had left the saloon at the time O'Brien closed it, about midnight on Sunday, in a hopelessly drunken condition. So, what with assisting Helen with the work of her homestead, and searching for his defaulting brother, Bill's day was an anxious one. Then, at nightfall, a further concern added fresh trouble to his thought. Kid Blaney had defected as well, and, in consequence, the work of Charlie's little ranch had been completely at a standstill the whole day. In the end, quite wearied out with his unusual exertions, Bill abandoned all further attempt to get a grip on the situation and went to bed. He knew he must be up early in the morning, at daylight, in fact, for he had promised Helen to be at the ceremony of the felling of the pine tree, for which all preparations had been duly made under the watchful and triumphant eye of Mrs. John Day. Sleep, however, was long in coming. His brain was too busy, a sign he was secretly pleased at. He felt that during the last two days he had more than proved his ability in emergency. So, lying awake, waiting patiently for sleep to come, he rather felt like a general in action, perfectly assured of his own capacity to meet every situation successfully. It was nearly midnight when he finally dropped off into a light and rather disturbed slumber. How long he had slept, or even if he really had slept at all, he was never quite sure, for, quite suddenly, he was aroused, and wide awake, by the sound of his own name being called in the darkness. "Bill! Bill!" At the second pronouncement of his name he was sitting up with his bare feet on the bare floor, and his great pajamaed body foolishly alert. "Who in----" he began. But in a moment Charlie's voice cut him short. "You there? Thank God! Where's the lamp? Quick, light it." To Bill's credit it must be admitted he offered no further attempt at a blasphemous protest, but leaned over toward the Windsor chair on which the lamp stood, and fumbled for the matches. The next moment he had struck a light, and the lamp was lit. He stood up and looked across the room. Charlie's slight figure was just inside the doorway. His face was ghastly in the yellow lamplight. His clothes were in a filthy condition, and, altogether, in Bill's own words, he looked like a priceless antique of some forgotten race. However, the hunted look in the man's eyes smote his brother's generous heart, and a swift, anxious inquiry sprang to his lips. "What's--what's up, Charlie?" he cried, gathering his clothes together, and beginning to dress himself. Charlie's eyes glowed with a reflection of the lamplight. "The game's up, Bill," he cried hoarsely. "My God, it's been given away. Pete Clancy, the feller you hammered, has turned informer. I--I shot him dead. Say, the gang's out to-night. They're coming in with a cargo of liquor. Fyles is wise to their play, and knows just how it's coming in. They'll be trapped to a man." "You--shot Pete--dead?" In the overwhelming rush of his brother's information, the death of the informer at his, Charlie's, hands seemed alone to penetrate Bill's, as yet, none too alert faculties. "Yes, yes," cried the other impatiently. "I'd have shot him, or--or anybody else for such treachery, but--but--it's the other that matters. I've got to get out and stop that cargo. It's midnight now, and--God! If the police get----" Bill's brain was working more rapidly, and so were his hands. He was almost dressed now. "But you, Charlie," he cried, all his concern for his brother uppermost. "They'll get you. And--and they'll hang you for killing Pete--sure." Suddenly a peal of hysterical laughter, which ended in a furious curse, rang through the room. "God Almighty!" Charlie cried fiercely, "don't stand there yapping about me. Hang me? What in hell do I care what they do to me? I haven't come here about myself. Nothing that concerns me matters. Here, it's midnight. I've time to reach 'em and give 'em the word. See, that's why I'm here. I don't know what's happened by now, or what may happen. You offered to help. Will you help me now? Bill, I've got to get there, and warn 'em. The police will try and stop us. If there are two of us, one may get through--will you----?" Bill crushed his hat on his head. His eyes, big and blue, were gleaming with the light of battle. "Give me a gun, and come on," he cried. "I don't understand it all, but that don't matter. I'll think it out later. You're up against it, and that's good enough for me. Somebody's going to have to look bright if he lays hands on you, if it's Fyles, or McBain, or the devil knows who. Come on." Picking up the lamp, Bill took the lead. Here, in action, he had no doubts or difficulties, Charlie was in trouble; Charlie was threatened; Charlie, his foolish, but well-loved brother. Five minutes later two horsemen, regardless of rousing the inhabitants, regardless of who might see and recognize them, galloped headlong through the heart of the village. CHAPTER XXXVI STILL MONDAY NIGHT The little river wound its silvery way through the heart of the valley. The broken summer clouds strove to shut out the brilliant light of the moon, and signally failed. The swift-moving currents of air kept them stirring, and breaking. So the tattered breaks through which peeped the radiant lamp of night, illuminated each fringe of mist with the sheen of burnished steel. In spite of the high wind above, the night was still in the heart of the valley. So still. High up above, the racing wind kept up the constant movement, but not a breath below disturbed one single sun-scorched leaf. It was warm. The night air was heavy with the fragrance of ripening vegetation, and the busy droning sounds of stirring insect life chorused joyously and seductively with the murmuring of speeding waters. The very stillness thrilled. It was the hush of portent, the hush of watchfulness, the hush of a threatening tension. In the wide heart of the valley the waters of the river laughed, and sang, and frollicked on their way, while under cover of the deep night-shadows lurking figures waited, with nerves set, and weapons of destruction ready to fulfill their deadly mission. Strife loomed heavy amid the reigning peace, the ruthless, savage strife which seems ever to center the purpose of all sentient life. So the moments passed. Minutes grew. With every passing minute the threat weighed heavier and heavier, until it seemed, at last, that only the smallest spark was needed to fire the train. The racing clouds melted. They gathered again. Again and again the changes came and went. It was like one great, prolonged conflict wherein the darkening veil strove to hide the criminal secrets upon the earth below from the searching gaze. For awhile the moon held sway. The river lit, a perfect mirror. Only the shadowed banks remained. Round the bend came a trifling object, small, uncertain in its outline. A sigh of relief went up from many lips. The tension was relaxed. Caught in the dazzling light the object shot across the water to the sheltering bank. Then the clouds obscured the moonlight, and eyes strove vainly to penetrate the shadow. The moments passed. Again the moon shone out. Again was the object caught in the revealing light. Now it was closer, and as it raced once more for the wood-lined bank the watching eyes made out a deep-laden canoe, low in the water, with a solitary figure plying a skillful paddle. It crept on under the bank. With a wonderful dexterity the man at the paddle steered his course beneath the green of drooping foliage, while now and then his narrow, evil, humorous eyes surveyed the heavy cargo at his feet with a smile of satisfaction. But the shadows could not claim him for long. The full stream lay beyond in the middle of the river. His cargo was heavy, and the sluggish water under the bank made his progress slow and arduous. Again he sought the stream, and the lesser effort, and the little craft raced on. Then, of a sudden, the peace of the night was broken. A chorus of night cries awoke to the sharp crack of a carbine. A voice shouted a swift command, and the canoe was turned head on to the hither bank. In a moment a ring of metal was thrust into the face of the man with the paddle, and the hard voice of Sergeant McBain bade him throw up his hands. The boatman glanced swiftly about him. His evil eyes lit with a smile of appreciation as he dropped his paddle and thrust his hands high above his head. There were ten or twelve police troopers upon the bank--and he was only one. "Haul him out o' that, boys, and yank the boat up out o' water. We're needin' his cargo bad." The man was dragged unceremoniously from the boat, and stood before the hard-faced sergeant. "Name?" he snapped. "Holy Dick," chuckled the prisoner. The sergeant peered into his face. At the moment the clouds had obscured the moon. Was this the man they were waiting for? He made out the gray hair, the smiling, evil eyes. He knew and recognized the features. The officer struggled with himself for a moment. Then his authority returned. "You're under arrest for--running this cargo of liquor," he said sharply. Holy Dick's smile broadened. "But----" "If you're going to make a statement I'm here to listen, but--it'll be used against you." Sergeant McBain rapped out his formula without regard for the letter of it. Then, while one of the troopers placed handcuffs upon the prisoner's wrists, he turned to those at the canoe. "How many kegs?" he demanded. For a moment there was no reply. Holy Dick sniggered. McBain glared furiously, and his impatience rose. "How many?" he cried again, more sharply. One of the troopers approached him and spoke in a low voice. "None, sergeant," he said, vainly striving to avoid the sharp ears of their prisoner. "The boat's loaded heavy with loose rocks. It's----" A cunning laugh interrupted him. Holy Dick was holding out his manacled arms. "Guess you'd best grab these off, Sergeant; maybe you'll need 'em for someone else." But the policeman's reply became lost. A rattle of firearms far off on the other side of the river left it unspoken. Something was happening away over there, something they had not calculated upon. The rest of the patrol, with Fyles, was divided between the other bank and the more distant trail. He turned to his men. "Loose him and get into the saddle sharp!" he cried. "They've fooled us. By God, they've fooled us--again!" * * * * * The uncertain moonlight revealed to Stanley Fyles a movement on the distant rise of ground where the trail first mounted, and, beyond, finally disappeared. His night glasses made out a rapidly oncoming vehicle, accompanied by a small band of horsemen. The sight rejoiced him. Things were working out well. The man Pete had not lied. McBain held the river. No boat could pass him. He would take these men as part of the gang, working in conjunction with the boat. All was well, and his spirits rose. A sharp order was passed back to his men, ambushed in the bluff where he had taken up his position. The thing would be simple as daylight. There would be no bloodshed. A few shots fired to hold the gang up. Then the arrest. He waited. Then he backed into the ambush out of sight. The wagon came on. Through his leafy screen he watched for the details of the vehicle, the entire convoy. It would not be Bryant's wagon; that he knew would be elsewhere. It would probably be some hired conveyance which did not belong to the village. Nearer drew the little convoy, nearer and nearer. It was less than one hundred yards away. In the uncertain moonlight its pace seemed leisurely, and he could hear the voices of the men escorting it. He wanted it nearer. He wanted it under the very muzzles of his men's carbines. The rattle of wheels, the plod of horses' hoofs were almost abreast. A few seconds more, then---- Half-a-dozen shots rang out, the bullets whistling across in front of the wagon, and above the horses' heads. The teamster reined up, throwing his horses upon their haunches. Then, like a log, he fell headlong from his driving seat. Fyles turned with a bitter curse upon his lips for the criminal carelessness of his men. But he was given no time to vent it. A cry went up from the wagon's escort, and a hail of bullets rained upon the ambush. In a second the troopers charged the wagon, while two of their horses, with empty saddles, raced from the cover, and vanished down the trail. Then the fight waged furiously. It lasted but a few moments. These savage men about the wagon had been goaded beyond the power of their restraint, at no time great, by the fall of their comrade. A wild fury at the wanton killing by the troopers had fired the train of their passions. Retaliation had been certain--certain as death itself. But, after that first furious assault, these untamed prairie souls realized the inevitable result of their action. They broke and fled, scattering across country, vanishing like shadows in the night. The next moment, acting on a sharp command, the police were in red-hot pursuit, like hounds breaking from leash. Only Fyles and three men stayed behind with the fallen teamster and his one other dead comrade. But at the moment of the flight and pursuit, the sound of racing wheels some distance away caught the officer's ears. In a moment he was at the wagon side. His men were close upon his heels. The wagon was empty. It was the blind he had anticipated, but--that sound of speeding wheels. He shouted to his men and set off across country in the direction. Nothing must be left to chance. There was no doubt about the peculiar rattle which sounded so plainly. It was a buckboard being driven at a racing speed. Why? * * * * * As his horse ploughed through the low scrub his men followed hard upon his heels. Farther on the country was open, and a wide stretch of prairie grass spread out without cover of any sort. It was over this the buckboard was racing. He strove to estimate its distance away, the start it had of him, by the sound. It could not be much over a mile. A light buckboard and team could travel very fast under the hands of a skilful teamster. It would take a distance of five miles to overhaul it. The direction--yes, it was the direction of the village. The buckboard might get there ahead of them. Fyles rammed both spurs into the flanks of the faithful Peter, and, as he did so, he saw a party of horsemen converging on him from the left. They drew on, and, in a moment, he recognized McBain and his men. He called out to the Scot as they came together. "You get the boat?" McBain shouted his reply. "Sure, but--there was nothing doing. It was loaded down with rocks." Just for one brief instant a bitter imprecation hovered on the officer's lips. Then, in a wave of inspiration, he shouted his conviction. "By God, then we're on the right trail now. It's the buckboard ahead. We must get it. That's the cargo, sure as fate. Come on!" * * * * * A light buckboard was moving leisurely over the open prairie. It was just an ordinary, spidery buckboard drawn by an unusually fine team of horses, and driven by a slightish man clad in a dark jacket and cord riding-breeches, with a wide prairie hat drawn firmly down upon his dark head, its brim deeply shading his boyish, good-looking face. Running beside his team, tied to the neck yoke of the near-side driver, was a saddle horse. It was a fine beast, with racehorse quarters, and a shoulder laid back for speed. The buckboard was well loaded. Nor was its load disguised. It consisted of a number of the small wooden kegs adopted for the purpose of transporting contraband liquor. But though the vehicle moved over the rough grass in such a leisurely fashion, the man's eyes were alert and watchful. His ears, too, were sharply set, and lost no sound, as his eyes lost no sight, in the distant prospect of the country through which he was traveling. His gait was by no means the result of any reposeful sense. It was the well-calculated result of caution. There was caution in his whole poise. In the quick turn of the head at any predominating sound. In the sharp glance of his dark eyes at any of the more fantastic shadows cast by the searching moonlight. Then, too, a tight hand was upon the reins, and there was an alert searching for those badger and gopher holes so perilous for horses in the uncertain light of the moon. He was traveling in a parallel, a mile to the south of the river trail, and, far ahead, to the right, he could see the bush which marked the winding course of the river. Now he was listening to the faint rumble of a wagon moving along the trail, and, with which, though so far away, he was carefully keeping pace. This was his whole object--to keep pace, almost step for step, with the rumbling movement of the distant wagon. At his present gait his wheels gave out practically no sound. They gently, almost silently, crushed their way over the tufted grass, and the sound of his horses' hoofs suggested a muffling. So he made his way, stealthily, secretly. His was the brain which had planned, and this vital work of convoying his smuggled liquor could be entrusted to no other hand. The work he demanded of others was simple; it was the background to his central purpose. He had no desire to risk his helpers. His must be the risk, as, too, his must be the chief profit. With all his caution he yet had time to think of those other things which frequently brought a smile to his dark eyes. Why not? There was a wild exhilaration in this work. He reveled in the thought of his risk. He reveled in laying plans which could beat all the best brains among the law officers. The excitement of the chances was as the breath of life to him, and the cargo once safely secreted he could feel that he had not lived in vain. He knew full well that the penitentiary doors were wide open waiting to greet him, but he meant them to remain open, and spend their whole time in a yearning which he vowed should never be fulfilled. Five years. He smiled. Five years--wearing a striped---- What was that? A shot! One single shot! Far away, there, by the river. Ah, yes. That big bluff. Holy Dick was probably busy. Holy Dick in his boat. He smiled. But all unconsciously he eased his hand upon the lines, and his horses quickened their gait. It was just the slight, nervous quickening as the critical moment of his effort drew near. The buckboard was less silent. The wheels began to rattle over the hummocky surface of the prairie grass. He listened even more acutely for the rumble of the wagon on the trail. He must definitely assure himself he was still abreast of it. That was all important. He could plainly hear it. Was he abreast? For the moment he was not quite sure. Therefore, he further permitted his horses to quicken their pace. It was better to---- He sat up, and a look of alarm peered out from under the brim of his hat. The sound of a volley being fired over there on the trail suddenly disconcerted him. This was something he had not reckoned on. This was something he had wished to---- Hark! Again! An answering volley! The first was the heavier. The latter was the familiar note of revolvers. A definite alarm took hold of him. What was the meaning of it? An attack? Were the men on the trail resisting the police? He had warned them. He----. Listen! The shouting! Now he could distinctly hear the sound of galloping horses. He leaned forward and grabbed the whip from its socket on the dashboard, and brought it smartly down upon his horses' backs. In an instant they leaped into a gallop, and he was racing over the rough grass at a perilous pace. The fools. The mad, idiotic fools. Resisting the police. An armed attack on the police. If they killed any of them----. Great God, was there ever such a pack of fools and madmen? It was no longer simple contraband. It was no longer playing up a ridiculous law. It was---- Again he brought his whip down upon his horses. He must get through now. He must get to the cache with the liquor, and trust to the luck of the reckless to get away. Further concealment was out of the question. Hark, what was that? Horsemen coming his way. Yes--horsemen. There could be no doubt of it. The racing hoof-beats were unmistakable. Down came the whip again, and the great team, with the saddle horse beside them, raced with bellies low to the ground. Now he had no thought but for getting away. His mind ran over the possibilities. If only he could get clear with the liquor there might yet be a chance of his comrades' and his own escape. He had no knowledge of what had happened to the others, except that there was shooting and pursuit. The only comfort to be drawn was from the certainty in his mind that the first shooting he had heard was the heavy firing of police carbines. Hark! Yes, there was no doubt of the pursuit. Furthermore, the pursuit was hard behind him. Why? The police must have heard the buckboard. He flogged his horses to a greater effort. They were the speediest team in the country, and he had only three miles to go. They---- "Hold up, you beast," he cried, his deep voice hoarse with excitement. One of the horses lunged forward, stumbling in a badger hole. The buckboard jolted terrifically. The driver was nearly thrown from his seat. Under his firm hands, however, the beast managed to recover itself. Then, as though he saw the gates of the penitentiary closing upon him, a feeling of unutterable horror shivered through the man's body and settled upon his heart. The horse was dead lame. But there was no time now for feeling, no time for regrets. The pursuers had found his trail, and were hard upon his heels. The cargo must go. Everything must go. Personal safety was the only thing to be considered. From the confidence of victory now he had fallen to the zero of certain failure. He pulled his sweating team up and sprang to the ground. He ran up to the saddle horse, and, casting the neck-rope loose from the neck yoke, looped it over the horn of the saddle. The next moment he was in the saddle and racing over the grassland in the direction of the village. CHAPTER XXXVII THE NIGHT TRAIL The trail declined over a long, gradual slope. At the bottom of it was a broad, almost dried-out slough. A wooden culvert spanned the reed-grown watercourse. Then the trail made a sharpish ascent beyond, and lost itself behind a distant bush, beyond which again stretched out a broad expanse of grass. Two horsemen were speeding down the longer slope. Their horses were fresh and full of speed. There was no speech passing between them. Eyes and ears were alert, and their grimly set faces gave warning of the anxious thought teeming through their brains. The indications of the night were nothing to them. The trail might ring with the beat of their horses' hoofs, or only reply with the soft thud of a deep, sandy surface. They were not out to consider either their horses or themselves. Each knew that his journey was one of desperate emergency, and one of them, at least, cared nothing what might be his sacrifice, even if it were life itself. The horses came down the hill with a headlong rush. Loose reins told of the men's feelings, and the creatures, themselves, as though imbued with something of their riders' spirits, abandoned themselves to the race with equal recklessness. Halfway down the hill the foremost of the two, the smaller and slighter, abruptly flung a word across his shoulder to his companion behind. "Someone coming," he said, in a deep, hoarse voice. The second man beat his horse's flanks with his heels, and drew abreast. "I can't see," he replied, shading his eyes from the light of the moon, which, at that moment, shone out from behind a cloud. The other pointed beyond the culvert. "There. Riding like hell. Gee! Look--it's--trouble." Bill Bryant now discerned the hazy outline of a moving figure. It seemed to him that whoever, or whatever it was, it was aware of their approach and desirous of avoiding them. The moving object had suddenly left the trail. It had taken to the grass, and was heading straight for the miry slough. "The fool. The madman," muttered Charlie. "Does he know what he's making for?" "Is it--a stream, Charlie?" Bill's question seemed to irritate his brother. "Stream?--Damn it, it's mire. His horse'll throw himself. Who----?" He leaned forward in the saddle searching the distance for the identity of the oncoming horseman. His horse shot forward, and Bill's was hard put to it to keep pace. "Can't we shout a warning?" cried Bill, caught in his brother's anxious excitement. "Warning be damned," snapped Charlie over his shoulder. "This is no time to be shouting around. We don't----Hallo! He's realized where he's heading. He's----. Oh, the hopeless, seven sorts of damned idiot. Look! Look at that! There he goes. Poor devil, what a smash. Hurry up!" The two men made a further call upon their horses, urged by the sight of the horseman beyond the slough. He had crashed headlong into the half-dry watercourse at the very edge of the culvert. The man's disaster was quite plain, even at that distance. He had evidently been unaware of his danger in leaving the trail for a cross-country run to avoid those he saw approaching him. As he came down to the slough, all too late he had realized whither he was heading. Then, instead of keeping on, and taking his chances of getting through the mire, he had made a frantic effort to swing his horse aside and regain the culvert. His reckless speed had been his undoing. His impetus had been so great that the poor beast under him had only the more surely plunged to disaster, from the very magnitude of its effort to avoid it. Charlie was the first to reach the culvert. In a moment he was out of the saddle. The stranger's floundering horse struggled, and finally scrambled to its feet. The rider was close beside it, but lay quite still where he had fallen. To Charlie's critical eye there was little doubt as to what had happened. The adjacency of the edge of the culvert warned him of what had befallen. The rider must have struck it as he fell. As Bill dismounted he pointed at the stranger's horse. "Grab it," cried Charlie. The next moment was kneeling beside the fallen man. Then, in a moment, the wondering Bill, looking on, beheld a sight he would never forget. Charlie bent down over the silent figure. He reached out and placed an arm under the man's body and turned him over. The next instant a cry, half-stifled in his throat, a cry as of some dumb creature mortally wounded, a cry full of hopeless, dreadful pain rose from the kneeling man, and its agony smote the sympathetic brother as though with a mortal blow. Then came words, a rush of words, imploring, agonized. "Kate! Kate! Oh, Kate, why did you do it? Why? Oh, God, she's dead! Kate! Kate! Speak to me. For God's sake speak to me. You're not dead. No, no. Not dead. It can't be." The man's hand caressed the soft pale cheek under it. He had thrust back the prairie hat which still retained its position, pressed low upon the head, and a mass of dark, luxuriant hair fell away from its place, coiled tightly about the small head. At that moment the horrified voice of Bill broke in. "Charlie! Charlie! I can hear horses galloping in the distance!" he cried, alarmed, without actually realizing why. And some sort of desperate instinct made him thrust his hand into his revolver pocket. For an instant only Charlie looked up at him in a dazed, only half-understanding. Then his eyes lit with a stirring alarm as he turned a listening ear to windward. The next moment his arms were flung about the body of the disguised woman at his feet, and, with a great effort, he lifted her and struggled to his feet. Bill stared in stupid wonderment when he beheld the figure of Kate Seton clad in man's clothing, but he continued to hold on to the horses, and, with a hand on his revolver, awaited his brother's commands. At that moment Kate opened her eyes and gazed into the dark face above her. In a moment the ardent eyes of Charlie smiled down at her. Then the injured woman's lips opened, and, as they formulated her halting words, his smile gave place to something like panic. She was still in a fainting condition, but power was vouchsafed her to impart a story which drove him to something like a frenzy of activity. "It's the police," she gasped. "It's--it's shooting. They're--behind. They're right after me--O-oh!" She had fainted again with her last word, and the dead weight in the man's arms became almost unsupportable. But now there was no longer any uncertainty. Kate was alive. The police were behind. At all costs--the woman he loved must be saved. Charlie looked up at Bill, and his voice became harshly commanding. "Quick! On your horse, man," he cried, almost fiercely. "That's it," as Bill flung himself into the saddle without question. "Here, now take her. You're strong. Get her across your saddle in front of you. There, that's it--lift. So. Gently. Get her right across your lap. That's it. Now take my horse and lead it. So." Bill obeyed like a well-disciplined child, and with equal enthusiasm. He leaned down from the saddle and lifted the fainting woman out of his brother's arms. She was like a babe in his powerful arms. He laid her across his knee. Then, as his brother passed the reins of his own horse up to him, he took them and slung them over his supporting arm. The command died out of Charlie's tones, and his whole attitude became an irresistible appeal. "Now, Bill," he cried, urgently. "Down there, along the bank of the slough." He pointed away southwards. "Along there, into that bush. Get into hiding and remain till the coast is clear. Then get her back to her home. Leave the police to me, and--and remember she's all I care for--in the world." Bill waited no further word. Once he understood what was required of him he could do it--he would do it--with all his might. He moved off with all the confident air of his simple, purposeful nature. Charlie watched him go. He saw him vanish amid the shadows of the bush. Then he turned to Kate's horse and sprang into the saddle. For a moment he sat there watching and listening. But his purpose was not quite clear. It had not been clear to Bill, who had asked no question, feeling such to be superfluous at the moment. But his own purpose was clear enough to Charlie's devoted mind. There must be no chance of Kate's discovery by the police. Whatever had happened before, there must be no chance of harm to her now. His mind was quite clear. His thought flowed swiftly and keenly. The distant sound of galloping horses was growing. The summit of the rising ground over which they must come was not more than two hundred yards behind him. He waited. The clatter of hoofs was growing louder with each passing second. The police must certainly be near the top of the rise now. Bill was well away. He was well in the bush by this time. Hark! Yes. There they were. The moon was hidden just now, but even so Charlie could see the bobbing figures at the hilltop. Suddenly he rammed his heels into his horse's flanks and dashed off up the slope which he had so recently descended. As he went he drew his revolver and fired two shots in swift succession in the direction of the horsemen approaching. Well enough he knew, as he raced on toward the village, that the police were beyond his range, but his purpose was that there should be no doubt in their minds that he--he was their quarry--that he was the man they had already been pursuing so far. * * * * * Ten men made up the tally of the pursuers riding with Inspector Fyles. McBain was not among them. He had remained with the abandoned buckboard while the rest of the police were scouring the neighborhood for the fugitives from the first encounter. As Fyles came over the rise, and beheld the culvert below him, and heard the two defiant shots hurled in his direction, a thrill of satisfaction swept through him. The man was less than three hundred yards ahead of him with a long hill to climb, and something over a mile to go before the village, and the possibility of safety, was reached. There was no match in the country for Peter when it came to a long, uphill chase. He told himself the man hadn't a dog's chance with Peter hard on his heels. "We've got him, boys," he cried to his men, in his moment of exuberance. "He ought to have been half a mile on by the start he got. It's the poor devil of a horse playing out. He's beat--beat to death. Now, boys, hard on my heels for a spurt." Peter leaped ahead under the sharp reminder of the spur, and, in a few moments, the clatter of iron-shod hoofs left the wooden culvert behind it, and the race up the hill began. The moon now blazed out, as though at last it had definitely decided to throw its weight in against the fugitive. The summer clouds were lifting and vanishing with that wonderful rapidity with which, once the brilliant moon gains sway, she seems to sweep all obstruction from her chilly path. The steely light poured down upon the slim back of the fugitive, and left both horse and rider sharply outlined. The distance diminished under the terrific spurt of the police horses, and a confident look began to dawn in the eyes of their riders. They were gaining so rapidly that it seemed hardly necessary to press their bronchos so hard. The top of the hill was still a quarter of a mile away. The fugitive's evidently wearying beast could never make that last final incline. The man would be forced to turn and defend himself or yield for very helplessness. The whole thing was too easy. It was absurdly easy. Nor could there be any sort of a "scrap." They were ten to one. It was disappointing. These riders of the plains reveled in a genuine fight. But Fyles's contentment suddenly received a disconcerting shock. Peter was stretching out like a greyhound. The pace at which they pursued the hunted hare was terrific. But now, although they were, if anything, traveling faster, they seemed to be no longer gaining. The three hundred yards intervening had, in that first rush, been reduced to nearly one hundred. But, somehow, to his disquiet Fyles now realized that there was no further encroachment. He shook Peter up and left his companions behind. But it quickly became evident he could make no further impression. If anything, his quarry was gaining. An unpleasant conviction began to make itself felt in the mind of the policeman. The man had been foxing. He had been saving his horse up for that hill, calculating to a fraction the distance he had yet to go. He called to his men to race for it. They came up on his heels. The man nearest to him was a corporal. "We're not done with him yet, corporal," he said grimly. "I wanted to get him without trouble. Guess we'll have to bail him up. Once over the top of that hill, he runs into the bush on the outskirts of the village. We daren't risk it." The corporal's eyes lit. "Shall we open out and give him a round, sir?" Fyles nodded. "Let 'em fire low. Bring his horse down." The corporal turned back to his men, and gave the necessary order. "Open out!" he cried. "It's just over a hundred yards. Fire low, and get his horse. We'll be on him before he can pick himself up." "There's fifty dollars between you if you can bring him down and keep his skin whole," added Fyles. Still keeping their pace, the men spread out from the trail, withdrawing the carbines from their leather buckets as they rode. Then came the ominous clicking of the breeches as cartridges were thrust home. Fyles, with Corporal Mooney, kept to the trail. A moment passed. Then the first carbine spat out its vicious pellet. Fyles, watching, fancied that the fugitive had begun to flog his horse. Now, in swift succession, the other carbines added their chorus. There was no check in the pace of the pursuers. The well-trained horses were used to the work. The first volley seemed ineffective. The men had not yet got their sights. The fugitive had another fifty yards before he reached the top of the long incline. The distance to the top of the hill was lessening rapidly. Fyles was becoming anxious. It had become a matter of seconds before the man would clear the ridge. "Keep low," cried the corporal, warningly, in the excitement of the moment. "A ricochet--anything will do. Get his horse." The horseman was twenty yards from the crest of the hill. Fifteen. The carbines again rattled out their hurried fire. Ten yards--in a moment he would be---- A cloud of dust arose suddenly among the feet of the fugitive's horse. It cleared. Fyles gave a sigh of relief and raced Peter forward. The man's horse had crashed to the ground. * * * * * Fyles was gazing down upon the body of the fallen man. The horse was lying a few yards away, struggling to rise. A great welter of blood flooded the sandy track all about it. A trooper walked up to the horse. He placed the muzzle of his carbine close behind the poor creature's ear. The next moment there was a sharp report. The head dropped heavily to the ground and remained quite still. The corporal looked up at his superior. He was kneeling beside the body of Charlie Bryant. "I'm afraid it's all up with him, sir," he said seriously. "But he wasn't hit. I can't find a sign of a hit. I--think his neck's broken--or--or something. It was the fall. He's dead, sir--sure." The officer's face never changed its stern expression. But the suspicion of a sigh escaped him. He was by no means an unfeeling man, but he had his duty to do. In this case there was more than his duty concerned. Hence the sigh. Hence any lack of appreciation. "It's the man I expected," he said. "A foolish fellow, but--a smart man. You're sure he's dead? Sure?" The corporal nodded. "Yes, sir." "Poor devil. I'm sorry." CHAPTER XXXVIII THE FALL OF THE OLD PINE The gray of dawn was slowly gladdening toward the warmer hue of day. The eastern skies lit with that pallid yellow which precedes the gold and amber of the rising sun. Somewhere, far below the horizon, the great day god was marching onward, ever onward, shedding its splendor upon a refreshed and waking world. The valley of Leaping Creek was stirring. Whatever the shortcomings of the citizens of Rocky Springs, morning activity was not one of them. But they knew, on this day of days, a fresh era in the history of the village was about to begin. Every man knew this. Every woman. Even every child who had power to understand anything at all. So, as the golden light spread upward toward the vault of the eastern heavens, the spirals of smoke curled up from among the trees on the breathless air. Every cookstove in the village was lit by the unwillingly busy hands of the men-folk, while the women bedecked themselves and their offspring, as befitted the occasion and their position. Breakfast ensued. It was not the leisurely breakfast of every day, when men required an ample foundation to sustain their daily routine of laborious indolence, but a meal at which coffee was drunk in scalding gulps, and bread and butter, and some homely preserve, replaced the more substantial fare of chops and steak, or bacon and cereals. Then came the real business of the day. Doors opened and men looked out. Children, with big bow ties upon their heads and sashes at their waists, scuttled through, about the legs of their parents, and reached the open. Neighborly voices hailed each other with a cheery greeting, and the tone was unusual. It was the tone of those who anticipate pleasantly, or are stirred by the excitement of uncertainty. Minutes later the footpaths and unpaved tracks lost their deserted appearance. Solitary figures and groups lounged along them. Men accompanied by their well-starched womenfolk, women striving vainly to control their legions of offspring. They all began to move abroad, and their ways were convergent. They were all moving upon a common goal, as though drawn thither by the irresistible attraction of a magnet. From the lower reaches of the village, toward the eastern river, that better class residential quarter, where the houses, four in number, of Mrs. John Day, of Billy Unguin, of Allan Dy, and the local blacksmith were located, an extremely decorous cortege emerged. Here there was neither bustle nor levity. These were the chief folk of Rocky Springs, and their position, as examples to their brethren of lesser degree, weighed heavily upon them. Mrs. John was the light about which all social moths fluttered. The women supporting her formed a bodyguard sufficiently impressive and substantial. The men-folk were allowed no nearer than the fringe of their bristling skirts. It was like the slow and stately progress of a swollen, vastly overfed queen bee, moving on her round of the cells to deposit her eggs. The women were the attendant bees, the men were the guarding drones, whose habits in real life in no way detracted from the analogy, while Mrs. John--well, Mrs. John would have made a fine specimen of a queen bee, except, perhaps, for the egg-laying business. They, too, were being drawn to the magnet point, but, as the distance they had to travel was greater than that of the other villagers, they would certainly be the last to arrive. This had been well calculated by Mrs. John, who was nothing if not important. She had well seen to it that the ceremony, so shortly to take place, was on no account to begin until her august word had been given. To further insure this trifling piece of self-aggrandizement she was defraying the whole of the expenses for the demolishment of the aged landmark of the valley. The saloonkeeper, O'Brien, coldly cynical, but eager to miss nothing of the doings of his fellow citizens, took up his position at an early hour with two of the most faithful adherents of his business house. It was his way to observe. It was his way to watch, and read the signs going on about him. This valley, and all that belonged to it, had little enough attraction for him beyond its possibilities of profit to himself. Therefore the signs about him were at all times important. And the signs of the doings of the forthcoming day more particularly so. Those who accompanied him were Danny Jarvis and "fighting" Mike. They were entirely after his own heart, and, perhaps, if opportunity ever chanced to offer, after his pocket as well. They accompanied him because he insisted upon it, and with a more than tacit protest. As yet they had not sufficiently slept off the fumes of their overnight indulgence in rye whisky. But O'Brien, when it suited him, was quite irresistible to his customers. Having roused these two inebriates from their drunken slumbers on the hay in his barn with a healthy kick, he proceeded to herd them out into the daylight with a whole-hearted enthusiasm. "Out you get, you lousy souses," he enjoined them. "There's a big play up at the old tree goin' to happen right away. Guess that old crow bait, Ma Day'll need all the youth an' beauty o' Rocky Springs around to get eyes on her glory. I can't say either o' you boys fit in with these things, but if you don't git too near hoss soap and cold water mebbe you'll pass for the picturesque." After a brief interval of blasphemous upbraiding and protest, after these two men had exhausted their complimentary vocabulary on the subject of the charms of the lumber merchant's wife, to all of which O'Brien turned a more or less deaf ear, the three set out for the scene of action, and took up an obscure position whence they could watch every detail of the proceedings without, themselves, being too closely observed. As O'Brien looked out upon the preparations already made, and while his two friends stood chewing the silent cud of angry discontent, with a diluting of black plug tobacco, he had to admit that the moment certainly was a moment, and the scene had assumed a fascination which even contrived to take possession of his now somewhat rusty imagination. There, in the center of all, stood the villainous old pine, clothed in all its atmosphere of unconscionable evil. It stood out quite by itself in the midst of a clearing, which had been carefully prepared. Every tree and every bush had been cut away, so that nothing should interfere with the impressive fall of the aged giant. O'Brien studied the position closely. His eye was measuring, and he was forced to admit that the setting was impressive. More than that, he felt constrained to appreciate the imagination of Mrs. John Day. With a view to possibilities the approximate height of the tree had been taken, and a corresponding radius had been cleared of all lesser growths. This was excellent. But--and he contrived to find one objection--the old Meeting House was well within the radius. It was the preparation for its defense to which he took exception. He scorned the surrounding of lesser trees which had been left to guard it from the crushing impact should the tree fall that way. Nor was he slow to air his opinions. He eyed the discontented features of his companions, and snorted violently. "Say," he cried, forcefully. "Look at that, you two bokays o' beauty." He pointed at the Meeting House. "There--right there. If that darnation stack o' kindlin' was to fall that aways, why, I guess them vegetables wouldn't amount to a mush o' cabbige." Fighting Mike deliberately spat. "An' who in hell cares?" he snarled. O'Brien turned on the other for a sign of interest. But Danny's stomach was in bad case. "Oh, hell!" he cried, and promptly turned his gaze in another direction. O'Brien looked from one to the other, torn by feelings of pity and anger, with a desire for bodily assault uppermost. "You sure are bright boys," he said at last, a sort of sardonic humor getting the better of his harsher feelings. He had no intention of having his enjoyment spoiled by what he termed "bad bile," so he yielded his full attention to the tree itself. It certainly was a magnificent piece of Nature's handiwork. Somehow he regretted that he had never studied it carefully before. From the tree he turned to a mild appreciation of the other preparations for its fall. Long guide ropes had been set in place, high up the vast, bare trunk. These, four of them in number, had been secured at the four points of the compass to other trees of stout growth on the fringe of the clearing. They were new ropes provided for the purpose. Then again, a heavy cable chain had been girded about the lower trunk, and to this, well out of range of the fall of the tree, were hitched two teams of heavy draught horses. It was obvious that they were to haul as the tree, steadied by the guides, began to fall. He summed up the result of his observations for the benefit of his companions, in a pleasantly conversational manner. "Makes a dandy picture," he said doubtfully, "but I guess there's a whole heap o' things women don't understand. Hand 'em a baby, an' they got men beat a mile, an' they most gener'ly don't forget to say so. That's all right, an' we ain't kickin' a thing. Guess we ain't yearnin' to share that glory--none of us. But babies and fellin' trees ain't got a spark o' resemblance far as I kin see, 'cep' it is an axe is a mighty useful thing dealing with 'em when they ain't needed. What I was comin' to was this old sawdust bag, Ma Day'll have a hell of a mouthful to chew when that tree gets busy. These guides ain't a circumstance. They won't hold nothin'. An' I guess I don't get a step nearer things than I am now." Mike gazed around on the speaker with billious scorn. "Don't guess that'll hurt nothin'," he sneered. Danny was beginning to revive. "Ain't you goin' to hand the leddy compliments?" he inquired sarcastically. "You got an elegant tank o' hot air laid on." O'Brien remained quite unruffled. "She'll hand herself all the compliments she's yearnin' for. Women like her can't do without bokays, an' they don't care a cuss how they get 'em. Say----" He gazed up at the tattered crest of the tree. But the immensity of its height, looking so directly up, turned him dizzy, and he was glad to bring his gaze back to the unattractive faces of his companions. "----I'm gettin' clear on to higher ground. You boys stop right ther'. If the old tree gets busy your ways it won't matter nothin'. Guess your score's overrun down at the saloon, but I lose that without a kick. You're too bright for me." He turned away, and, moving up the hill, took up a fresh position. Here he had a better view. He had abandoned the pleasure of listening to any speeches which he felt sure would be made, but his safety more than compensated him. Without the distractions of his companions' society he was better able to concentrate his attention upon details. He observed that the tree was already sawn more than half way through, and he congratulated himself that he had not discovered it before. Also he saw a number of huge, hardwood wedges lying on the ground, and beside them two heavy wooden mauls. Their purpose was obvious, and he wondered who were the men who would handle them. And, wondering, he cast an interested eye up at the sky with the thought of wind in his mind. The possibility of such a tragedy as the sudden rising of a breeze to upset calculations, and, incidentally, the half-sawn tree, had no effect upon him. He was out of range. Those gathering about the tree in the open were welcome to their belief in the strength of the guide ropes. In a few moments all his interest was centered about the gathering of the villagers. He knew them all, and watched them with the keenest interest. He could hear the babel of tongues from his security. Nor could he help feeling how much these people resembled a flock of silly, curious sheep. His eyes quickly searched for those whom he felt were really the more important in the concern of the tree. Where were Charlie Bryant, and those men who were concerned in his exploits? His eyes scanned every face, and then, when his search was completed, something like excitement took possession of him. Charlie Bryant was absent. So were his associates, Kid Blaney, Stormy Longton, Holy Dick, and Cranky Herefer. Where were Pete Clancy and Nick Devereux, Kate Seton's hired men? They were all absent. So was Kate herself. Ah, yes, he had heard she had gone to Myrtle. Anyway, her sister, Helen, was there--with Mrs. John Day. Where was her beau--Charlie Bryant's brother? His excitement rose. The coincidence of these absences suggested possibilities. The possibilities brought a fresh train of thought. He suddenly realized that not a single policeman was present. This, of course, might easily be accounted for on the score of duty. But their absence, taken in conjunction with the absence of the others, certainly was remarkable. But now the ceremony was beginning. Mrs. John Day had assumed command, and, surrounded by her select bodyguard, she was haranguing the villagers, and enjoying herself tremendously. Yes, there was no manner of doubt about her enjoyment. O'Brien's maliciously humorous eyes watched her expression of smiling self-satisfaction, and estimated it at its true worth. Her face was very red, and her arms swung about like flails, beating the air in her efforts to carry conviction upon an indifferent audience. He felt that the glory of that moment was something she must have lived for for days, and a feeling of awful anticipation swept over him as he considered her possible verbal and physical antics at such time as the new church should be opened. He felt that it would really be necessary to take a holiday on that occasion. However, the speech terminated, as speeches sometimes do, and a chorus of applause dutifully followed, as such choruses generally do. And now the great interest of the day was to begin. Menfolk began to press the crowd back beyond the safety line, and two of Mrs. Day's lumbermen, evidently sent down for the occasion by her husband from his camp, picked up the two wooden mauls. At the same time a man took his place at each guide rope. O'Brien rubbed his hands. Now for the fun, and he thought of the old legend. He wondered which of those silly-looking sheep, gazing in open-mouthed expectation, were to be the victims of the old Indian curse. And curiously enough, hard-headed, callous as he was, O'Brien was convinced someone was to pay the penalty. The great wedges were placed in position, and the heavy stroke of one of the mauls resounded through the valley. A second wedge was placed, and a second stroke fell. Then several strokes in swift succession, and the men stood clear, and gazed upward with measuring eye. O'Brien, too, looked up. The tree had begun to lean, and two of the guides were straining taut. He wondered. He wondered if the men at the guides were used to the work. Now, for the first time, he realized that the crest of the tree had a vast overhang of foliage on one side, and mighty misshapen limbs. He regarded it speculatively. Then he glanced at the lumbermen. They were still looking up at the lean of the tree. Suddenly he found himself expressing his opinions aloud, as he ominously shook his head. "They're raw hands, or--jest mill hands," he muttered. "They sure ain't sawyers." And again his eyes lifted to the ominous overhang. A further scrutiny enlightened him. They were endeavoring to fell the tree so that its crest should drop somewhere on or near the trail toward the new church. This made its fall in the direction of, but to the south of, the old Meeting House. This was obviously for the purpose of simplifying haulage. Good enough--if all went well. The lumbermen seemed satisfied and turned again to their wedges. As they did so a gleam of smiling irony began to grow in O'Brien's eyes. He had detected a slight swing in the overhang of the crest, and the strain on the two guides was unequally distributed. The greater strain was on the _wrong_ guide. The swing of the tree was slightly out of its calculated direction, and inclining a degree or two nearer the direction of the Meeting House. As the heavy strokes of the mauls fell he glanced over the faces of the onlookers. What a picture of expectancy, what idiotic delight he saw there! A crack, sharp and loud, echoed over the clearing. The double team were straining mightily on their heavy tugs. The lumbermen had stood clear. The strain on the _wrong_ guide had increased. O'Brien looked up. The swing had changed several more degrees, further out of its direction. The expression of the upturned faces had changed, too. Now it was evident that others had realized what O'Brien had discovered already. Loud voices began to point it out, and the lumbermen stared stupidly upward. The tree was in the balance, and slowly moving, bearing all its crushing weight upon that single _wrong_ guide. There was a rapid movement near O'Brien, and Mike and Danny Jarvis joined him hurriedly. "Say," cried the latter, "the blamed galoots'll bust up the whole durned shootin' match." Which remark warned O'Brien that Danny had awakened to the threatening danger to the Meeting House. "They done it," returned O'Brien calmly, his eyes riveted upon the leaning tree. Mike thrust his hands into the tops of his trousers. "It sure was time to quit," he said with satisfaction. The saloonkeeper's only comment was to rub his hands in a sort of malicious glee. Then in a moment, he pointed at the straining guide. "It's got way," he cried. "Look, she's spinning. The rope. She'll part in half a tick. Get it? Say, might as well try to hold a house with pure rubber, as a new rope. It's got such a spring. It's give the old tree way. Now it's----. Gee!" His final exclamation came as a terrific rending and cracking, far louder than heavy gunshots, came from the base of the tree. There was a vision of the lumbermen running clear. The next instant the straining guide parted with a report that echoed far down the valley. Then, caught by the other restraining guide, the whole tree swung around, pivoting on its base, and fell with a roar of splitting and rending, and a mighty final boom, along the whole length of the roof of the Meeting House. All O'Brien had anticipated had come to pass. Furthermore, the mush of "vegetables" surrounding the house was more than fulfilled. The vast trunk cut its way through the building, everything, like a knife passing through butter, and finally came to rest upon the ruined flooring inside. With the final crash an awful silence prevailed. Not a voice was raised among the onlookers. The old superstitions were fully stirring. Was this the beginning of some further disaster to come? Was this the work of that old-time curse? Was this only a part of the evil connected with that tree? It was not the destruction of the house alone that filled them with awe. It was the character of the house that had been destroyed. But in a moment the spell was broken, and O'Brien was the first to help to break it. The tree had fallen. It lay there quite still, like some great, dead, evil giant. Now his callous mind demanded to know the full extent of the damage done. He left his post, followed closely by his companions, and ran down toward the wrecked building. With his movement a rush came from other directions among the spectators, and, in the twinkling of an eye, the ruined Meeting House was swarmed with an eager, curious throng of men and women clambering over the wreckage. What a gladdening result for the sensation-loving minds of the callous! O'Brien and his companions were among the first to reach the scene. There lay the fallen giant, the greater part of its colossal crest far beyond the extreme end of the demolished building. Only a few of the lower, bare branches, just beneath the foliage, had caught the house, these and the trunk. But the wreckage was complete. The walls had fallen as though they had been made of loose sand, walls that had withstood the storms of years, and the old, heavy-timbered roof was torn to shreds, and lay strewn about like matchwood. As the eager crowd swarmed over the _debris_ an extraordinary sight awaited them. The weight of the tree, and the falling roof timbers, had almost completely destroyed the flooring, and there, in its place, gaped an open cavity extending the length of the building. The place was undermined by one huge cellar, divided by now crushed and broken cross-supporting walls. The searching eyes of the saloonkeeper and his companions lost no detail. Nor did the prevailing astonishment at the discovery seem to concern them. With some care they clambered among the _debris_ to add further to the discovery, if such additions were to be made. And their efforts were rewarded without stint. The all-unsuspected and unknown cellar was no simple relic of a bygone age, but displayed every sign of recent usage. Furthermore, it was stocked with more than a hundred liquor kegs, many of which were empty, but, also, many of which were full of smuggled rye whisky. Within five minutes the entire village, from Mrs. John Day down to the youngest child, knew that the cache of the whisky-runners had been laid bare by the fall of the old pine. The wave of sentimental superstition again broke out and fastened itself upon the minds of the people, and the miracle of it was spoken of among them with almost bated breath. But O'Brien had no time to waste upon any such thought. He clambered round through the cellars with eyes and wits alert. And he chuckled delightedly, as, groping in the half-light among the kegs, he discovered and recognized his own markings upon many of the empty kegs. The whole thing amused him vastly, and he dilated upon his various discoveries to those who accompanied him. "Say, Danny, boy, don't it beat hell?" he cried gleefully. "While all them psalm-smiters were busy to death sweepin' the cobwebs out o' their muddy souls upstairs, the old wash-tub o' sins was full to the bung o' good wholesome rye underneath 'em. Was it a bright notion? Well, I'd smile. If it don't beat the whole blamed circus. Is there a p'liceman in the country 'ud chase up a Meetin' House for liquor? Not on your life. That dope was as safe right there from discovery as if it was stored in the United States Treasury. Say, them guys was smart. Smart? Hell--say--what's that?" Excited voices were talking and calling loudly beyond the walls of the ruined building. Even amid the dark surroundings of the cellars O'Brien and his companions detected the words "police" and "patrol." Ready for any fresh interest forthcoming, the saloonkeeper clambered hurriedly out of the cellar with the other men close behind him. They mounted the broken walls and looked out upon the crowd. All eyes were turned along the trail coming up from the village, and O'Brien followed the direction of their gaze. A half-spring police wagon, followed closely by a wagon, which many recognized as that of Charlie Bryant, were coming up the trail, escorted by Inspector Fyles and a patrol of police troopers. The horses were walking slowly, and as they approached a hush fell upon the crowd of spectators. Suddenly Stanley Fyles urged his horse forward, and came on at a rapid canter. He pulled up at the ruined building and looked about him, first at the wreckage and then at the silent throng. Then, as he beheld O'Brien standing on the wall, he pointed at the ruins. "An--accident?" he inquired sharply. O'Brien's eyes twinkled. "A damn piece of foolish play by folks who orter know better," he said. "They tried wreckin' this durned old tree an' succeeded in wreckin' the soul laundry o' this yer village. Mebbe, too, you'll find things down under it to interest you, inspector. I don't guess you'd be lookin' for whisky an' religion goin' hand in hand, so to speak." The officer's eyes were sharply questioning. "How's that?" "Why, the cellars are full o' kegs of good rye--some full, some empty. Gee, but I'd hate spilling it." The wagons had come up, and now it was to be seen that coarse police blankets were laid out over them, the soft material displaying something of the ominous figures hidden under them. "Say----" cried the startled saloonkeeper, and paused, as his quick eyes observed these signs. Then, in an excited voice, he went on. "Say, them--wagons--are loaded some." Fyles nodded. "I was bringing 'em along to have them laid out here--in the Meeting House, before--burial." "Burial?" O'Brien's eyes opened wide. A sort of gasp went through the silent crowd of onlookers, hanging on the police officer's words. "Yes, it was a brush with--the runners," Fyles said seriously. "We got them red-handed last night. It was a case of shooting, too. Two of our boys were shot up. They're in the wagons. There's three of the gang--dead, and the boss of it, Charlie Bryant. They're all in the wagons. The rest are across the border by now. Guess there'll be no more whisky run in this valley." The hush which followed his announcement was far more eloquent than words. It was O'Brien whose temerity was strong enough to break it. "That's so," he remarked thoughtfully. Then he sighed a world of genuine regret, and his eyes glanced along the vast timber of the old pine. "Guess the old cuss has worked out," he went on. "No, there'll be no more whisky-running." Then he climbed slowly down from the wall. "I'll have to get--moving on." CHAPTER XXXIX FROM THE ASHES The nine days' wonder had come and passed. Never again could the valley of Leaping Creek return to the conditions which had for so long prevailed there. And strangely enough the victory won was far more a moral than a physical one. True, one or two lives had paid for the victory, but this was less than nothing compared with the effect achieved. Within three weeks a process of emigration had set in which left the police with scarcely an excuse for their presence in the valley at all. All those who, for long years, had sought sanctuary within the shelter of the vast, forest-clad slopes of the valley, began to realize that the immunity which they had enjoyed for so long was rapidly becoming doubtful. The forces of the police suddenly seemed to have become possessed of a too-intimate knowledge of the shortcomings which had driven them to shelter. In fact, the limelight of government authority was shining altogether too brightly, searching out the shadowed corners in the lives of the citizens, and yielding up secrets so long and so carefully hidden. The first definite result of the police raid apparent was the "moving on" of Dirty O'Brien. It came quite suddenly, and unexpectedly. Rocky Springs one morning awoke to find that the old saloon was closed. Inquiry soon elicited the true facts. O'Brien had vanished. The barn was empty. His team and spring wagon had gone, and the house, and bar, had been stripped of everything worth taking. The night before O'Brien had served his customers up to the usual hour, and there was nothing unusual to be observed. Therefore, the removal must have been effected swiftly and silently in the dead of night, performed as the result of careful, well-laid plans. This was the first result of the definite establishment of police authority. Evidently the future of Rocky Springs no longer appealed to the shrewd saloonkeeper, and so he "moved on." This was the cue for further goings. With the saloon closed, and the police authority established, Rocky Springs was Rocky Springs no longer. So, one by one, silently, without the least ostentation, men began to yield up their claims as citizens, and, vanishing over the distant horizon, were heard of no more. The sledgehammer of police methods had penetrated through the case-hardening of the village, and the place became hopelessly impossible for its population of undesirables. For Helen Seton those first three weeks left her with a dull, apathetic feeling that quite suddenly her whole world had been turned upside down. That somehow a complete wreckage of all the life about her, her new life, had been consummated. Nor did she understand why, or how. It seemed to her she was living in a new world where all was misery and depression. Her usually bubbling spirit was weighted down as with an avalanche of responsibility and unhappiness. For her the change had begun with almost the very moment of the felling of the old pine, and, somehow, it seemed to her as if that wicked, mischievous monument of bygone crimes were responsible. With the yielding up of the secrets of the Meeting House had started a succession of shocks, each one harder than its predecessor to bear, until she was left almost paralyzed and quite powerless to resist them. With Stanley Fyles heading the procession of death, with the man's brief outline of the circumstances attending his raid, her heart seemed suddenly to have turned to stone. Her thought turned at once to her sister. That sister, even now away from home, waiting in dreading unconsciousness for the completion of the disaster she so terribly feared. To Helen's sympathetic heart the horror of the position was magnified an hundredfold. Kate had been right. Kate had understood where they had all been blind, and Kate, loyal, strong, brave Kate, must learn that the very disaster she had prophesied had come, and, in coming, had overtaken the one man they had all so earnestly desired to shield--Charlie Bryant. Without waiting another moment she left the scene. She had blindly rushed from the proximity of that gaping, awe-stricken, curious crowd. And her way had taken her straight home. She had no thought for any object. How could she? Her mind and heart were overflowing with fear and concern, and a world of sympathy for Kate--the absent Kate. Charlie was dead. Charlie had been caught red-handed. Charlie, that poor, helpless, besotted drunkard. He--he--after all their faith in his integrity, after all Kate's lavish affection, he was the real criminal, and--Fyles had run him to his death. She had no thought now of Bill's absence from her side. She had no thought of anything but this one overwhelming disaster. So she ran on home. Nor did she pause till she flung herself upon the coverlet of her little white bed in a passionate storm of weeping. How long she lay there she never knew. A merciful Providence finally sent sleep to her weary brain and heart. And when she ultimately awoke it was to start up dazedly, and find herself staring into the solemn, dreadful eyes of her sister, Kate, who was standing just beyond the open doorway of her bedroom, gazing in upon her. Then followed a scene never likely to be wholly forgotten. She sprang from her bed and ran toward that ominous figure. She was prepared to fling herself upon that strong support which had never yet failed her. But, for once, no such support was forthcoming. Long before she reached her side Kate had stepped into the room and seemed to collapse into the rocker beside the dressing bureau. The brave Kate was reduced to a pitiful outburst of tearless sobs. For one brief instant Helen was again on the verge of tears, but she remembered. With a great effort she forced them back, and held herself in a strong grip. Then, slowly, a change began to creep over her. It was not she who must look for support from Kate. It was she who must yield support, and the memory of all those years when Kate, never by word or act had failed her, came to her aid. But though she sought by every means in her power to comfort the heartbroken woman, her efforts were wholly unavailing. They were perhaps worse than unavailing. For Kate proved as unreasonable as any weak, hysterical girl, and, rebuffing her at every turn, finally broke into such a storm of bitter self-reviling as to leave her sister helpless. "Leave me, Helen," she cried, through her grievous sobs. "Don't come near me. Go, go. Don't look at me; don't come near. I'm not fit to live. I'm a--murderess. It's I--I who've killed him. Oh, God, was there ever such punishment. No--no. Go away--go away. I--I can't bear it." Horrified beyond words, stunned and confused, poor Helen knew not where to turn, or what to do. She stood silently by--wondering. Then, without reasoning or understanding, something came to her help just as she was about to yield to her own woman's weakness once more. She moved out of the room, nor did she know for what reason. Nor was her next action any impulse of her own. Mechanically she set about the housework of her home. It was her salvation, the salvation of the situation. She worked, and gradually a great calm settled upon her. Thought began to flow. Practical, helpful thought. And as she worked she saw all those things she must do for poor Kate's well-being. It was a long and terrible day. And when night fell she was utterly wearied out in mind and body. She had already prepared a meal for Kate, which had been left untouched, and now, as evening came, she prepared another. But this, like the first, was never partaken of by her sister. When she went into her own bedroom, where Kate had remained, to make her second attempt, she found to her relief and joy that her sister was lying on her bed sound asleep. She stole out and closed up the house for the night. Nor was Helen prepared for the miracle of the next morning. When she arose it was to find her bedroom empty, and her bed made up. She hurriedly set out in search of her sister. She was nowhere in the house. In rapidly rising dismay she hurried out to search the barn, fearing she knew not what. But instant relief awaited her. Kate was outside doing all those little necessary duties by the livestock of her homestead, which she was accustomed to do, in the calm unruffled fashion in which she always went about her work. Helen stared. She could scarcely believe her eyes. The miracle was altogether beyond her comprehension. But her delight and relief were profound. She greeted her sister and spoke. Then it was that she realized that here was no longer the old Kate, but a changed, utterly changed woman. The big eyes, so darkly ringed, no longer smiled. They looked out at her so full of unutterable pain, as full of dull aching regrets. There was such a depth of yearning and misery in them that her greeting suddenly seemed to jar upon her own ears, and come back to her in bitter mockery. In a moment, however, understanding came. Intuitively she felt that her sister's grief was her own, into which she could never pry. She must ask no questions, she must offer no sympathy. For the moment her sister's mantle had fallen upon her shoulders. Hers had suddenly become the strength, and it was for her to use it in Kate's support. So the days wore on, long dreary days of many heartaches and bitter speculation. Kate remained the dark, brooding figure she had displayed herself on that first morning after her return. She was utterly unapproachable in those first days, while yet at the greatest pains to conceal the sorrow she was enduring. No questions or explanations passed between the two women, and Helen was left without the faintest suspicion of the truth. Sometimes, Helen, in the long silent days, strove to solve the meaning of everything for herself. She thought and thought till her poor head ached. But she always began and ended with the same thought. It was Charlie's capture, Charlie's death which had wrought this havoc in her sister, and she felt that time alone could remove the shadow which had settled itself so hopelessly upon her. Then she began to wonder and worry at the prolonged absence of her--Bill. * * * * * Kate had just finished removing the remains of the evening meal. Helen had curled herself up in the old rocker. She was reading through the numerous pages of a long letter, for perhaps the twentieth time. She was tired, bodily and mentally, and her pretty face looked drawn under its tanning. Her sister watched her, moving silently about, returning the various articles to the cupboards where they belonged. Her eyes were shadowed. The old assurance seemed to have gone entirely out of her. Her whole manner was inclined to a curious air of humility, which, even now, seemed to fit her so ill. She watched the girl turn page after page. Then she heard her draw a long sigh as she turned the last page. Helen looked up and caught the eyes so yearningly regarding her. "I--I feel better now," she declared, with a pathetic little smile. "And--please--please don't worry about me, Kate, dear. I'm tired. We're both tired. Tired to death. But--there's no help for it. We surely must keep going, and--and we've no one now to help us." She glanced down at the letter in her lap. Then she abruptly raised her eyes, and went on quickly. "Say, Kate, I s'pose we'll never see Nick or Pete again? Shall we always have to do the work of our little patch ourselves?" Then she smiled and something of her old lightness peeped out of her pretty eyes. "Look at me," she cried. "I--I haven't put on one of my nice suits since--since that day. I'm--a tramp." Kate's returning smile was of the most shadowy description. She shook her head. "Maybe we'll get some hired men soon," she said, quietly. Then she sighed. "I don't know. I hope so. I guess we'll never see Nick again. He got away--I believe--across the border. As for Pete," she shuddered, "he was found by the police--shot dead." Helen sat up. "You never told me," she cried. Kate shook her head. "I didn't want to distress you--any more." Just for one moment she averted her eyes. Then they came back to Helen's face in an inquiry. "When--when is--Bill coming back?" "Bill?" Helen's eyes lighted up, and a warm smile shone in them as she glanced down at her letter again. "He says he'll be through with Charlie's affairs soon. He's in Amberley. He's had to see to things through the police. He's coming right on here the moment he's through. He's--he's going to wire me when he starts. Kate?" "Yes, dear." Kate turned from the cook stove at the abruptness of her sister's tone. Helen began to speak rapidly, and as she talked she kept her gaze fixed upon the window. "It's--it's a long while now, since--that day. We were both feeling mighty bad 'bout things then. We," she smiled whimsically, "sort of didn't know whether it was Rocky Springs, or Broadway, did we? And there was such a lot I didn't know or understand. And I never asked a question. Did I?" Kate winced visibly. The moment she had always dreaded had come. She had realized that it must eventually come, and for days she had wondered vaguely how she would be able to meet it. The smile which strove to reach her eyes was a failure, and, for a moment, a hunted look threatened. In the end, however, she forced herself to perfect calmness. "I don't think I could have answered them then if you had," she said gently. "I don't know that I can answer many now--for both our sakes." Helen thought for some moments. Then she appeared to have arrived at a determination. "How did you--come home that day--and why? I didn't expect you until the next day." Kate drew a deep breath. "I came back--riding," she said. "I came back because--because I had to." "Why?" "Because of the--disaster out there." "You knew?" Kate nodded. "Pretty well everything. That is all I can tell you, dear." Kate crossed the room, and stood beside her sister's chair. She laid one gentle hand upon her shoulder. "Don't ask me any more about that. It--it is like--like searing my very soul with red-hot irons. That must be my secret, and you must forgive me for keeping it from you. Ask me anything else, and I will tell you--but leave that alone. It can do nobody any good." Helen leaned her head on one side till her soft cheek rested caressingly upon her sister's hand. "Forgive me, Kate," she said. "I didn't mean to hurt you. I'll never mention it again--never." For some moments neither spoke. But Kate was waiting. She knew there were other questions that must be asked and answered. "Was it because of the felling of that tree you went away?" Helen asked presently. Kate shook her head. "No." Helen started up. "I knew it wasn't. Oh, Kate, I knew it wasn't. It was so unlike you. I know why you went. Listen," she went on, almost excitedly. "You always defended Charlie. You pretended to believe him straight. You--you stuck to him through thick and thin. You flouted every charge made against him. It was because of him you went away. You went to try and help him--save him. All the time you knew he was against the law. That's why you went. Oh, Kate, I knew it--I knew it." Helen was looking up into her sister's shadowed face with loyal enthusiasm shining in her admiring eyes. Kate gravely shook her head. "I believed every word I said of Charlie. As God is my witness I believed it. And I tell you now, Helen, that as long as I live my heart will be bowed down beneath a terrible weight of grief and remorse at the death of a brave, honest, and loyal gentleman. I have no more to say. I never shall have--on the subject. I love you, Helen, and shall always love you. My one thought in life now is your welfare. If you love me, dear, then leave those things. Leave them as part of a cruel, evil, shadowed time, which must be put behind us. All I want you to ever remember of it--when you are the happy wife of your Big Brother Bill--is that Charlie was all we believed him, in spite of all appearances, and he died the noblest, the most heroic death that man ever died." Kate bent down and tenderly kissed the beautiful head of fair, wavy hair. Then, without waiting for the astonished sister's reply, she moved across to the door. "Some day," she said, pausing with her hand on the catch, and, turning back, smiling gently through the gathering tears, "Bill will tell you it all. He knows it all--everything. Just now he is bound to secrecy, but he will be released from that some day, and then--he will tell you." CHAPTER XL THE DAWN A girl was leaning against a solitary post, a hundred yards or so from where the descent into the valley of Leaping Creek began. All about her stretched the vast plains of grass, which seemed to know no end. The wide flat trail, so bare and hard, passed her by, and vanished into the valley behind her. In the opposite direction, at long intervals, it showed up in sections as it passed over the rises in the prairie ocean, until the limits of her vision were reached. Not a single object stood out to relieve the monotony of that desert of grass. Any dwelling of man within reach of the searching eye must have been hidden in the troughs between the crests of summer grass. It was all so wide, so vast, so dreadful in its unspeakable solitude. Helen's eyes were upon the last section of the trail, away to the northwest, just as far as her bright eyes could see. She was searching, searching. Her heart was beating with a great and buoyant hope, and every little detail she beheld in that far-off distance she searched, and sought to mould into the figure of the horseman she was waiting for. The sun was hot. It's relentless rays, freed from the wealth of shade in the valley below, beat down upon the parching land with a fiery intensity which must have been insupportable to unaccustomed human life. But to Helen it meant nothing, nothing but the fact that its brilliant light was in keeping with every beat of the warm, thrilling heart within her bosom. He was on the road. Bill--her Big Brother Bill. He was on the road, and must be somewhere near now, for the telegram in her hand warned her that he hoped to reach the valley by sundown. Four long weeks since the dreadful day. Four long weeks in which her aching heart and weary thought had left her in wretched unhappiness. Four weeks of doubt and trouble, in which her sister seemed to have shut herself out of her life, leaving her to face all her doubts and fears alone. Bill was away on his dead brother's affairs. Loyal Bill, seeking by every means in his lumbering power to shield the memory of the dead man from the effects of the manner of his death. Helen honored her lover for it. He was just the good, loyal soul she had believed. And now, as she stood with the tinted paper message, announcing his return in her hand, she smiled, and wondered tenderly what blunders he would contrive in the process. Sundown. Sundown would not be for at least two hours. Two hours. Two hours meant some fourteen or sixteen miles by horse upon the trail. She told herself she could not see for sixteen miles, nor even for eight. It was absurd waiting there. She had already been waiting there over an hour. Then she smiled, laughing at herself for her absurd yearning for this lover of hers. He was so big, so foolish, so honest and loyal--and, he was just hers. She sat down again on the ground, as already she had seated herself many times. She would restrain her impatience. She would not just get up at every---- She was on her feet again at the very moment of making her resolve. This time her eyes were straining and wide open. Every nerve in her body was at a tension. Some one was on the trail this time. Certain. It was a horseman, too. There was no mistake, but he was near, quite near, comparatively. How had she come to miss him in the far distance? She saw the figure as it came over a rising ground. She watched it closely. Then she saw it was not on the trail, but was making for it--across country. Now she knew. Now she was certain, and she laughed and clapped her hands. It must be Bill, and--of course he had lost himself, and now, at last, had found his way. The horseman came on at a great pace. As he drew nearer a frown of doubt crossed the girl's face. He did not appear big enough--somehow. He dropped down into a hollow, and mounted the next crest. In a moment, as he came into view, Helen felt like bursting into tears of disappointment. The next moment, however, all thought of tears passed away and a steady coldness grew in her eyes. She felt like hiding herself back there in the valley. She had recognized the man. Without a doubt it was Stanley Fyles. But he wore no uniform. He was clad in a civilian costume, which pronouncedly smacked of the prairie. It was too late to hide. Besides, to hide would be undignified. What was he coming to the valley for? Helen's eyes hardened. Nor did she know quite why she felt resentful at the sight of him. Yes, she did. It was for poor Charlie, Bill's brother. And Kate had sworn that Charlie was innocent. She stood thinking, thinking, and then a further change came over her. She remembered this man's work. She remembered his duty. Ought she to feel badly toward him? And Kate? What of Kate? Would she----What on earth brought him to the valley--now? It was too late to avoid him now, if she had wanted to. And, somehow, on reflection, she was not sure she did want to. So she stood her ground as he came up. He reined Peter in as he came abreast, and his dark eyes expressed his surprise at sight of the waiting girl. "Why--Miss Helen, this----" He broke off abruptly, and, turning in his saddle, looked back over the long, long trail. When his eyes came back to the girl's face they were smiling. "It's kind of hot out here," he said. "Aren't you afraid of the sun?" Then he became silent altogether, while he interpreted to himself the somewhat stony regard in her eyes. In a moment something of the awkwardness of the encounter occurred to him. His mind was full of other things, which before he had missed the possibility of. "I don't mind the sun, Mr. Fyles," said Helen coldly. "Besides, I guess I'm not standing around here for--fun. I'm waiting for some one." Fyles glanced back over the trail. Then he nodded. "He's coming along," he said quietly. "Guess he started out from Amberley before me. Say, he's a bully feller, sure enough, and I like him. I've seen a good deal of him in Amberley. But I guessed he wouldn't be thanking me for my company on the trail, so I came another way, and passed on ahead. You see--I, well, I had to do my duty--here, and--well, he's a bully feller, Miss Helen, and--you'll surely be happy with him." While he was talking, just for a moment, a wild impulse stirred Helen to some frigid and hateful retort. But the man's evident sincerity won the day and the girl's eyes lit with a radiant smile. "He's--on the trail?" she cried, banishing her last shadow of coldness. "He is? Say, tell me where, and when he'll get in. I--I had this message which said he'd be here by sundown, and--and I thought I'd just come right along and meet him. Have--have you seen him? And--and----" Fyles shook his head. "Not until just now," he said kindly. "He's about four miles back. Say," he added, with less assurance, "maybe your sister's home?" For a moment Helen stared incredulously. "Yes," she answered slowly. Then in agitation: "You're not going to----?" The man nodded, but his smile had died out. "Yes. That's why I've come along," he said seriously. "Is--is she well? Is she----?" But Helen left him no time to finish his apprehensive inquiries. At that moment she caught sight of a distant figure on the trail. It was the figure of a big man--so big, and her woman's heart cried out in love and thankfulness. "Oh, look! It's Bill--my Bill! Here he comes. Oh, thank God." Stanley Fyles flung a glance over his shoulder. Then without a word he lifted Peter's reins. Then he seemed to glide off in the direction of the setting sun. As he went he drew a long sigh. He was wondering--wondering if all the happiness in the world lay there, behind him, in the warm heart of the girl who was waiting to embrace her lover. * * * * * Kate Seton was standing at the window of her parlor. Her back was turned upon the room, upon the powerful, loose-limbed figure of Stanley Fyles. Her face was hidden, she wanted it to remain hidden--from him. She felt that he must not see all that his sudden visit, without warning, meant to her. The man was near the center table. One knee was resting upon the hard, tilted seat of a Windsor chair, and his folded arms leaned upon the back of it. His eyes were full of a deep fire as he gazed upon the woman's erect, graceful figure. A great longing was in him to seize her, and crush her in arms that were ready to claim and hold her against all the world. All the atmosphere of his calling seemed to have fallen from him. He stood there just a plain, strong man of no great eloquence, facing a position in which he might well expect certain defeat, but from which there was no thought of shrinking. Silence had fallen since their first greeting. That painful silence when realization of that which lies between them drives each to search for a way to cross the barrier. It was Kate who finally spoke. She moved slightly. It was a movement which might have suggested many things, among them uncertainty of mind, perhaps of decision. Her voice came low and gentle. But it was full of a great weariness and regret, even of pain. "Why--why did you come--now?" she asked plaintively. "It seems as though I've lived through years in the last few weeks. I've tried to forget so much. And now--you come here to remind me--to stir once more the shadows which have nearly driven me crazy. Is it merciful--to do that?" The woman's tone was baffling. Fyles searched for its meaning. Resentment he had anticipated. He had been prepared for it, and to resist it, and break it down by the ardor of his appeal. That dreary regret was more than he could bear, and he hastened to protest. "Say, Kate," he cried, his sun-tanned features flushing with a quick shame. "Don't think I've come here to remind you. Don't think I've come along to taunt you with the loss of our--our mad wager. I want to forget it. It became a gamble on a man's life, and--and I hate the thought. You're free of it, and I wish to God it had never been made." The bitter sincerity of his final words was not without its effect. Kate stirred. Then she turned. Her beautiful eyes, so full of pathos, so full of remorse, looked straight into his. "Then--why did you come here?" she asked. The man started up. The chair dropped back on to its four legs with a clatter. His arms were outstretched, and the passionate fire of his eyes blazed up as the quick, hot words escaped his lips. "Why? Why?" he demanded, his eyes widening, his whole body vibrant with a consuming passion. "Don't you know? Kate, Kate, I came because I couldn't stay away. I came because there's just nothing in the world worth living for but you. I came because I just love you to death, and--there's nothing else. Say, listen. I went right back from here with one fixed purpose. Maybe it won't tell you a thing. Maybe you won't understand. I went back to get quit of the force--honorably. I'd made my peace with them. Oh, yes, I'd done that. Then I demanded leave of absence pending my resignation. They had to grant it. I am never going back. Oh, yes, I knew what I was up against. I wanted you. I wanted you so that I couldn't see a thing else in any other direction. There is no other direction. So I came straight here to--to ask you to forget. I came here to tell you all I feel about--the work I had to do here. I came here with a wild sort of forlorn hope you could forgive. You see, I even believed that but for--for that--there was just a shadow of hope for me. Kate----!" The woman suddenly held up her hand. And when she spoke there was nothing of the Kate he had always known in the humility of her tone. "It is not I who must forgive," she said quickly. "If there is any forgiveness on this earth it is I who need it." "You? Forgiveness?" The man's face wore blank incredulity. Kate sighed. It was the sigh of a broken-hearted woman. "Yes. If there is any forgiveness I pray that it may come my way. I need it all--all. I can never forgive myself. It was I who caused Charlie's death." Quite suddenly her whole manner changed. The humility, the sadness of her tone rose quickly to a passionate self-denunciation. "Yes, yes. I will tell you now. Oh, man, man. Your words--every one of them, have only stabbed me more and more surely to the heart. You don't understand. You can't, because you do not know what I mean. Oh, yes," she went on desperately, "why shouldn't I admit it? I love you. I always have loved you. Let me admit everything fully and freely." "Kate!" The man stepped forward, his eyes alight with a world of happiness, of overwhelming joy. But she waved him back. "No, no," she cried, almost harshly. "I have told you that just to show you how your words have well nigh crazed me. I can be nothing to you. I can be nothing to anybody. It was I who brought about Charlie's death. He, the bravest, the loyalest man I ever knew, gave his life to save me from the police, who were hunting me down. Oh," she went on, at sight of Fyles's incredulous expression, "you don't need to take my word alone. Ask Charlie's brother. Ask Bill. He was there. He, too, shared in the sacrifice, although he did not understand that which lay in the depths of his brother's brave heart. And now--now I must live on with the knowledge of what my wild folly has brought about. For weeks the burden of thought and remorse has been almost insupportable, and now you come to torture me further. Oh, God, I have paid for my wanton folly and wickedness. Oh, God!" Kate buried her face in her hands, and abruptly flung herself into the rocker close behind her. Fyles looked down upon her in amazed helplessness. He watched the woman's heaving shoulders as great, dry, hard sobs broke from her in tearless agony. He waited, feeling for the moment that nothing he could say or do but must add to her despair, to her pain. Her self-accusation had so far left him untouched. He could not realize all she meant. All that was plain to him was her suffering, and he longed to comfort her, and help her, and defend her against herself. The moments slipped away, heavy moments of intense feeling and bitter grief. Presently the grief-stricken woman's sobs grew less, and with something like a gesture of impatience she snatched her hands from her face, and raised a pair of agonized eyes to his. "Leave me," she cried. "Go, please go. I--I can't bear it." Her appeal was so helpless. Again the impulse to take her in his arms was almost too strong for the man, but with an effort he overcame it. "Won't you--go on?" he said, in the gentlest possible tone. "It will help you. And--you would rather tell me." The firmness of his manner, the gentleness, had a heartbreaking effect. In a moment the woman's eyes were flooded with tears, which coursed down her cheeks. It was the relief that her poor troubled brain and nerves demanded, and so Fyles understood. He waited patiently until the passion of weeping was over. Then again he urged his demand. "Now tell me, Kate. Tell me all. And remember I'm not here as your judge. I am here to help--because--I love you." The look from the woman's eyes thanked him. Then she bowed her head lest the sight of him should leave her afraid. * * * * * "Must I tell it all?" Kate's tone was firmer. There was a ring in it that reminded the other of the woman he used to know. "Tell me just what you wish. No more--no less. You are telling it for your own sake, remember. To me--it makes no difference." "There's no use in telling it you from the start. The things that led up to it," she began. "I have been smuggling whisky for nearly five years. It's a pretty admission, isn't it? Yes, you may well be horrified," she went on, as Fyles started. But the man denied. "I am not horrified," he said. "It is--the wonder of it." "The wonder? It isn't wonderful. It was so simple. A little ingenuity, a little nerve and recklessness. The law itself makes it easy. You cannot arrest on suspicion." Kate sighed, and her eyes had become reflective, so that their calmness satisfied the waiting man. "I must tell you this," she went on quickly. "My reasons were twofold. Helen and I came here to farm. We came here because I was crazy for adventure. We had money, but I soon found that we, two women, could never make our farm pay. We were here surrounded by outlaws, who were already smuggling liquor, and their trade appealed to me. I was just crazy to take a hand in it for the excitement of it, and--to replenish our diminishing capital." "Helen knows nothing about it," she went on, her voice hardening as though the shameful story she was about to tell were forcing the iron deeper and deeper into her soul. "She has never guessed, or suspected, and I could almost hope she never will. It didn't take me long to make up my mind. This was about the time Charlie came to the valley," she sighed. "Well, I quickly contrived to get at the men I wanted. I talked to them carefully, and finally unfolded to them a plan I had worked out to smuggle whisky on a large and profitable scale. It doesn't matter about the details. They all came in at once. It pleased their sense of humor to be run by a woman. I was to disguise myself as a man, which nature made easy for me, and my real personality was to be our chief safeguard. No one would suspect unless we were caught red-handed. And that--well, that was not a great chance, anyway, in those days. I was responsible. I was to purchase cargoes across the border. The others were only my helpers, under my absolute orders. And I ruled them sharply." The man nodded without other comment. "But Charlie had arrived, and very soon his coming began to complicate matters," Kate went on, after the briefest of pauses. "He came out here to ranch. He was turned out of his home. And I--I just pitied him, and strove to turn him from his drunken habits. This is where the mischief was done. I liked him. I sort of felt like a mother to him. He was so gentle and kind-hearted. He was clever, too--very clever. Yes, I looked upon him as a son, or brother--but he didn't look on me in the same way. I don't know. I suppose I didn't think. I was foolish. Anyway, Charlie asked me to marry him. I refused him, and he drank himself into delirium tremens." Again came a long-drawn sigh at the memory of that poor, wasted life. "Well, I nursed him, and finally he got better, and again I went on with my work. Then, one day, I received a shock. Charlie came to me and told me he'd found a mysterious old corral, away up, hidden in the higher reaches of the valley. He begged me to let him show it me. Feeling that I owed him something, I consented to go with him. So we rode out. You know the place. But maybe you don't know its secret." Fyles nodded. "Yes--you mean the--cupboard in the lining of the wall." "You know it?" Kate's surprise was marked. However, she went on rapidly. "Well, while we were there he showed it to me, and then, looking me straight in the eyes, he said, 'Wouldn't it be a dandy hiding place for things? Suppose I was a big whisky smuggler. Suppose I wanted to disguise myself. I could keep my disguise here. No chance of its being found by police or any one. It would be a great place.' Then he went on, enlarging enthusiastically upon his idea. He said, 'A feller wants to do things right if he's going to beat the law. If I were running liquor I'd take no chances. I'd run it on a big scale, and I'd cache my stuff in the cellars under the Meeting House. No one knows of 'em. I only lit on 'em by chance. "'Not a soul even suspects they're there. Guess they were used for caches in the old days. Now, I'd take on the job of looking after the place, keeping it clean, and all that. That would let me be seen there without anybody getting suspicious.' All this time his eyes were watching me shrewdly, speculatively. Then, still pretending, he went off in another direction. He told me he'd bought a good wagon. He said, 'I'd keep it here in the corral. It would be better than a buckboard.' Then I knew for certain that he was aware of my doings. For I used a buckboard. It was a desperate moment. I waited. All of a sudden he dropped his mask of lightness, and became serious. I can never forget his poor, dear face as he gave me his final warning. 'Kate,' he said, 'if there was anybody I--liked, and was anxious about, running whisky in this place, I'd show them the corral and tell them what I've told you. You see,' he added ingenuously, 'I'd give my life for those I like, then how readily would I help them like this. This is the safest scheme I can think of. And I'm rather proud of it. Anyways, it's better than keeping disguises kicking around for any one to find, and caching liquor under bushes.' He had discovered all my secret. All--how? The thought set me nearly crazy." "Did you--question him?" The man's voice cut sharply into the momentary silence. Kate shook her head. "No. I couldn't. I don't know why, but I couldn't." She drew a deep breath. "The next thing I knew was that I was shadowed in all my work, and I knew that shadow was--Charlie. Here came a memorable day. I think the devil was in me that day. I remember Charlie came to me. He smiled in his gentle, boyish fashion. He said, 'No one's adopted my scheme yet--and I've left the wagon down at the old corral, too.' It was too much. I laughed. I told him that now no one could ever use his scheme for I had secured the work--voluntarily--of seeing to the Meeting House. His response was deadly serious. 'I'm glad,' he said. 'That will end temptation for--others.'" "He thought of using it--on your behalf--himself!" "I fancy so." Kate paused. Then, with an effort, she seemed to spur herself to her task. "There seems so much of it. Such a long, dreary story. I must skip to the time you came on the scene. It was then that serious trouble began. Danger really increased. But I was used to it by then. I loved it. I didn't care. I was pleased to think I was pitted against the police. You remember White Point? Like all the rest, I planned that. I was there. We beat your men on the trail, too. We contrived to temporarily cache the cargo, and afterward remove it to the Meeting House. Then later. You remember the night that you found Bill by the pine tree, which, by the way, served me as a mail office for orders from my local customers? They placed money and orders in one of the old crevices under the bark. You see, I never came into personal contact with them. It was I you saw there. I had just been there to get an order from O'Brien. Bill saw me--and mistook me for Charlie. Charlie was probably there, but it was I you saw drop down into hiding. That night was a great shock to me. I discovered that, disguised as a man, by some evil chance I became the double of Charlie. You can imagine my distress. In a flash I was made aware of the reason that he was bearing the blame for all my doings. This brought me another realization, too. My personality had been discovered. People must have seen me before. I was known by, perhaps distant, sight, and Charlie was blamed for all my doings. It left me with a resolve to defend him to my utmost, all the more so that I was convinced in my mind that he was doing his utmost to divert suspicion from me to himself. Even his own brother believed in his guilt. "When you opened your campaign against him, my cup of bitterness was full. Then it was I resolved to run cargo after cargo in the wild hope that some chance would reveal to you that Charlie was not your man. I resolved this, knowing you--and--and liking you, and being aware that every time I succeeded I was further helping to ruin you with your superiors, and in your career. It had to be. I had to sacrifice all my own feelings to--save Charlie." The shining eyes of the man gazed admiringly on the sad face of the loyal woman. "I think I see," he said. Kate raised her shoulders. "I hardly expected any one would see, or understand, what I felt, and the way I reasoned. You remember the cargo from Fort Allerton? It was my two boys, acting under my command, who bound and gagged your patrol, and fired the alarm. Pete brought me word of your plans. He had spied on you in your camp. But there was very nearly disaster in that affair. I dropped my pocketbook on the trail. It was full of incriminating papers. I did not discover my loss till I returned my disguise to the secret hut. You can imagine my horror at such a discovery. It meant everything. I waited desperately, expecting it to have been found by your men. Two days later, in a fever of apprehension, I went to search my clothes again at the corral. I felt it was useless. It could not be there. But my guardian angel had been at work. It was in its place in my coat pocket. Then I knew that Charlie was still watching over me. He had found it, and--returned it." Fyles nodded. "He was on the trail that night--I saw him." "Do you want to know the rest?" Kate went on. "Is it necessary? The heartless game I played on you. Do you understand it now? Oh, it was a cruel thing to do. But you drove me crazy with your suspicions, your obstinate suspicions, of Charlie. I was determined to pursue my ruthless course in his defense to the end. It was my only hope of relieving Charlie of suspicion--without betraying myself. But there were things I had not calculated on. Two things happened after I had offered you my challenge. I made my plans, and ordered my cargo, after telling you when and where it was to arrive. Then the two things happened. First? Bill ran foul of Pete. Pete was drunk and insulted Helen. Bill was there, and thrashed him soundly, and I was glad. But I feared for mischief. He knew my plans. I talked to him, and quickly realized my fears were well-founded. There was no help for it. I promptly changed my plans. The cargo was to come in by water. The escorted empty wagon by trail. I left that disposition, except that I decided the boat should be empty, too, and, unknown to any one but Holy Dick, I should bring in the cargo on a buckboard myself. You see, it left me free of any chance of treachery. When you told me of Pete's treachery I knew I had done well. Then the second thing happened, which served me with an excuse for leaving the village, which had become imperative to complete my change of plans. You remember. It was the tree. You remember I feared the old superstition, and I went to--Myrtle. "The rest. Yes, let me tell it quickly, while I still have the courage. You must fill in the gaps which I leave for yourself. Before I left, Charlie came here. He tried to stop me. I know why. He had some premonition of disaster. I, too, had the same premonition, but--I was quite reckless. He refused me his wagon, but I took it in spite of him. I had to have it. We quarreled for the first time. He left me in anger, and--I went. Everything was carried through successfully. I was in the road on Monday night with the cargo. I was keeping abreast of the wagon, in my buckboard, away to the south of it. I intended to make a quiet dash while you were busy with the boat and wagon. But my star was not in the ascendant. "While I was waiting for the moment to arrive I suddenly heard the firing, and I knew at once that the game was up. It was no longer simply smuggling. To me such shooting meant killing--and that----" she shuddered. "Perhaps I lost my head. I don't know. I raced for it. You came after me. One of my horses stumbled, and when it recovered I found it was dead lame. I had a saddle horse with me. You were hard on my heels by then. I abandoned the buckboard and cargo, and took to the saddle. I was keeping well ahead of you, and was only a short distance from the village. I raced down the hill to the culvert over the hay slough. As I did so I saw two horsemen coming in the opposite direction. I believed them to be police. I swung out to the south, intending to take the slough at a jump, and get away toward the border. Too late I realized the slough's miry state. I tried to get back to the culvert, but my horse failed me. The troubled beast floundered, then he fell, and my head struck the culvert." Kate was breathing quickly. The horror of it all was getting hold of her. But she went on in broken jerky sentences. "When I opened my eyes, Charlie was bending over me. I told him what had happened. Then he passed me over to Bill, and I fainted again. When I awoke I was here--at home. Bill had brought me here, and I know now what Charlie must have done." Fyles nodded. "He took your place, and drew us after him," he said. Then, after a pause. "Say, he did a big thing, Kate, and--he did it with his eyes wide open." But Kate was not listening. Tears were coursing down her cheeks, and she sat a poor, suffering, bowed creature whose spirit could no longer support the strain of her remorse. Her confession was complete, and again the horrors of her earlier sufferings were assailing her weakened spirit. Fyles waited for the storm to lessen. He no longer had doubts. His pity was for the reckless heart so hopelessly crushed. He had no blame, only pity, and--love. He knew now that all he had hoped and longed for was to be his. Kate cared for him. She had loved him from the start. His were the arms that would shelter her. His were the caresses that must woo that warm, palpitating spirit back to its confidence and strength. What was her past recklessness to him? He passed it by, and thanked God that, for all its wrong against the laws, she assessed a courage so fearless, and a brain so keen. There was no evil in her. She was a woman to love and live for. To work, and--to die for. And his feelings he knew had been shared by another. He rose from his chair and passed behind Kate's rocker. He leaned down and kissed her masses of beautiful dark hair. "Look up, Kate. Look up, dear. The old pine has fallen at last, and now--now there is to be peace in the valley for all time. Peace for you. Peace for me. We will go away together now, dear. And presently, please God, we'll come back to our--home." * * * * * Two days later Stanley Fyles and Big Brother Bill were standing at the doorway of Kate's house. It was evening, and four saddle horses were tied together in a bunch, ready saddled for the road. Bill stood chewing his thumb in silence. His thoughtful, blue eyes were gazing out across the valley at the little ranch house on the hill. Fyles was equally thoughtfully filling his pipe. "We haven't talked much about things before," he said, pressing the tobacco firmly into the bowl of his pipe with his little finger. "Guess there wasn't much room for talk between--you and me. But we had to say things sooner or later, on--account of--the girls. It's bad med'cine starting out brothers with any trouble sticking out between us. That's why I've started talking now--with the horses waiting saddled." Bill nodded. "I was desperate sore," he said, his blue eyes coming back to the other's face. "You see, I couldn't think right at first, back there in Amberley, and I blamed you to death. Still, I've done a big think since then. Yes, a huge big think. And--do you know I'm kind of sure now Charlie was just glad to do what he did." Then his voice dropped to an awed undertone. "It's queer how thinking makes you see things right. I kind of feel now, if Charlie was here, he'd tell us right away he's gladder he is where he is than ever he was--here. I'm just certain of it. That's the best of thinking hard. You sort of understand things better. I'm going to shake hands with you. Guess Charlie 'ud like me to--now. And it'll be a mighty hard shake, so you'll know I've thought hard, and--and just understood." Fyles winced under the giant's grip. But he smiled and nodded. Bill smiled and nodded, too, and then released the injured limb. It was the way of two men who understand. A sound came from within the house. It was the jingle of a spur and a swish of skirts. Fyles indicated the direction with his pipe. "Best quit talking now," he said. "It's--it's the girls." Bill wagged a sapient head, and moved over to the horses. "Right ho, Stanley." "Right ho, Bill." The big blue eyes met the steady brown eyes in a final, smiling glance of mutual understanding as Kate and Helen appeared in the doorway. Popular Copyright Novels _AT MODERATE PRICES_ Ask Your Dealer for a Complete List of A. L. Burt Company's Popular Copyright Fiction =Adventures of Jimmie Dale, The.= By Frank L. Packard. =Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.= By A. Conan Doyle. =After House, The.= By Mary Roberts Rinehart. =Ailsa Paige.= By Robert W. Chambers. =Alton of Somasco.= By Harold Bindloss. =Amateur Gentleman, The.= By Jeffery Farnol. =Anna, the Adventuress.= By E. Phillips Oppenheim. =Anne's House of Dreams.= By L. M. Montgomery. =Around Old Chester.= By Margaret Deland. =Athalie.= By Robert W. Chambers. =At the Mercy of Tiberius.= By Augusta Evans Wilson. =Auction Block, The.= By Rex Beach. =Aunt Jane of Kentucky.= By Eliza C. Hall. =Awakening of Helena Richie.= By Margaret Deland. =Bab: a Sub-Deb.= By Mary Roberts Rinehart. =Barrier, The.= By Rex Beach. =Barbarians.= By Robert W. Chambers. =Bargain True, The.= By Nalbro Bartley. =Bar 20.= By Clarence E. Mulford. =Bar 20 Days.= By Clarence E. Mulford. =Bars of Iron, The.= By Ethel M. Dell. =Beasts of Tarzan, The.= By Edgar Rice Burroughs. =Beloved Traitor, The.= By Frank L. Packard. =Beltane the Smith.= By Jeffery Farnol. =Betrayal, The.= By E. Phillips Oppenheim. =Beyond the Frontier.= By Randall Parrish. =Big Timber.= By Bertrand W. Sinclair. =Black Is White.= By George Barr McCutcheon. =Blind Man's Eyes, The.= By Wm. MacHarg and Edwin Balmer. =Bob, Son of Battle.= By Alfred Ollivant. =Boston Blackie.= By Jack Boyle. =Boy with Wings, The.= By Berta Ruck. =Brandon of the Engineers.= By Harold Bindloss. =Broad Highway, The.= By Jeffery Farnol. =Brown Study, The.= By Grace S. Richmond. =Bruce of the Circle A.= By Harold Titus. =Buck Peters, Ranchman.= By Clarence E. Mulford. =Business of Life, The.= By Robert W. Chambers. =Cabbages and Kings.= By O. Henry. =Cabin Fever.= By B. M. Bower. =Calling of Dan Matthews, The.= By Harold Bell Wright. =Cape Cod Stories.= By Joseph C. Lincoln. =Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper.= By James A. Cooper. =Cap'n Dan's Daughter.= By Joseph C. Lincoln. =Cap'n Eri.= By Joseph C. Lincoln. =Cap'n Jonah's Fortune.= By James A. Cooper. =Cap'n Warren's Wards.= By Joseph C. Lincoln. =Chain of Evidence, A.= By Carolyn Wells. =Chief Legatee, The.= By Anna Katharine Green. =Cinderella Jane.= By Marjorie B. Cooke. =Cinema Murder, The.= By E. Phillips Oppenheim. =City of Masks, The.= By George Barr McCutcheon. =Cleek of Scotland Yard.= By T. W. Hanshew. =Cleek, The Man of Forty Faces.= By Thomas W. Hanshew. =Cleek's Government Cases.= By Thomas W. Hanshew. =Clipped Wings.= By Rupert Hughes. =Clue, The.= By Carolyn Wells. =Clutch of Circumstance, The.= By Marjorie Benton Cooke. =Coast of Adventure, The.= By Harold Bindloss. =Coming of Cassidy, The.= By Clarence E. Mulford. =Coming of the Law, The.= By Chas. A. Seltzer. =Conquest of Canaan, The.= By Booth Tarkington. =Conspirators, The.= By Robert W. Chambers. =Court of Inquiry, A.= By Grace S. Richmond. =Cow Puncher, The.= By Robert J. C. Stead. =Crimson Gardenia, The, and Other Tales of Adventure.= By Rex Beach. =Cross Currents.= By Author of "Pollyanna." =Cry in the Wilderness, A.= By Mary E. Waller. =Danger, And Other Stories.= By A. Conan Doyle. =Dark Hollow, The.= By Anna Katharine Green. =Dark Star, The.= By Robert W. Chambers. =Daughter Pays, The.= By Mrs. Baillie Reynolds. =Day of Days, The.= By Louis Joseph Vance. =Depot Master, The.= By Joseph C. Lincoln. =Desired Woman, The.= By Will N. Harben. =Destroying Angel, The.= By Louis Jos. Vance. =Devil's Own, The.= By Randall Parrish. =Double Traitor=, The. By E. Phillips Oppenheim. =Empty Pockets.= By Rupert Hughes. =Eyes of the Blind=, The. By Arthur Somers Roche. =Eye of Dread, The.= By Payne Erskine. =Eyes of the World, The.= By Harold Bell Wright. =Extricating Obadiah.= By Joseph C. Lincoln. =Felix O'Day.= By F. Hopkinson Smith. =54-40 or Fight.= By Emerson Hough. =Fighting Chance, The.= By Robert W. Chambers. =Fighting Shepherdess, The.= By Caroline Lockhart. =Financier, The.= By Theodore Dreiser. =Flame, The.= By Olive Wadsley. =Flamsted Quarries.= By Mary E. Wallar. =Forfeit, The.= By Ridgwell Cullum. =Four Million, The.= By O. Henry. =Fruitful Vine, The.= By Robert Hichens. =Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale, The.= By Frank L. Packard. =Girl of the Blue Ridge, A.= By Payne Erskine. =Girl from Keller's, The.= By Harold Bindloss. =Girl Philippa, The.= By Robert W. Chambers. =Girls at His Billet, The.= By Berta Ruck. =God's Country and the Woman.= By James Oliver Curwood. =Going Some.= By Rex Beach. =Golden Slipper, The.= By Anna Katharine Green. =Golden Woman, The.= By Ridgwell Cullum. =Greater Love Hath No Man.= By Frank L. Packard. =Greyfriars Bobby.= By Eleanor Atkinson. =Gun Brand, The.= By James B. Hendryx. =Halcyone.= By Elinor Glyn. =Hand of Fu-Manchu=, The. By Sax Rohmer. =Havoc.= By E. Phillips Oppenheim. =Heart of the Desert=, The. By Honoré Willsie. =Heart of the Hills, The.= By John Fox, Jr. =Heart of the Sunset.= By Rex Beach. =Heart of Thunder Mountain, The.= By Edfrid A. Bingham. =Her Weight in Gold.= By Geo. B. McCutcheon. =Hidden Children, The.= By Robert W. Chambers. =Hidden Spring, The.= By Clarence B. Kelland. =Hillman, The.= By E. Phillips Oppenheim. =Hills of Refuge, The.= By Will N. Harben. =His Official Fiancee.= By Berta Ruck. =Honor of the Big Snows.= By James Oliver Curwood. =Hopalong Cassidy.= By Clarence E. Mulford. =Hound from the North, The.= By Ridgwell Cullum. =House of the Whispering Pines, The.= By Anna Katharine Green. =Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker.= By S. Weir Mitchell, M.D. =I Conquered.= By Harold Titus. =Illustrious Prince, The.= By E. Phillips Oppenheim. =In Another Girl's Shoes.= By Berta Ruck. =Indifference of Juliet, The.= By Grace S. Richmond. =Infelice.= By Augusta Evans Wilson. =Initials Only.= By Anna Katharine Green. =Inner Law, The.= By Will N. Harben. =Innocent.= By Marie Corelli. =Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu, The.= By Sax Rohmer. =In the Brooding Wild.= By Ridgwell Cullum. =Intriguers, The.= By Harold Bindloss. =Iron Trail, The.= By Rex Beach. =Iron Woman, The.= By Margaret Deland. =I Spy.= By Natalie Sumner Lincoln. =Japonette.= By Robert W. Chambers. =Jean of the Lazy A.= By B. M. Bower. =Jeanne of the Marshes.= By E. Phillips Oppenheim. =Jennie Gerhardt.= By Theodore Dreiser. =Judgment House, The.= By Gilbert Parker. =Keeper of the Door, The.= By Ethel M. Dell. =Keith of the Border.= By Randall Parrish. =Kent Knowles: Ouahaug.= By Joseph C. Lincoln. =Kingdom of the Blind. The.= By E. Phillips Oppenheim. =King Spruce.= By Holman Day. =King's Widow, The.= By Mrs. Baillie Reynolds. =Knave of Diamonds, The.= By Ethel M. Dell. =Ladder of Swords.= By Gilbert Parker. =Lady Betty Across the Water.= By C. N. & A. M. Williamson. =Land-Girl's Love Story, A.= By Berta Ruck. =Landloper, The.= By Holman Day. =Land of Long Ago, The.= By Eliza Calvert Hall. =Land of Strong Men, The.= By A. M. Chisholm. =Last Trail, The.= By Zane Grey. =Laugh and Live.= By Douglas Fairbanks. =Laughing Bill Hyde.= By Rex Beach. =Laughing Girl, The.= By Robert W. Chambers. =Law Breakers, The.= By Ridgwell Cullum. =Lifted Veil, The.= By Basil King. =Lighted Way, The.= By E. Phillips Oppenheim. =Lin McLean.= By Owen Wister. =Lonesome Land.= By B. M. Bower. =Lone Wolf, The.= By Louis Joseph Vance. =Long Ever Ago.= By Rupert Hughes. =Lonely Stronghold, The.= By Mrs. Baillie Reynolds. =Long Live the King.= By Mary Roberts Rinehart. =Long Roll, The.= By Mary Johnston. =Lord Tony's Wife.= By Baroness Orczy. =Lost Ambassador.= By E. Phillips Oppenheim. =Lost Prince, The.= By Frances Hodgson Burnett. =Lydia of the Pines.= By Honoré Willsie. =Maid of the Forest, The.= By Randall Parrish. =Maid of the Whispering Hills, The.= By Vingie E. Roe. =Maids of Paradise, The.= By Robert W. Chambers. =Major, The.= By Ralph Connor. =Maker of History, A.= By E. Phillips Oppenheim. =Malefactor, The.= By E. Phillips Oppenheim. =Man from Bar 20, The.= By Clarence E. Mulford. =Man in Grey, The.= By Baroness Orczy. =Man Trail, The.= By Henry Oyen. =Man Who Couldn't Sleep, The.= By Arthur Stringer. =Man with the Club Foot, The.= By Valentine Williams. =Mary-'Gusta.= By Joseph C. Lincoln. =Mary Moreland.= By Marie Van Vorst. =Mary Regan.= By Leroy Scott. =Master Mummer, The.= By E. Phillips Oppenheim. =Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes.= By A. Conan Doyle. =Men Who Wrought, The.= By Ridgwell Cullum. =Mischief Maker, The.= By E. Phillips Oppenheim. =Missioner, The.= By E. Phillips Oppenheim. =Miss Million's Maid.= By Berta Ruck. =Molly McDonald.= By Randall Parrish. =Money Master, The.= By Gilbert Parker. =Money Moon, The.= By Jeffery Farnol. =Mountain Girl, The.= By Payne Erskine. =Moving Finger, The.= By Natalie Sumner Lincoln. =Mr. Bingle.= By George Barr McCutcheon. =Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo.= By E. Phillips Oppenheim. =Mr. Pratt.= By Joseph C. Lincoln. =Mr. Pratt's Patients.= By Joseph C. Lincoln. =Mrs. Belfame.= By Gertrude Atherton. =Mrs. Red Pepper.= By Grace S. Richmond. =My Lady Caprice.= By Jeffrey Farnol. =My Lady of the North.= By Randall Parrish. =My Lady of the South.= By Randall Parrish. =Mystery of the Hasty Arrow, The.= By Anna K. Green. =Nameless Man, The.= By Natalie Sumner Lincoln. =Ne'er-Do-Well, The.= By Rex Beach. =Nest Builders, The.= By Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale. =Net, The.= By Rex Beach. =New Clarion.= By Will N. Harben. =Night Operator, The.= By Frank L. Packard. =Night Riders, The.= By Ridgwell Cullum. =Nobody.= By Louis Joseph Vance. =Okewood of the Secret Service.= By the Author of "The Man with the Club Foot." =One Way Trail, The.= By Ridgwell Cullum. =Open, Sesame.= By Mrs. Baillie Reynolds. =Otherwise Phyllis.= By Meredith Nicholson. =Outlaw, The.= By Jackson Gregory. =Paradise Auction.= By Nalbro Bartley. =Pardners.= By Rex Beach. =Parrot & Co.= By Harold MacGrath. =Partners of the Night.= By Leroy Scott. =Partners of the Tide.= By Joseph C. Lincoln. =Passionate Friends, The.= By H. G. Wells. =Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail, The.= By Ralph Connor. =Paul Anthony, Christian.= By Hiram W. Hays. =Pawns Count, The.= By E. Phillips Oppenheim. =People's Man, A.= By E. Phillips Oppenheim. =Perch of the Devil.= By Gertrude Atherton. =Peter Ruff and the Double Four.= By E. Phillips Oppenheim. =Pidgin Island.= By Harold MacGrath. =Place of Honeymoon, The.= By Harold MacGrath. =Pool of Flame, The.= By Louis Joseph Vance. =Postmaster, The.= By Joseph C. Lincoln. =Prairie Wife, The.= By Arthur Stringer. =Price of the Prairie, The.= By Margaret Hill McCarter. =Prince of Sinners, A.= By E. Phillips Oppenheim. =Promise, The.= By J. B. Hendryx. =Proof of the Pudding, The.= By Meredith Nicholson. =Rainbow's End, The.= By Rex Beach. =Ranch at the Wolverine, The.= By B. M. Bower. =Ranching for Sylvia.= By Harold Bindloss. =Ransom.= By Arthur Somers Roche. =Reason Why, The.= By Elinor Glyn. =Reclaimers, The.= By Margaret Hill McCarter. =Red Mist, The.= By Randall Parrish. =Red Pepper Burns.= By Grace S. Richmond. =Red Pepper's Patients.= By Grace S. Richmond. =Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary, The.= By Anne Warner. =Restless Sex, The.= By Robert W. Chambers. =Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu, The.= By Sax Rohmer. =Return of Tarzan, The.= By Edgar Rice Burroughs. =Riddle of Night, The.= By Thomas W. Hanshew. =Rim of the Desert, The.= By Ada Woodruff Anderson. =Rise of Roscoe Paine, The.= By J. C. Lincoln. =Rising Tide, The.= By Margaret Deland. =Rocks of Valpré, The.= By Ethel M. Dell. =Rogue by Compulsion, A.= By Victor Bridges. =Room Number 3.= By Anna Katharine Green. =Rose in the Ring, The.= By George Barr McCutcheon. =Rose of Old Harpeth, The.= By Maria Thompson Daviess. =Round the Corner in Gay Street.= By Grace S. Richmond. =Second Choice.= By Will N. Harben. =Second Violin, The.= By Grace S. Richmond. =Secret History.= By C. N. & A. M. Williamson. =Secret of the Reef, The.= By Harold Bindloss. =Seven Darlings, The.= By Gouverneur Morris. =Shavings.= By Joseph C. Lincoln. =Shepherd of the Hills, The.= By Harold Bell Wright. =Sheriff of Dyke Hole, The.= By Ridgwell Cullum. =Sherry.= By George Barr McCutcheon. =Side of the Angels, The.= By Basil King. =Silver Horde, The.= By Rex Beach. =Sin That Was His, The.= By Frank L. Packard. =Sixty-first Second, The.= By Owen Johnson. =Soldier of the Legion, A.= By C. N. & A. M. Williamson. =Son of His Father, The.= By Ridgwell Cullum. =Son of Tarzan, The.= By Edgar Rice Burroughs. =Source, The.= By Clarence Buddington Kelland. =Speckled Bird, A.= By Augusta Evans Wilson. =Spirit in Prison, A.= By Robert Hichens. =Spirit of the Border, The.= (New Edition.) By Zane Grey. =Spoilers, The.= By Rex Beach. =Steele of the Royal Mounted.= By James Oliver Curwood. =Still Jim.= By Honoré Willsie. =Story of Foss River Ranch, The.= By Ridgwell Cullum. =Story of Marco, The.= By Eleanor H. Porter. =Strange Case of Cavendish, The.= By Randall Parrish. =Strawberry Acres.= By Grace S. Richmond. =Sudden Jim.= By Clarence B. Kelland. =Tales of Sherlock Holmes.= By A. Conan Doyle. =Tarzan of the Apes.= By Edgar R. Burroughs. =Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar.= By Edgar Rice Burroughs. =Tempting of Tavernake, The.= By E. Phillips Oppenheim. =Tess of the D'Urbervilles.= By Thos. Hardy. =Thankful's Inheritance.= By Joseph C. Lincoln. =That Affair Next Door.= By Anna Katharine Green. =That Printer of Udell's.= By Harold Bell Wright. =Their Yesterdays.= By Harold Bell Wright. =Thirteenth Commandment, The.= By Rupert Hughes. =Three of Hearts, The.= By Berta Ruck. =Three Strings, The.= By Natalie Sumner Lincoln. =Threshold, The.= By Marjorie Benton Cooke. =Throwback, The.= By Alfred Henry Lewis. =Tish.= By Mary Roberts Rinehart. =To M. L. G.; or, He Who Passed.= Anon. =Trail of the Axe, The.= By Ridgwell Cullum. =Trail to Yesterday, The.= By Chas. A. Seltzer. =Treasure of Heaven, The.= By Marie Corelli. =Triumph, The.= By Will N. Harben. =T. Tembarom.= By Frances Hodgson Burnett. =Turn of the Tide.= By Author of "Pollyanna." =Twenty-fourth of June, The.= By Grace S. Richmond. =Twins of Suffering Creek, The.= By Ridgwell Cullum. =Two-Gun Man, The.= By Chas. A. Seltzer. =Uncle William.= By Jeannette Lee. =Under Handicap.= By Jackson Gregory. =Under the Country Sky.= By Grace S. Richmond. =Unforgiving Offender, The.= By John Reed Scott. =Unknown Mr. Kent, The.= By Roy Norton. =Unpardonable Sin, The.= By Major Rupert Hughes. =Up From Slavery.= By Booker T. Washington. =Valiants of Virginia, The.= By Hallie Ermine Rives. =Valley of Fear, The.= By Sir A. Conan Doyle. =Vanished Messenger, The.= By E. Phillips Oppenheim. =Vanguards of the Plains.= By Margaret Hill McCarter. =Vashti.= By Augusta Evans Wilson. =Virtuous Wives.= By Owen Johnson. =Visioning, The.= By Susan Glaspell. =Waif-o'-the-Sea.= By Cyrus Townsend Brady. =Wall of Men, A.= By Margaret H. McCarter. =Watchers of the Plans, The.= By Ridgwell Cullum. =Way Home, The.= By Basil King. =Way of an Eagle, The.= By E. M. Dell. =Way of the Strong, The.= By Ridgwell Cullum. =Way of These Women, The.= By E. Phillips Oppenheim. =We Can't Have Everything.= By Major Rupert Hughes. =Weavers, The.= By Gilbert Parker. =When a Man's a Man.= By Harold Bell Wright. =When Wilderness Was King.= By Randall Parrish. =Where the Trail Divides.= By Will Lillibridge. =Where There's a Will.= By Mary R. Rinehart. =White Sister, The.= By Marion Crawford. =Who Goes There?= By Robert W. Chambers. =Why Not.= By Margaret Widdemer. =Window at the White Cat, The.= By Mary Roberts Rinehart. =Winds of Chance, The.= By Rex Beach. =Wings of Youth, The.= By Elizabeth Jordan. =Winning of Barbara Worth, The.= By Harold Bell Wright. =Wire Devils, The.= By Frank L. Packard. =Winning the Wilderness.= By Margaret Hill McCarter. =Wishing Ring Man, The.= By Margaret Widdemer. =With Juliet in England.= By Grace S. Richmond. =Wolves of the Sea.= By Randall Parrish. =Woman Gives, The.= By Owen Johnson. =Woman Haters, The.= By Joseph C. Lincoln. =Woman in Question, The.= By John Reed Scott. =Woman Thou Gavest Me, The.= By Hall Caine. =Woodcarver of 'Lympus, The.= By Mary E. Waller. =Wooing of Rosamond Fayre, The.= By Berta Ruck. =World for Sale, The.= By Gilbert-Parker. =Years for Rachel, The.= By Berta Ruck. =Yellow Claw, The.= By Sax Rohmer. =You Never Know Your Luck.= By Gilbert Parker. =Zeppelin's Passenger, The.= By E. Phillips Oppenheim. TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES: 1. Minor changes have been made to correct typesetter's errors; otherwise every effort has been made to remain true to the author's words and intent. 2. In the advertising listing at the end of the book, the = has been used to indicate that the book titles were typeset in bold in the original book.