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diff --git a/old/btgdc10.txt b/old/btgdc10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..995c0eb --- /dev/null +++ b/old/btgdc10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7234 @@ +The Project Gutenberg Etext of Back to God's Country and Other Stories +by James Oliver Curwood +#2 in our series by James Oliver Curwood + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before distributing this or any other +Project Gutenberg file. + +We encourage you to keep this file, exactly as it is, on your +own disk, thereby keeping an electronic path open for future +readers. Please do not remove this. + +This header should be the first thing seen when anyone starts to +view the etext. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.10/04/01*END* + + + + + + +Etext prepared by Dianne Bean, Prescott Valley, Arizona. + + + + +BACK TO GOD'S COUNTRY AND OTHER STORIES + +BY + +JAMES OLIVER CURWOOD + + + +CONTENTS + +Back to God's Country + +The Yellow-Back + +The Fiddling Man + +L'ange + +The Case of Beauvais + +The Other Man's Wife + +The Strength of Men + +The Match + +The Honor of Her People + +Bucky Severn + +His First Penitent + +Peter God + +The Mouse + + + +BACK TO GOD'S COUNTRY + +When Shan Tung, the long-cued Chinaman from Vancouver, started up the +Frazer River in the old days when the Telegraph Trail and the headwaters +of the Peace were the Meccas of half the gold-hunting population of +British Columbia, he did not foresee tragedy ahead of him. He was a +clever man, was Shan Tung, a cha-sukeed, a very devil in the collecting +of gold, and far-seeing. But he could not look forty years into the +future, and when Shan Tung set off into the north, that winter, he was in +reality touching fire to the end of a fuse that was to burn through four +decades before the explosion came. + +With Shan Tung went Tao, a Great Dane. The Chinaman had picked him up +somewhere on the coast and had trained him as one trains a horse. Tao was +the biggest dog ever seen about the Height of Land, the most powerful, +and at times the most terrible. Of two things Shan Tung was enormously +proud in his silent and mysterious oriental way--of Tao, the dog, and of +his long, shining cue which fell to the crook of his knees when he let it +down. It had been the longest cue in Vancouver, and therefore it was the +longest cue in British Columbia. The cue and the dog formed the +combination which set the forty-year fuse of romance and tragedy burning. +Shan Tung started for the El Dorados early in the winter, and Tao alone +pulled his sledge and outfit. It was no more than an ordinary task for +the monstrous Great Dane, and Shan Tung subserviently but with hidden +triumph passed outfit after outfit exhausted by the way. He had reached +Copper Creek Camp, which was boiling and frothing with the excitement of +gold-maddened men, and was congratulating himself that he would soon be +at the camps west of the Peace, when the thing happened. A drunken +Irishman, filled with a grim and unfortunate sense of humor, spotted Shan +Tung's wonderful cue and coveted it. Wherefore there followed a bit of +excitement in which Shan Tung passed into his empyrean home with a bullet +through his heart, and the drunken Irishman was strung up for his misdeed +fifteen minutes later. Tao, the Great Dane, was taken by the leader of +the men who pulled on the rope. Tao's new master was a "drifter," and as +he drifted, his face was always set to the north, until at last a new +humor struck him and he turned eastward to the Mackenzie. As the seasons +passed, Tao found mates along the way and left a string of his progeny +behind him, and he had new masters, one after another, until he was grown +old and his muzzle was turning gray. And never did one of these masters +turn south with him. Always it was north, north with the white man first, +north with the Cree, and then wit h the Chippewayan, until in the end the +dog born in a Vancouver kennel died in an Eskimo igloo on the Great Bear. +But the breed of the Great Dane lived on. Here and there, as the years +passed, one would find among the Eskimo trace-dogs, a grizzled-haired, +powerful-jawed giant that was alien to the arctic stock, and in these +occasional aliens ran the blood of Tao, the Dane. + +Forty years, more or less, after Shan Tung lost his life and his cue at +Copper Creek Camp, there was born on a firth of Coronation Gulf a dog who +was named Wapi, which means "the Walrus." Wapi, at full growth, was a +throwback of more than forty dog generations. He was nearly as large as +his forefather, Tao. His fangs were an inch in length, his great jaws +could crack the thigh-bone of a caribou, and from the beginning the hands +of men and the fangs of beasts were against him. Almost from the day of +his birth until this winter of his fourth year, life for Wapi had been an +unceasing fight for existence. He was maya-tisew--bad with the badness of +a devil. His reputation had gone from master to master and from igloo to +igloo; women and children were afraid of him, and men always spoke to him +with the club or the lash in their hands. He was hated and feared, and +yet because he could run down a barren-land caribou and kill it within a +mile, and would hold a big white bear at bay until the hunters came, he +was not sacrificed to this hate and fear. A hundred whips and clubs and a +hundred pairs of hands were against him between Cape Perry and the crown +of Franklin Bay--and the fangs of twice as many dogs. + +The dogs were responsible. Quick-tempered, clannish with the savage +brotherhood of the wolves, treacherous, jealous of leadership, and with +the older instincts of the dog dead within them, their merciless feud +with what they regarded as an interloper of another breed put the devil +heart in Wapi. In all the gray and desolate sweep of his world he had no +friend. The heritage of Tao, his forefather, had fallen upon him, and he +was an alien in a land of strangers. As the dogs and the men and women +and children hated him, so he hated them. He hated the sight and smell of +the round-faced, blear-eyed creatures who were his master, yet he obeyed +them, sullenly, watchfully, with his lips wrinkled warningly over fangs +which had twice torn out the life of white bears. Twenty times he had +killed other dogs. He had fought them singly, and in pairs, and in packs. +His giant body bore the scars of a hundred wounds. He had been clubbed +until a part of his body was deformed and he traveled with a limp. He +kept to himself even in the mating season. And all this because Wapi, the +Walrus, forty years removed from the Great Dane of Vancouver, was a white +man's dog. + +Stirring restlessly within him, sometimes coming to him in dreams and +sometimes in a great and unfulfilled yearning, Wapi felt vaguely the +strange call of his forefathers. It was impossible for him to understand. +It was impossible for him to know what it meant. And yet he did know that +somewhere there was something for which he was seeking and which he never +found. The desire and the questing came to him most compellingly in the +long winter filled with its eternal starlight, when the maddening yap, +yap, yap of the little white foxes, the barking of the dogs, and the +Eskimo chatter oppressed him like the voices of haunting ghosts. In these +long months, filled with the horror of the arctic night, the spirit of +Tao whispered within him that somewhere there was light and sun, that +somewhere there was warmth and flowers, and running streams, and voices +he could understand, and things he could love. And then Wapi would whine, +and perhaps the whine would bring him the blow of a club, or the lash of +a whip, or an Eskimo threat, or the menace of an Eskimo dog's snarl. Of +the latter Wapi was unafraid. With a snap of his jaws, he could break the +back of any other dog on Franklin Bay. + +Such was Wapi, the Walrus, when for two sacks of flour, some tobacco, and +a bale of cloth he became the property of Blake, the uta-wawe-yinew, the +trader in seals, whalebone--and women. On this day Wapi's soul took its +flight back through the space of forty years. For Blake was white, which +is to say that at one time or another he had been white. His skin and his +appearance did not betray how black he had turned inside and Wapi's brute +soul cried out to him, telling him how he had waited and watched for this +master he knew would come, how he would fight for him, how he wanted to +lie down and put his great head on the white man's feet in token of his +fealty. But Wapi's bloodshot eyes and battle-scarred face failed to +reveal what was in him, and Blake--following the instructions of those +who should know--ruled him from the beginning with a club that was more +brutal than the club of the Eskimo. + +For three months Wapi had been the property of Blake, and it was now the +dead of a long and sunless arctic night. Blake's cabin, built of ship +timber and veneered with blocks of ice, was built in the face of a deep +pit that sheltered it from wind and storm. To this cabin came the +Nanatalmutes from the east, and the Kogmollocks from the west, bartering +their furs and whalebone and seal-oil for the things Blake gave in +exchange, and adding women to their wares whenever Blake announced a +demand. The demand had been excellent this winter. Over in Darnley Bay, +thirty miles across the headland, was the whaler Harpoon frozen up for +the winter with a crew of thirty men, and straight out from the face of +his igloo cabin, less than a mile away, was the Flying Moon with a crew +of twenty more. It was Blake's business to wait and watch like a hawk for +such opportunities as there, and tonight--his watch pointed to the hour +of twelve, midnight--he was sitting in the light of a sputtering seal-oil +lamp adding up figures which told him that his winter, only half gone, +had already been an enormously profitable one. + +"If the Mounted Police over at Herschel only knew," he chuckled. "Uppy, +if they did, they'd have an outfit after us in twenty-four hours." + +Oopi, his Eskimo right-hand man, had learned to understand English, and +he nodded, his moon-face split by a wide and enigmatic grin. In his way, +"Uppy" was as clever as Shan Tung had been in his. + +And Blake added, "We've sold every fur and every pound of bone and oil, +and we've forty Upisk wives to our credit at fifty dollars apiece." + +Uppy's grin became larger, and his throat was filled with an exultant +rattle. In the matter of the Upisk wives he knew that he stood ace-high. + +"Never," said Blake, "has our wife-by-the-month business been so good. If +it wasn't for Captain Rydal and his love-affair, we'd take a vacation and +go hunting." + +He turned, facing the Eskimo, and the yellow flame of the lamp lit up his +face. It was the face of a remarkable man. A black beard concealed much +of its cruelty and its cunning, a beard as carefully Van-dycked as though +Blake sat in a professional chair two thousand miles south, but the beard +could not hide the almost inhuman hardness of the eyes. There was a +glittering light in them as he looked at the Eskimo. "Did you see her +today, Uppy? Of course you did. My Gawd, if a woman could ever tempt me, +she could! And Rydal is going to have her. Unless I miss my guess, +there's going to be money in it for us--a lot of it. The funny part of it +is, Rydal's got to get rid of her husband. And how's he going to do it, +Uppy? Eh? Answer me that. How's he going to do it?" + +In a hole he had dug for himself in the drifted snow under a huge scarp +of ice a hundred yards from the igloo cabin lay Wapi. His bed was red +with the stain of blood, and a trail of blood led from the cabin to the +place where he had hidden himself. Not many hours ago, when by God's sun +it should have been day, he had turned at last on a teasing, snarling, +back-biting little kiskanuk of a dog and had killed it. And Blake and +Uppy had beaten him until he was almost dead. + +It was not of the beating that Wapi was thinking as he lay in his wallow. +He was thinking of the fur-clad figure that had come between Blake's club +and his body, of the moment when for the first time in his life he had +seen the face of a white woman. She had stopped Blake's club. He had +heard her voice. She had bent over him, and she would have put her hand +on him if his master had not dragged her back with a cry of warning. She +had gone into the cabin then, and he had dragged himself away. + +Since then a new and thrilling flame had burned in him. For a time his +senses had been dazed by his punishment, but now every instinct in him +was like a living wire. Slowly he pulled himself from his retreat and sat +down on his haunches. His gray muzzle was pointed to the sky. The same +stars were there, burning in cold, white points of flame as they had +burned week after week in the maddening monotony of the long nights near +the pole. They were like a million pitiless eyes, never blinking, always +watching, things of life and fire, and yet dead. And at those eyes, the +little white foxes yapped so incessantly that the sound of it drove men +mad. They were yapping now. They were never still. And with their yapping +came the droning, hissing monotone of the aurora, like the song of a vast +piece of mechanism in the still farther north. Toward this Wapi turned +his bruised and beaten head. Out there, just beyond the ghostly pale of +vision, was the ship. Fifty times he had slunk out and around it, +cautiously as the foxes themselves. He had caught its smells and its +sounds; he had come near enough to hear the voices of men, and those +voices were like the voice of Blake, his master. Therefore, he had never +gone nearer. + +There was a change in him now. His big pads fell noiselessly as he slunk +back to the cabin and sniffed for a scent in the snow. He found it. It +was the trail of the white woman. His blood tingled again, as it had +tingled when her face bent over him and her hand reached out, and in his +soul there rose up the ghost of Tao to whip him on. He followed the +woman's footprints slowly, stopping now and then to listen, and each +moment the spirit in him grew more insistent, and he whined up at the +stars. At last he saw the ship, a wraithlike thing in its piled-up bed of +ice, and he stopped. This was his dead-line. He had never gone nearer. +But tonight--if any one period could be called night--he went on. + +It was the hour of sleep, and there was no sound aboard. The foxes, never +tiring of their infuriating sport, were yapping at the ship. They barked +faster and louder when they caught the scent of Wapi, and as he +approached, they drifted farther away. The scent of the woman's trail led +up the wide bridge of ice, and Wapi followed this as he would have +followed a road, until he found himself all at once on the deck of the +Flying Moon. For a space he was startled. His long fangs bared themselves +at the shadows cast by the stars. Then he saw ahead of him a narrow +ribbon of yellow light. Toward this Wapi sniffed out, step by step, the +footprints of the woman. When he stopped again, his muzzle was at the +narrow crack through which came the glimmer of light. + +It was the door of a deck-house veneered like an igloo with snow and ice +to protect it from cold and wind. It was, perhaps, half an inch ajar, and +through that aperture Wapi drank the warm, sweet perfume of the woman. +With it he caught also the smell of a man. But in him the woman scent +submerged all else. Overwhelmed by it, he stood trembling, not daring to +move, every inch of him thrilled by a vast and mysterious yearning. He +was no longer Wapi, the Walrus; Wapi, the Killer. Tao was there. And it +may be that the spirit of Shan Tung was there. For after forty years the +change had come, and Wapi, as he stood at the woman's door, was just +dog,--a white man's dog--again the dog of the Vancouver kennel--the dog +of a white man's world. + +He thrust open the door with his nose. He slunk in, so silently that he +was not heard. The cabin was lighted. In a bed lay a white-faced, +hollow-cheeked man--awake. On a low stool at his side sat a woman. The +light of the lamp hanging from above warmed with gold fires the thick and +radiant mass of her hair. She was leaning over the sick man. One slim, +white hand was stroking his face gently, and she was speaking to him in a +voice so sweet and soft that it stirred like wonderful music in Wapi's +warped and beaten soul. And then, with a great sigh, he flopped down, an +abject slave, on the edge of her dress. + +With a startled cry the woman turned. For a moment she stared at the +great beast wide-eyed, then there came slowly into her face recognition +and understanding. "Why, it's the dog Blake whipped so terribly," she +gasped. "Peter, it's--it's Wapi!" For the first time Wapi felt the caress +of a woman's hand, soft, gentle, pitying, and out of him there came a +wimpering sound that was almost a sob. + +"It's the dog--he whipped," she repeated, and, then, if Wapi could have +understood, he would have noted the tense pallor of her lovely face and +the look of a great fear that was away back in the staring blue depths of +her eyes. + +From his pillow Peter Keith had seen the look of fear and the paleness of +her cheeks, but he was a long way from guessing the truth. Yet he thought +he knew. For days--yes, for weeks--there had been that growing fear in +her eyes. He had seen her mighty fight to hide it from him. And he +thought he understood. + +"I know it has been a terrible winter for you, dear," he had said to her +many times. "But you mustn't worry so much about me. I'll be on my feet +again--soon." He had always emphasized that. "I'll be on my feet again +soon!" + +Once, in the breaking terror of her heart, she had almost told him the +truth. Afterward she had thanked God for giving her the strength to keep +it back. It was day--for they spoke in terms of day and night--when +Rydal, half drunk, had dragged her into his cabin, and she had fought him +until her hair was down about her in tangled confusion--and she had told +Peter that it was the wind. After that, instead of evading him, she had +played Rydal with her wits, while praying to God for help. It was +impossible to tell Peter. He had aged steadily and terribly in the last +two weeks. His eyes were sunken into deep pits. His blond hair was +turning gray over the temples. His cheeks were hollowed, and there was a +different sort of luster in his eyes. He looked fifty instead of +thirty-five. Her heart bled in its agony. She loved Peter with a +wonderful love. + +The truth! If she told him that! She could see Peter rising up out of his +bed like a ghost. It would kill him. If he could have seen Rydal--only an +hour before--stopping her out on the deck, taking her in his arms, and +kissing her until his drunken breath and his beard sickened her! And if +he could have heard what Rydal had said! She shuddered. And suddenly she +dropped down on her knees beside Wapi and took his great head in her +arms, unafraid of him--and glad that he had come. + +Then she turned to Peter. "I'm going ashore to see Blake again--now," she +said. "Wapi will go with me, and I won't be afraid. I insist that I am +right, so please don't object any more, Peter dear." + +She bent over and kissed him, and then in spite of his protest, put on +her fur coat and hood, and stood for a moment smiling down at him. The +fear was gone out of her eyes now. It was impossible for him not to smile +at her loveliness. He had always been proud of that. He reached up a thin +hand and plucked tenderly at the shining little tendrils of gold that +crept out from under her hood. + +"I wish you wouldn't, dear," he pleaded. + +How pathetically white, and thin, and weak he was! She kissed him again +and turned quickly to hide the mist in her eyes. At the door she blew him +a kiss from the tip of her big fur mitten, and as she went out she heard +him say in the thin, strange voice that was so unlike the old Peter: + +"Don't be long, Dolores." + +She stood silently for a few moments to make sure that no one would see +her. Then she moved swiftly to the ice bridge and out into the +star-lighted ghostliness of the night. Wapi followed close behind her, +and dropping a hand to her side she called softly to him. In an instant +Wapi's muzzle was against her mitten, and his great body quivered with +joy at her direct speech to him. She saw the response in his red eyes and +stopped to stroke him with both mittened hands, and over and over again +she spoke his name. "Wapi--Wapi--Wapi." He whined. She could feel him +under her touch as if alive with an electrical force. Her eyes shone. In +the white starlight there was a new emotion in her face. She had found a +friend, the one friend she and Peter had, and it made her braver. + +At no time had she actually been afraid--for herself. It was for Peter. +And she was not afraid now. Her cheeks flushed with exertion and her +breath came quickly as she neared Blake's cabin. Twice she had made +excuses to go ashore--just because she was curious, she had said--and she +believed that she had measured up Blake pretty well. It was a case in +which her woman's intuition had failed her miserably. She was amazed that +such a man had marooned himself voluntarily on the arctic coast. She did +not, of course, understand his business--entirely. She thought him simply +a trader. And he was unlike any man aboard ship. By his carefully clipped +beard, his calm, cold manner of speech, and the unusual correctness with +which he used his words she was convinced that at some time or another he +had been part of what she mentally thought of as "an entirely different +environment." + +She was right. There was a time when London and New York would have given +much to lay their hands on the man who now called himself Blake. + +Dolores, excited by the conviction that Blake would help her when he +heard her story, still did not lose her caution. Rydal had given her +another twenty-four hours, and that was all. In those twenty-four hours +she must fight out their salvation, her own and Peter's. If Blake should +fail-- + +Fifty paces from his cabin she stopped, slipped the big fur mitten from +her right hand and unbuttoned her coat so that she could quickly and +easily reach an inside pocket in which was Peter's revolver. She smiled +just a bit grimly, as her fingers touched the cold steel. It was to be +her last resort. And she was thinking in that flash of the days "back +home" when she was counted the best revolver shot at the Piping Rock. She +could beat Peter, and Peter was good. Her fingers twined a bit fondly +about the pearl-handled thing in her pocket. The last resort--and from +the first it had given her courage to keep the truth from Peter! + +She knocked at the heavy door of the igloo cabin. Blake was still up, and +when he opened it, he stared at her in wide-eyed amazement. Wapi hung +outside when Dolores entered, and the door closed. "I know you think it +strange for me to come at this hour," she apologized, "but in this +terrible gloom I've lost all count of hours. They have no significance +for me any more. And I wanted to see you--alone." + +She emphasized the word. And as she spoke, she loosened her coat and +threw back her hood, so that the glow of the lamp lit up the ruffled mass +of gold the hood had covered. She sat down without waiting for an +invitation, and Blake sat down opposite her with a narrow table between +them. Her face was flushed with cold and wind as she looked at him. Her +eyes were blue with the blue of a steady flame, and they met his own +squarely. She was not nervous. Nor was she afraid. + +"Perhaps you can guess--why I have come?" she asked. + +He was appraising her almost startling beauty with the lamp glow flooding +down on her. For a moment he hesitated; then he nodded, looking at her +steadily. "Yes, I think I know," he said quietly. "It's Captain Rydal. In +fact, I'm quite positive. It's an unusual situation, you know. Have I +guessed correctly?" + +She nodded, drawing in her breath quickly and leaning a little toward +him, wondering how much he knew and how he had come by it. + +"A very unusual situation," he repeated. "There's nothing in the world +that makes beasts out of men--most men--more quickly than an arctic +night, Mrs. Keith. And they're all beasts out there--now--all except your +husband, and he is contented because he possesses the one white woman +aboard ship. It's putting it brutally plain, but it's the truth, isn't +it? For the time being they're beasts, every man of the twenty, and +you--pardon me!--are very beautiful. Rydal wants you, and the fact that +your husband is dying--" + +"He is not dying," she interrupted him fiercely. "He shall not die! If he +did--" + +"Do you love him?" There was no insult in Blake's quiet voice. He asked +the question as if much depended on the answer, as if he must assure +himself of that fact. + +"Love him--my Peter? Yes!" + +She leaned forward eagerly, gripping her hands in front of him on the +table. She spoke swiftly, as if she must convince him before he asked her +another question. Blake's eyes did not change. They had not changed for +an instant. They were hard, and cold, and searching, unwarmed by her +beauty, by the luster of her shining hair, by the touch of her breath as +it came to him over the table. + +"I have gone everywhere with him--everywhere," she began. "Peter writes +books, you know, and we have gone into all sorts of places. We love +it--both of us--this adventuring. We have been all through the country +down there," she swept a hand to the south, "on dog sledges, in canoes, +with snowshoes, and pack-trains. Then we hit on the idea of coming north +on a whaler. You know, of course, Captain Rydal planned to return this +autumn. The crew was rough, but we expected that. We expected to put up +with a lot. But even before the ice shut us in, before this terrible +night came, Rydal insulted me. I didn't dare tell Peter. I thought I +could handle Rydal, that I could keep him in his place, and I knew that +if I told Peter, he would kill the beast. And then the ice--and this +night--" She choked. + +Blake's eyes, gimleting to her soul, were shot with a sudden fire as he, +too, leaned a little over the table. But his voice was unemotional as +rock. It merely stated a fact. "That's why Captain Rydal allowed himself +to be frozen in," he said. "He had plenty of time to get into the open +channels, Mrs. Keith. But he wanted you. And to get you he knew he would +have to lay over. And if he laid over, he knew that he would get you, for +many things may happen in an arctic night. It shows the depth of the +man's feelings, doesn't it? He is sacrificing a great deal to possess +you, losing a great deal of time, and money, and all that. And when your +husband dies--" + +Her clenched little fist struck the table. "He won't die, I tell you! Why +do you say that?" + +"Because--Rydal says he is going to die." + +"Rydal--lies. Peter had a fall, and it hurt his spine so that his legs +are paralyzed. But I know what it is. If he could get away from that ship +and could have a doctor, he would be well again in two or three months." + +"But Rydal says he is going to die." + +There was no mistaking the significance of Blake's words this time. Her +eyes filled with sudden horror. Then they flashed with the blue fire +again. "So--he has told you? Well, he told me the same thing today. He +didn't intend to, of course. But he was half mad, and he had been +drinking. He has given me twenty-four hours." + +"In which to--surrender?" + +There was no need to reply. + +For the first time Blake smiled. There was something in that smile that +made her flesh creep. "Twenty-four hours is a short time," he said, "and +in this matter, Mrs. Keith, I think that you will find Captain Rydal a +man of his word. No need to ask you why you don't appeal to the crew! +Useless! But you have hope that I can help you? Is that it?" + +Her heart throbbed. "That is why I have come to you, Mr. Blake. You told +me today that Fort Confidence is only a hundred and fifty miles away and +that a Northwest Mounted Police garrison is there this winter--with a +doctor. Will you help me?" + +"A hundred and fifty miles, in this country, at this time of the year, is +a long distance, Mrs. Keith," reflected Blake, looking into her eyes with +a steadiness that at any other time would have been embarrassing. "It +means the McFarlane, the Lacs Delesse, and the Arctic Barren. For a +hundred miles there isn't a stick of timber. If a storm came--no man or +dog could live. It is different from the coast. Here there is shelter +everywhere." He spoke slowly, and he was thinking swiftly. "It would take +five days at thirty miles a day. And the chances are that your husband +would not stand it. One hundred and twenty hours at fifty degrees below +zero, and no fire until the fourth day. He would die." + +"It would be better--for if we stay--" she stopped, unclenching her hands +slowly. + +"What?" he asked. + +"I shall kill Captain Rydal," she declared. "It is the only thing I can +do. Will you force me to do that, or will you help me? You have sledges +and many dogs, and we will pay. And I have judged you to be--a man." + +He rose from the table, and for a moment his face was turned from her. +"You probably do not understand my position, Mrs. Keith," he said, pacing +slowly back and forth and chuckling inwardly at the shock he was about to +give her. "You see, my livelihood depends on such men as Captain Rydal. I +have already done a big business with him in bone, oil, pelts--and Eskimo +women." + +Without looking at her he heard the horrified intake of her breath. It +gave him a pleasing sort of thrill, and he turned, smiling, to look into +her dead-white face. Her eyes had changed. There was no longer hope or +entreaty in them. They were simply pools of blue flame. And she, too, +rose to her feet. + +"Then--I can expect--no help--from you." + +"I didn't say that, Mrs. Keith. It shocks you to know that I am +responsible. But up here, you must understand the code of ethics is a +great deal different from yours. We figure that what I have done for +Rydal and his crew keeps sane men from going mad during the long months +of darkness. But that doesn't mean I'm not going to help you--and Peter. +I think I shall. But you must give me a little time in which to consider +the matter--say an hour or so. I understand that whatever is to be done +must be done quickly. If I make up my mind to take you to Fort +Confidence, we shall start within two or three hours. I shall bring you +word aboard ship. So you might return and prepare yourself and Peter for +a probable emergency." + +She went out dumbly into the night, Blake seeing her to the door and +closing it after her. He was courteous in his icy way but did not offer +to escort her back to the ship. She was glad. Her heart was choking her +with hope and fear. She had measured him differently this time. And she +was afraid. She had caught a glimpse that had taken her beyond the man, +to the monster. It made her shudder. And yet what did it matter, if Blake +helped them? + +She had forgotten Wapi. Now she found him again close at her side, and +she dropped a hand to his big head as she hurried back through the pallid +gloom. She spoke to him, crying out with sobbing breath what she had not +dared to reveal to Blake. For Wapi the long night had ceased to be a hell +of ghastly emptiness, and to her voice and the touch of her hand he +responded with a whine that was the whine of a white man's dog. They had +traveled two-thirds of the distance to the ship when he stopped in his +tracks and sniffed the wind that was coming from shore. A second time he +did this, and a third, and the third time Dolores turned with him and +faced the direction from which they had come. A low growl rose in Wapi's +throat, a snarl of menace with a note of warning in it. + +"What is it, Wapi?" whispered Dolores. She heard his long fangs click, +and under her hand she felt his body grow tense. "What is it?" she +repeated. + +A thrill, a suspicion, shot into her heart as they went on. A fourth time +Wapi faced the shore and growled before they reached the ship. Like +shadows they went up over the ice bridge. Dolores did not enter the cabin +but drew Wapi behind it so they could not be seen. Ten minutes, fifteen, +and suddenly she caught her breath and fell down on her knees beside +Wapi, putting her arms about his gaunt shoulders. "Be quiet," she +whispered. "Be quiet." + +Up out of the night came a dark and grotesque shadow. It paused below the +bridge, then it came on silently and passed almost without sound toward +the captain's quarters. It was Blake. Dolores' heart was choking her. Her +arms clutched Wapi, whispering for him to be quiet, to be quiet. Blake +disappeared, and she rose to her feet. She had come of fighting stock. +Peter was proud of that. "You slim wonderful little thing!" he had said +to her more than once. "You've a heart in that pretty body of yours like +the general's!" The general was her father, and a fighter. She thought of +Peter's words now, and the fighting blood leaped through her veins. It +was for Peter more than herself that she was going to fight now. + +She made Wapi understand that he must remain where he was. Then she +followed after Blake, followed until her ears were close to the door +behind which she could already hear Blake and Rydal talking. + +Ten minutes later she returned to Wapi. Under her hood her face was as +white as the whitest star in the sky. She stood for many minutes close to +the dog, gathering her courage, marshaling her strength, preparing +herself to face Peter. He must not suspect until the last moment. She +thanked God that Wapi had caught the taint of Blake in the air, and she +was conscious of offering a prayer that God might help her and Peter. + +Peter gave a cry of pleasure when the door opened and Dolores entered. He +saw Wapi crowding in, and laughed. "Pals already! I guess I needn't have +been afraid for you. What a giant of a dog!" + +The instant she appeared, Dolores forced upon herself an appearance of +joyous excitement. She flung off her coat and ran to Peter, hugging his +head against her as she told him swiftly what they were going to do. Fort +Confidence was only one hundred and fifty miles away, and a garrison of +police and a doctor were there. Five days on a sledge! That was all. And +she had persuaded Blake, the trader, to help them. They would start now, +as soon as she got him ready and Blake came. She must hurry. And she was +wildly and gloriously happy, she told him. In a little while they would +be at least on the outer edge of this horrible night, and he would be in +a doctor's hands. + +She was holding Peter's head so that he could not see her face, and by +the time she jumped up and he did see it, there was nothing in it to +betray the truth or the fact that she was acting a lie. First she began +to dress Peter for the trail. Every instant gave her more courage. This +helpless, sunken-cheeked man with the hair graying over his temples was +Peter, her Peter, the Peter who had watched over her, and sheltered her, +and fought for her ever since she had known him, and now had come her +chance to fight for him. The thought filled her with a wonderful +exultation. It flushed her cheeks, and put a glory into her eyes, and +made her voice tremble. How wonderful it was to love a man as she loved +Peter! It was impossible for her to see the contrast they made--Peter +with his scrubby beard, his sunken cheeks, his emaciation, and she with +her radiant, golden beauty. She was ablaze with the desire to fight. And +how proud of her Peter would be when it was all over! + +She finished dressing him and began putting things in their big dunnage +sack. Her lips tightened as she made this preparation. Finally she came +to a box of revolver cartridges and emptied them into one of the pockets +of her under-jacket. Wapi flattened out near the door, watched every +movement she made. + +When the dunnage sack was filled, she returned to Peter. "Won't it be a +joke on Captain Rydal!" she exulted. "You see, we aren't gong to let him +know anything about it." She appeared not to observe Peter's surprise. +"You know how I hate him, Peter dear," she went on. "He is a beast. But +Mr. Blake has done a great deal of trading with him, and he doesn't want +Captain Rydal to know the part he is taking in getting us away. Not that +Rydal would miss us, you know! I don't think he cares very much whether +you live or die, Peter, and that's why I hate him. But we must humor Mr. +Blake. He doesn't want him to know." + +"Odd," mused Peter. "It's sort of--sneaking away." + +His eyes had in them a searching question which Dolores tried not to see +and which she was glad he did not put into words. If she could only fool +him another hour--just one more hour. + +It was less than that--half an hour after she had finished the dunnage +sack--when they heard footsteps crunching outside and then a knock at the +door. Wapi answered with a snarl, and when Dolores opened the door and +Blake entered, his eyes fell first of all on the dog. + +"Attached himself, eh?" he greeted, turning his quiet, unemotional smile +on Peter. "First white woman he has ever seen, and I guess the case is +hopeless. Mrs. Keith may have him." + +He turned to her. "Are you ready?" + +She nodded and pointed to the dunnage sack. Then she put on her fur coat +and hood and helped Peter sit up on the edge of the bed while Blake +opened the door again and made a low signal. Instantly Uppy and another +Eskimo came in. Blake led with the sack, and the two Eskimos carried +Peter. Dolores followed last, with the fingers of one little hand gripped +about the revolver in her pocket. Wapi hugged so close to her that she +could feel his body. + +On the ice was a sledge without dogs. Peter was bundled on this, and the +Eskimos pulled him. Blake was still in the lead. Twenty minutes after +leaving the ship they pulled up beside his cabin. + +There were two teams ready for the trail, one of six dogs, and another of +five, each watched over by an Eskimo. The visor of Dolores' hood kept +Blake from seeing how sharply she took in the situation. Under it her +eyes were ablaze. Her bare hand gripped her revolver, and if Peter could +have heard the beating of her heart, he would have gasped. But she was +cool, for all that. Swiftly and accurately she appraised Blake's +preparations. She observed that in the six-dog team, in spite of its +numerical superiority, the animals were more powerful than those in the +five-dog team. The Eskimos placed Peter on the six-dog sledge, and +Dolores helped to wrap him up warmly in the bearskins. Their dunnage sack +was tied on at Peter's feet. Not until then did she seem to notice the +five-dog sledge. She smiled at Blake. "We must be sure that in our +excitement we haven't forgotten something," she said, going over what was +on the sledge. "This is a tent, and here are plenty of warm +bearskins--and--and--" She looked up at Blake, who was watching her +silently. "If there is no timber for so long, Mr. Blake, shouldn't we +have a big bundle of kindling? And surely we should have meat for the +dogs!" + +Blake stared at her and then turned sharply on Uppy with a rattle of +Eskimo. Uppy and one of the companions made their exit instantly and in +great haste. + +"The fools!" he apologized. "One has to watch them like children, Mrs. +Keith. Pardon me while I help them." + +She waited until he followed Uppy into the cabin. Then, with the +remaining Eskimo staring at her in wonderment, she carried an extra +bearskin, the small tent, and a narwhal grub-sack to Peter's sledge. It +was another five minutes before Blake and the two Eskimos reappeared with +a bag of fish and a big bundle of ship-timber kindlings. Dolores stood +with a mittened hand on Peter's shoulder, and bending down, she +whispered: + +"Peter, if you love me, don't mind what I'm going to say now. Don't move, +for everything is going to be all right, and if you should try to get up +or roll off the sledge, it would be so much harder for me. I haven't even +told you why we're going to Port Confidence. Now you'll know!" + +She straightened up to face Blake. She had chosen her position, and Blake +was standing clear and unshadowed in the starlight half a dozen paces +from her. She had thrust her hood back a little, inspired by her feminine +instinct to let him see her contempt for him. + +"You beast!" + +The words hissed hot and furious from her lips, and in that same instant +Blake found himself staring straight into the unquivering muzzle of her +revolver. + +"You beast!" she repeated. "I ought to kill you. I ought to shoot you +down where you stand, for you are a cur and a coward. I know what you +have planned. I followed you when you went to Rydal's cabin a little +while ago, and I heard everything that passed between you. Listen, Peter, +and I'll tell you what these brutes were going to do with us. You were to +go with the six-dog team and I with the five, and out on the barrens we +were to become separated, you to go on and be killed when you we're a +proper distance away, and I to be brought back--to Rydal. Do you +understand, Peter dear? Isn't it splendid that we should have forced on +us like this such wonderful material for a story!" + +She was gloriously unafraid now. A paean of triumph rang in her voice, +triumph, contempt, and utter fearlessness. Her mittened hand pressed on +Peter's shoulder, and before the weapon in her other hand Blake stood as +if turned into stone. + +"You don't know," she said, speaking to him directly, "how near I am to +killing you. I think I shall shoot unless you have the meat and kindlings +put on Peter's sledge immediately and give Uppy instructions--in +English--to drive us to Fort Confidence. Peter and I will both go with +the six-dog sledge. Give the instructions quickly, Mr. Blake!" + +Blake, recovering from the shock she had given him, flashed back at her +his cool and cynical smile. In spite of being caught in an unpleasant +lie, he admired this golden-haired, blue-eyed slip of a woman for the +colossal bluff she was playing. "Personally, I'm sorry," he said, "but I +couldn't help it. Rydal--" + +"I am sure, unless you give the instructions quickly, that I shall +shoot," she interrupted him. Her voice was so quiet that Peter was +amazed. "I'm sorry, Mrs. Keith. But--" + +A flash of fire blinded him, and with the flash Blake staggered back with +a cry of pain and stood swaying unsteadily in the starlight, clutching +with one hand at an arm which hung limp and useless at his side. + +"That time, I broke your arm," said Dolores, with scarcely more +excitement than if she had made a bull's-eye on the Piping Rock range. +"If I fire again, I am quite positive that I shall kill you!" + +The Eskimos had not moved. They were like three lifeless, staring +gargoyles. For another second or two Blake stood clutching at his arm. +Then he said, + +"Uppy, put the dog meat and the kindlings on the big sledge--and drive +like hell for Fort Confidence!" And then, before she could stop him, he +followed up his words swiftly and furiously in Eskimo. + +"Stop!" + +She almost shrieked the one word of warning, and with it a second shot +burned its way through the flesh of Blake's shoulder and he went down. +The revolver turned on Uppy, and instantly he was electrified into life. +Thirty seconds later, at the head of the team, he was leading the way out +into the chaotic gloom of the night. Hovering over Peter, riding with her +hand on the gee-bar of the sledge, Dolores looked back to see Blake +staggering to his feet. He shouted after them, and what he said was in +Uppy's tongue. And this time she could not stop him. + +She had forgotten Wapi. But as the night swallowed them up, she still +looked back, and through the gloom she saw a shadow coming swiftly. In a +few moments Wapi was running at the tail of the sledge. Then she leaned +over Peter and encircled his shoulders with her furry arms. + +"We're off!" she cried, a breaking note of gladness in her voice. "We're +off! And, Peter dear, wasn't it perfectly thrilling!" + +A few minutes later she called upon Uppy to stop the team. Then she faced +him, close to Peter, with the revolver in her hand. + +"Uppy," she demanded, speaking slowly and distinctly, "what was it Blake +said to you?" + +For a moment Uppy made as if to feign stupidity. The revolver covered a +spot half-way between his narrow-slit eyes. + +"I shall shoot--" + +Uppy gave a choking gasp. "He said--no take trail For' Con'dence--go +wrong--he come soon get you." + +"Yes, he said just that." She picked her words even more slowly. "Uppy, +listen to me. If you let them come up with us--unless you get us to Fort +Confidence--I will kill you. Do you understand?" + +She poked her revolver a foot nearer, and Uppy nodded emphatically. She +smiled. It was almost funny to see Uppy's understanding liven up at the +point of the gun, and she felt a thrill that tingled to her finger-tips. +The little devils of adventure were wide-awake in her, and, smiling at +Uppy, she told him to hold up the end of his driving whip. He obeyed. The +revolver flashed, and a muffled yell came from him as he felt the shock +of the bullet as it struck fairly against the butt of his whip. In the +same instant there came a snarling deep-throated growl from Wapi. From +the sledge Peter gave a cry of warning. Uppy shrank back, and Dolores +cried out sharply and put herself swiftly between Wapi and the Eskimo. +The huge dog, ready to spring, slunk back to the end of the sledge at the +command of her voice. She patted his big head before she got on the +sledge behind Peter. + +There was no indecision in the manner of Uppy'S going now. He struck out +swift and straight for the pale constellation of stars that hung over +Fort Confidence. It was splendid traveling. The surface of the arctic +plain was frozen solid. What little wind there was came from behind them, +and the dogs were big and fresh. Uppy ran briskly, snapping the lash of +his whip and la-looing to the dogs in the manner of the Eskimo driver. +Dolores did not wait for Peter's demand for a further explanation of +their running away and her remarkable words to Blake. She told him. She +omitted, for the sake of Peter's peace of mind, the physical insults she +had suffered at Captain Rydal's hands. She did not tell him that Rydal +had forced her into his arms a few hours before and kissed her. What she +did reveal made Peter's arms and shoulders grow tense and he groaned in +his helplessness. + +"If you'd only told me!" he protested. Dolores laughed triumphantly, with +her arm about his shoulder. "I knew my dear old Peter too well for that," +she exulted. "If I had told you, what a pretty mess we'd be in now, +Peter! You would have insisted on calling Captain Rydal into our cabin +and shooting him from the bed--and then where would we have been? Don't +you think I'm handling it pretty well, Peter dear?" + +Peter's reply was smothered against her hooded cheek. + +He began to question her more directly now, and with his ability to grasp +at the significance of things he pointed out quickly the tremendous +hazard of their position. There were many more dogs and other sledges at +Blake's place, and it was utterly inconceivable that Blake and Captain +Rydal would permit them to reach Fort Confidence without making every +effort in their power to stop them. Once they succeeded in placing +certain facts in the hands of the Mounted Police, both Rydal and Blake +would be done for. He impressed this uncomfortable truth on Dolores and +suggested that if she could have smuggled a rifle along in the dunnage +sack it would have helped matters considerably. For Rydal and Blake would +not hesitate at shooting. For them it must be either capture or +kill--death for him, anyway, for he was the one factor not wanted in the +equation. He summed up their chances and their danger calmly and +pointedly, as he always looked at troubling things. And Dolores felt her +heart sinking within her. After all, she had not handled the situation +any too well. She almost wished she had killed Rydal herself and called +it self-defense. At least she had been criminally negligent in not +smuggling along a rifle. + +"But we'll beat them out," she argued hopefully. "We've got a splendid +team, Peter, and I'll take off my coat and run behind the sledge as much +as I can. Uppy won't dare play a trick on us now, for he knows that if I +should miss him, Wapi would tear the life out of him at a word from me. +We'll win out, Peter dear. See if we don't!" + +Peter hugged his thoughts to himself. He did not tell her that Blake and +Rydal would pursue with a ten- or twelve-dog team, and that there was +almost no chance at all of a straight get-away. Instead, he pulled her +head down and kissed her. + +To Wapi there had come at last a response to the great yearning that was +in him. Instinct, summer and winter, had drawn him south, had turned him +always in that direction, filled with the uneasiness of the mysterious +something that was calling to him through the years of forty generations +of his kind. And now he was going south. He sensed the fact that this +journey would not end at the edge of the Arctic plain and that he was not +to hunt caribou or bear. His mental formulae necessitated no process of +reasoning. They were simple and to the point His world had suddenly +divided itself into two parts; one contained the woman, and the other his +old masters and slavery. And the woman stood against these masters. They +were her enemies as well as his own. Experience had taught him the power +and the significance of firearms, just as it had made him understand the +uses for which spears, and harpoons, and whips were made. He had seen the +woman shoot Blake, and he had seen her ready to shoot at Uppy. Therefore +he understood that they were enemies and that all associated with them +were enemies. At a word from her he was ready to spring ahead and tear +the life out of the Eskimo driver and even out of the dogs that were +pulling the sledge. It did not take him long to comprehend that the man +on the sledge was a part of the woman. + +He hung well back, twenty or thirty paces behind the sledge, and unless +Peter or the woman called to him, or the sledge stopped for some reason, +he seldom came nearer. + +It took only a word from Dolores to bring him to her side. + +Hour after hour the journey continued. The plain was level as a floor, +and at intervals Dolores would run in the trail that the load might be +lightened and the dogs might make better time. It was then that Peter +watched Uppy with the revolver, and it was also in these +intervals--running close beside the woman--that the blood in Wapi's veins +was fired with a riotous joy. + +For three hours there was almost no slackening in Uppy's speed. The +fourth and fifth were slower. In the sixth and seventh the pace began to +tell. And the plain was no longer hard and level, swept like a floor by +the polar winds. Rolling undulations grew into ridges of snow and ice; in +places the dogs dragged the sledge over thin crusts that broke under the +runners; fields of drift snow, fine as shot, lay in their way; and in the +eighth hour Uppy stopped the lagging dogs and held up his two hands in +the mute signal of the Eskimo that they could go no farther without a +rest. + +Wapi dropped on his belly and watched. His eyes followed Uppy +suspiciously as he strung up the tent on its whalebone supports to keep +the bite of the wind from the sledge on which Dolores sat at Peter's +feet. Then Uppy built a fire of kindlings, and scraped up a pot of ice +for tea-water. After that, while the water was heating, he gave each of +the trace dogs a frozen fish. Dolores herself picked out one of the +largest and tossed it to Wapi. Then she sat down again and began to talk +to Peter, bundled up in his furs. After a time they ate, and drank hot +tea, and after he had devoured a chunk of raw meat the size of his two +fists, Uppy rolled himself in his sleeping bag near the dogs. A little at +a time Wapi dragged himself nearer until his head lay on Dolores' coat. +After that there was a long silence broken only by the low voices of the +woman and the man, and the heavy breathing of the tired dogs. Wapi +himself dozed off, but never for long. Then Dolores nodded, and her head +drooped until it found a pillow on Peter's shoulder. Gently Peter drew a +bearskin about her, and for a long time sat wide-awake, guarding Uppy and +baring his ears at intervals to listen. A dozen times he saw Wapi's +bloodshot eyes looking at him, and twice he put out a hand to the dog's +head and spoke to him in a whisper. + +Even Peter's eyes were filmed by a growing drowsiness when Wapi drew +silently away and slunk suspiciously into the night. There was no yapping +foxes here, forty miles from the coast. An almost appalling silence hung +under the white stars, a silence broken only by the low and distant +moaning the wind always makes on the barrens. Wapi listened to it, and he +sniffed with his gray muzzle turned to the north. And then he whined. Had +Dolores or Peter seen him or heard the note in his throat, they, too, +would have stared back over the trail they had traveled. For something +was coming to Wapi. Faint, elusive, and indefinable breath in the air, he +smelled it in one moment, and the next it was gone. For many minutes he +stood undecided, and then he returned to the sledge, his spine bristling +and a growl in his throat. + +Wide-eyed and staring, Peter was looking back. "What is it, Wapi?" + +His voice aroused Dolores. She sat up with a start. The growl had grown +into a snarl in Wapi's throat. + +"I think they are coming," said Peter calmly. "You'd better rouse Uppy. +He hasn't moved in the last two hours." + +Something that was like a sob came from Dolores' lips as she stood up. +"They're not coming," she whispered. "They've stopped--and they're +building a fire!" + +Not more than a third of a mile away a point of yellow flame flared up in +the night. + +"Give me the revolver, Peter." + +Peter gave it to her without a word. She went to Uppy, and at the touch +of her foot he was out of his sleeping-bag, his moon-face staring at her. +She pointed back to the fire. Her face was dead white. The revolver was +pointed straight at Uppy's heart. + +"If they come up with us, Uppy--you die!" + +The Eskimo's narrow eyes widened. There was murder in this white woman's +face, in the steadiness of her hand, and in her voice. If they came up +with them--he would die! Swiftly he gathered up his sleeping-bag and +placed it on the sledge. Then he roused the dogs, tangled in their +traces. They rose to their feet, sleepy and ill-humored. One of them +snapped at his hand. Another snarled viciously as he untwisted a trace. +Then one of the yawning brutes caught the new smell in the air, the smell +that Wapi had gathered when it was a mile farther off. He sniffed. He sat +back on his haunches and sent forth a yelping howl to his comrades in the +other team. In ten seconds the other five were howling with him, and +scarcely had the tumult burst from their throats when there came a +response from the fire half a mile away. + +"My God!" gasped Peter, under his breath. + +Dolores sprang to the gee-bar, and Uppy lashed his long whip until it +cracked like a repeating rifle over the pack. The dogs responded and sped +through the night. Behind them the pandemonium of dog voices in the other +camp had ceased. Men had leaped into life. Fifteen dogs were +straightening in the tandem trace of a single sledge. + +Dolores laughed, a sobbing, broken laugh, that in itself was a cry of +despair. "Peter, if they come up with us, what shall we do?" + +"If they overtake us," said Peter, "give me the revolver. It is fully +loaded?" + +"I have cartridges--" + +For the first time she remembered that she had not filled the three empty +chambers. Crooking her arm under the gee-bar, she fumbled in her pocket. +The dogs, refreshed by their sleep and urged by Uppy's whip, were tearing +off the first mile at a great speed. The trail ahead of them was level +and hard again. Uppy knew they were on the edge of the big barren of the +Lacs Delesse, and he cracked his whip just as the off runner of the +sledge struck a hidden snow-blister. There was a sudden lurch, and in a +vicious up-shoot of the gee-bar the revolver was knocked from Dolores' +hand--and was gone. A shriek rose to her lips, but she stifled it before +it was given voice. Until this minute she had not felt the terror of +utter hopelessness upon her. Now it made her faint. The revolver had not +only given her hope, but also a steadfast faith in herself. From the +beginning she had made up her mind how she would use it in the end, even +though a few moments before she had asked Peter what they would do. + +Crumpled down on the sledge, she clung to Peter, and suddenly the +inspiration came to her not to let him know what had happened. Her arms +tightened about his shoulders, and she looked ahead over the backs of the +wolfish pack, shivering as she thought of what Uppy would do could he +guess her loss. But he was running now for his life, driven on by his +fear of her unerring marksmanship--and Wapi. She looked over her +shoulder. Wapi was there, a huge gray shadow twenty paces behind. And she +thought she heard a shout! + +Peter was speaking to her. "Blake's dogs are tired," he was saying. "They +were just about to camp, and ours have had a rest. Perhaps--" + +"We shall beat them!" she interrupted him. "See how fast we are going, +Peter! It is splendid!" + +A rifle-shot sounded behind them. It was not far away, and involuntarily +she clutched him tighter. Peter reached up a hand. + +"Give me the revolver, Dolores." + +"No," she protested. "They are not going to overtake us." + +"You must give me the revolver," he insisted. + +"Peter, I can't. You understand, I can't. I must keep the revolver." + +She looked back again. There was no doubt now. Their pursuers were +drawing nearer. She heard a voice, the la-looing of running Eskimos, a +faint shout which she knew was a white man's shout--and another rifle +shot. Wapi was running nearer. He was almost at the tail of the sledge, +and his red eyes were fixed on her as he ran. + +"Wapi!" she cried. "Wapi!" + +His jaws dropped agape. She could hear his panting response to her voice. + +A third shot--over their heads sped a strange droning sound. + +"Wapi," she almost screamed, "go back! Sick 'em, Wapi--sick 'em--sick +'em--sick 'em!" She flung out her arms, driving him back, repeating the +words over and over again. She leaned over the edge of the sledge, +clinging to the gee-bar. "Go back, Wapi! Sick 'em--sick 'em--sick 'em!" + +As if in response to her wild exhortation, there came a sudden yelping +outcry from the team behind. It was close upon them now. Another ten +minutes. + +And then she saw that Wapi was dropping behind. Quickly he was swallowed +up in the starlit chaos of the night. + +"Peter," she cried, sobbingly. "Peter!" + +Listening to the retreating sound of the sledge, Wapi stood a silent +shadow in the trail. Then he turned and faced the north. He heard the +other sound now, and ahead of it the wind brought him a smell, the smell +of things he hated. For many years something had been fighting itself +toward understanding within him, and the yelping of dogs and the taint in +the air of creatures who had been his slave-masters narrowed his instinct +to the one vital point. Again it was not a process of reason but the +cumulative effect of things that had happened, and were happening. He had +scented menace when first he had given warning of the nearness of +pursuers, and this menace was no longer an elusive and unseizable thing +that had merely stirred the fires of his hatred. It was now a near and +physical fact. He had tried to run away from it--with the woman--but it +had followed and was overtaking him, and the yelping dogs were +challenging him to fight as they had challenged him from the day he was +old enough to take his own part. And now he had something to fight for. +His intelligence gripped the fact that one sledge was running away from +the other, and that the sledge which was running away was his sledge--and +that for his sledge he must fight. + +He waited, almost squarely in the trail. There was no longer the +slinking, club-driven attitude of a creature at bay in the manner in +which he stood in the path of his enemies. He had risen out of his +serfdom. The stinging slash of the whip and his dread of it were gone. +Standing there in the starlight with his magnificent head thrown up and +the muscles of his huge body like corded steel, the passing spirit of +Shan Tung would have taken him for Tao, the Great Dane. He was not +excited--and yet he was filled with a mighty desire--more than that, a +tremendous purpose. The yelping excitement of the oncoming Eskimo dogs no +longer urged him to turn aside to avoid their insolent bluster, as he +would have turned aside yesterday or the day before. The voices of his +old masters no longer sent him slinking out of their way, a growl in his +throat and his body sagging with humiliation and the rage of his slavery. +He stood like a rock, his broad chest facing them squarely, and when he +saw the shadows of them racing up out of the star-mist an eighth of a +mile away, it was not a growl but a whine that rose in his throat, a +whine of low and repressed eagerness, of a great yearning about to be +fulfilled. Two hundred yards--a hundred--eighty--not until the dogs were +less than fifty from him did he move. And then, like a rock hurled by a +mighty force, he was at them. + +He met the onrushing weight of the pack breast to breast. There was no +warning. Neither men nor dogs had seen the waiting shadow. The crash sent +the lead-dog back with Wapi's great fangs in his throat, and in an +instant the fourteen dogs behind had piled over them, tangled in their +traces, yelping and snarling and biting, while over them round-faced, +hooded men shouted shrilly and struck with their whips, and from the +sledge a white man sprang with a rifle in his hands. It was Rydal. Under +the mass of dogs Wapi, the Walrus, heard nothing of the shouts of men. He +was fighting. He was fighting as he had never fought before in all the +days of his life. The fierce little Eskimo dogs had smelled him, and they +knew their enemy. The lead-dog was dead. A second Wapi had disemboweled +with a single slash of his inch-long fangs. He was buried now. But his +jaws met flesh and bone, and out of the squirming mass there rose fearful +cries of agony that mingled hideously with the bawling of men and the +snarling and yelping of beasts that had not yet felt Wapi's fangs. Three +and four at a time they were at him. He felt the wolfish slash of their +teeth in his flesh. In him the sense of pain was gone. His jaws closed on +a foreleg, and it snapped like a stick. His teeth sank like ivory knives +into the groin of a brute that had torn a hole in his side, and a +smothered death-howl rose out of the heap. A fang pierced his eye. Even +then no cry came from Wapi, the Walrus. He heaved upward with his giant +body. He found another throat, and it was then that he rose above the +pack, shaking the life from his victim as a terrier would have shaken a +rat. For the first time the Eskimos saw him, and out of their +superstitious souls strange cries found utterance as they sprang back and +shrieked out to Rydal that it was a devil and not a beast that had waited +for them in the trail. Rydal threw up his rifle. The shot came. It burned +a crease in Wapi's shoulder and tore a hole as big as a man's fist in the +breast of a dog about to spring upon him f rom behind. Again he was down, +and Rydal dropped his rifle, and snatched a whip from the hand of an +Eskimo. Shouting and cursing, he lashed the pack, and in a moment he saw +a huge, open-jawed shadow rise up on the far side and start off into the +open starlight. He sprang back to his rifle. Twice he fired at the +retreating shadow before it disappeared. And the Eskimo dogs made no +movement to follow. Five of the fifteen were dead. The remaining ten, +torn and bleeding--three of them with legs that dragged in the bloody +snow--gathered in a whipped and whimpering group. And the Eskimos, +shivering in their fear of this devil that had entered into the body of +Wapi, the Walrus, failed to respond to Rydal's command when he pointed to +the red trail that ran out under the stars. + +At Fort Confidence, one hundred and fifty miles to the south, there was +day--day that was like cold, gray dawn, the day one finds just beyond the +edge of the Arctic night, in which the sun hangs like a pale lantern over +the far southern horizon. In a log-built room that faced this bit of +glorious red glow lay Peter, bolstered up in his bed so that he could see +it until it faded from the sky. There was a new light in his face, and +there was something of the old Peter back in his eyes. Watching the final +glow with him was Dolores. It was their second day. + +Into this world, in the twilight that was falling swiftly as they watched +the setting of the sun, came Wapi, the Walrus. Blinded in the eye, gaunt +with hunger and exhaustion, covered with wounds, and with his great heart +almost ready to die, he came at last to the river across which lay the +barracks. His vision was nearly gone, but under his nose he could still +smell faintly the trail he was following until the last. It led him +across the river. And in darkness it brought him to a door. + +After a little the door opened, and with its opening came at last the +fulfilment of the promise of his dreams--hope, happiness, things to live +for in a new, a white-man's world. For Wapi, the Walrus, forty years +removed from Tao of Vancouver, had at last come home. + + + + + +THE YELLOW-BACK + +Above God's Lake, where the Bent Arrow runs red as pale blood under its +crust of ice, Reese Beaudin heard of the dog auction that was to take +place at Post Lac Bain three days later. It was in the cabin of Joe +Delesse, a trapper, who lived at Lac Bain during the summer, and trapped +the fox and the lynx sixty miles farther north in this month of February. + +"Diantre, but I tell you it is to be the greatest sale of dogs that has +ever happened at Lac Bain!" said Delesse. "To this Wakao they are coming +from all the four directions. There will be a hundred dogs, huskies, and +malamutes, and Mackenzie hounds, and mongrels from the south, and I +should not wonder if some of the little Eskimo devils were brought from +the north to be sold as breeders. Surely you will not miss it, my +friend?" + +"I am going by way of Post Lac Bain," replied Reese Beaudin equivocally. + +But his mind was not on the sale of dogs. From his pipe he puffed out +thick clouds of smoke, and his eyes narrowed until they seemed like coals +peering out of cracks; and he said, in his quiet, soft voice: + +"Do you know of a man named Jacques Dupont, m'sieu?" + +Joe Delesse tried to peer through the cloud of smoke at Reese Beaudin's +face. + +"Yes, I know him. Does he happen to be a friend of yours?" + +Reese laughed softly. + +"I have heard of him. They say that he is a devil. To the west I was told +that he can whip any man between Hudson's Bay and the Great Bear, that he +is a beast in man-shape, and that he will surely be at the big sale at +Lac Bain." + +On his knees the huge hands of Joe Delesse clenched slowly, gripping in +their imaginary clutch a hated thing. + +"Oui, I know him," he said. "I know also--Elise--his wife. See!" + +He thrust suddenly his two huge knotted hands through the smoke that +drifted between him and the stranger who had sought the shelter of his +cabin that night. + +"See--I am a man full-grown, m'sieu--a man--and yet I am afraid of him! +That is how much of a devil and a beast in man-shape he is." + +Again Reese Beaudin laughed in his low, soft voice. + +"And his wife, mon ami? Is she afraid of him?" + +He had stopped smoking. Joe Delesse saw his face. The stranger's eyes +made him look twice and think twice. + +"You have known her--sometime?" + +"Yes, a long time ago. "We were children together. And I have heard all +has not gone well with her. Is it so?" + +"Does it go well when a dove is mated to a vulture, m'sieu?" + +"I have also heard that she grew up to be very beautiful," said Reese +Beaudin, "and that Jacques Dupont killed a man for her. If that is so--" + +"It is not so," interrupted Delesse. "He drove another man away--no, not +a man, but a yellow-livered coward who had no more fight in him than a +porcupine without quills! And yet she says he was not a coward. She has +always said, even to Dupont, that it was the way le Bon Dieu made him, +and that because he was made that way he was greater than all other men +in the North Country. How do I know? Because, m'sieu, I am Elise Dupont's +cousin." + +Delesse wondered why Reese Beaudin's eyes were glowing like living coals. + +"And yet--again, it is only rumor I have heard--they say this man, +whoever he was, did actually run away, like a dog that had been whipped +and was afraid to return to its kennel." + +"Pst!" Joe Delesse flung his great arms wide. "Like that--he was gone. +And no one ever saw him again, or heard of him again. But I know that she +knew--my cousin, Elise. What word it was he left for her at the last she +has always kept in her own heart, mon Dieu, and what a wonderful thing he +had to fight for! You knew the child. But the woman--non? She was like an +angel. Her eyes, when you looked into them--hat can I say, m'sieu? They +made you forget. And I have seen her hair, unbound, black and glossy as +the velvet side of a sable, covering her to the hips. And two years ago I +saw Jacques Dupont's hands in that hair, and he was dragging her by it--" + +Something snapped. It was a muscle in Reese Beaudin's arm. He had +stiffened like iron. + +"And you let him do that!" + +Joe Delesse shrugged his shoulders. It was a shrug of hopelessness, of +disgust. + +"For the third time I interfered, and for the third time Jacques Dupont +beat me until I was nearer dead than alive. And since then I have made it +none of my business. It was, after all, the fault of the man who ran +away. You see, m'sieu, it was like this: Dupont was mad for her, and this +man who ran away--the Yellow-back--wanted her, and Elise loved the +Yellow-back. This Yellow-back was twenty-three or four, and he read +books, and played a fiddle and drew strange pictures--and was weak in the +heart when it came to a fight. But Elise loved him. She loved him for +those very things that made him a fool and a weakling, m'sieu, the books +and the fiddle and the pictures; and she stood up with the courage for +them both. And she would have married him, too, and would have fought for +him with a club if it had come to that, when the thing happened that made +him run away. It was at the midsummer carnival, when all the trappers and +their wives and children were at Lac Bain. And Dupont followed the +Yellow-back about like a dog. He taunted him, he insulted him, he got +down on his knees and offered to fight him without getting on his feet; +and there, before the very eyes of Elise, he washed the Yellow-back's +face in the grease of one of the roasted caribou! And the Yellow-back was +a man! Yes, a grown man! And it was then that Jacques Dupont shouted out +his challenge to all that crowd. He would fight the Yellow-back. He would +fight him with his right arm tied behind his back! And before Elise and +the Yellow-back, and all that crowd, friends tied his arm so that it was +like a piece of wood behind him, and it was his right arm, his fighting +arm, the better half of him that was gone. And even then the Yellow-back +was as white as the paper he drew pictures on. Ventre saint gris, but +then was his chance to have killed Jacques Dupont! Half a man could have +done it. Did he, m'sieu? No, he did not. With his one arm and his one +hand Jacques Dupont whipped that Yellow-back, and he would have killed +him if Elise had not rushed in to sav e the Yellow-back's purple face +from going dead black. And that night the Yellow-back slunk away. Shame? +Yes. From that night he was ashamed to show his face ever again at Lac +Bain. And no one knows where he went. No one--except Elise. And her +secret is in her own breast." + +"And after that?" questioned Reese Beaudin, in a voice that was scarcely +above a whisper. + +"I cannot understand," said Joe Delesse. "It was strange, m'sieu, very +strange. I know that Elise, even after that coward ran away, still loved +him. And yet--well, something happened. I overheard a terrible quarrel +one day between Jan Thiebout, father of Elise, and Jacques Dupont. After +that Thiebout was very much afraid of Dupont. I have my own suspicion. +Now that Thiebout is dead it is not wrong for me to say what it is. I +think Thiebout killed the halfbreed Bedore who was found dead on his +trap-line five years ago. There was a feud between them. And Dupont, +discovering Thiebout's secret--well, you can understand how easy it would +be after that, m'sieu. Thiebout's winter trapping was in that Burntwood +country, fifty miles from neighbor to neighbor, and very soon after +Bedore's death Jacques Dupont became Thiebout's partner. I know that +Elise was forced to marry him. That was four years ago. The next year old +Thiebout died, and in all that time not once has Elise been to Post Lac +Bain!" + +"Like the Yellow-back--she never returned," breathed Reese Beaudin. + +"Never. And now--it is strange--" + +"What is strange, Joe Delesse?" + +"That for the first time in all these years she is going to Lac Bain--to +the dog sale." + +Reese Beaudin's face was again hidden in the smoke of his pipe. Through +it his voice came. + +"It is a cold night, M'sieu Delesse. Hear the wind howl!" + +"Yes, it is cold--so cold the foxes will not run. My traps and +poison-baits will need no tending tomorrow." + +"Unless you dig them out of the drifts." + +"I will stay in the cabin." + +"What! You are not going to Lac Bain!" + +"I doubt it." + +"Even though Elise, your cousin, is to be there?" + +"I have no stomach for it, m'sieu. Nor would you were you in my boots, +and did you know why he is going. Par les mille cornes d'u diable, I +cannot whip him but I can kill him--and if I went--and the thing happens +which I guess is going to happen--" + +"Qui? Surely you will tell me--" + +"Yes, I will tell you. Jacques Dupont knows that Elise has never stopped +loving the Yellow-back. I do not believe she has ever tried to hide it +from him. Why should she? And there is a rumor, m'sieu, that the +Yellow-back will be at the Lac Bain dog sale." + +Reese Beaudin rose slowly to his feet, and yawned in that smoke-filled +cabin. + +"And if the Yellow-back should turn the tables, Joe Delesse, think of +what a fine thing you will miss," he said. + +Joe Delesse also rose, with a contemptuous laugh. + +"That fiddler, that picture-drawer, that book-reader--Pouff! You are +tired, m'sieu, that is your bunk." + +Reese Beaudin held out a hand. The bulk of the two stood out in the +lamp-glow, and Joe Delesse was so much the bigger man that his hand was +half again the size of Reese Beaudin's. They gripped. And then a strange +look went over the face of Joe Delesse. A cry came from out of his beard. +His mouth grew twisted. His knees doubled slowly under him, and in the +space of ten seconds his huge bulk was kneeling on the floor, while Reese +Beaudin looked at him, smiling. + +"Has Jacques Dupont a greater grip than that, Joe Delesse?" he asked in a +voice that was so soft it was almost a woman's. + +"Mon Dieu!" gasped Delesse. He staggered to his feet, clutching his +crushed hand. "M'sieu--" + +Reese Beaudin put his hands to the other's shoulders, smiling, friendly. + +"I will apologize, I will explain, mon ami," he said. "But first, you +must tell me the name of that Yellow-back who ran away years ago. Do you +remember it?" + +"Oui, but what has that to do with my crushed hand? The Yellow-back's +name was Reese Beaudin--" + +"And I am Reese Beaudin," laughed the other gently. + +On that day--the day of Wakoa, the dog sale--seven fat caribou were +roasting on great spits at Post Lac Bain, and under them were seven fires +burning red and hot of seasoned birch, and around the seven fires were +seven groups of men who slowly turned the roasting carcasses. + +It was the Big Day of the mid-winter festival, and Post Lac Bain, with a +population of twenty in times of quiet, was a seething wilderness +metropolis of two hundred excited souls and twice as many dogs. From all +directions they had come, from north and south and east and west; from +near and from far, from the Barrens, from the swamps, from the farther +forests, from river and lake and hidden trail--a few white men, mostly +French; half-breeds and 'breeds, Chippewans, and Crees, and here and +there a strange, dark-visaged little interloper from the north with his +strain of Eskimo blood. Foregathered were all the breeds and creeds and +fashions of the wilderness. + +Over all this, pervading the air like an incense, stirring the desire of +man and beast, floated the aroma of the roasting caribou. The feast-hour +was at hand. With cries that rose above the last words of a wild song the +seven groups of men rushed to seven pairs of props and tore them away. +The great carcasses swayed in mid-air, bent slowly over their spits, and +then crashed into the snow fifteen feet from the fire. About each carcass +five men with razor-sharp knives ripped off hunks of the roasted flesh +and passed them into eager hands of the hungry multitude. First came the +women and children, and last the men. + +On this there peered forth from a window in the factor's house the darkly +bearded, smiling face of Reese Beaudin. + +"I have seen him three times, wandering about in the crowd, seeking +someone," he said. "Bien, he shall find that someone very soon!" + +In the face of McDougall, the factor, was a strange look. For he had +listened to a strange story, and there was still something of shock and +amazement and disbelief in his eyes. + +"Reese Beaudin, it is hard for me to believe." + +"And yet you shall find that it is true," smiled Reese. + +"He will kill you. He is a monster--a giant!" + +"I shall die hard," replied Reese. + +He turned from the window again, and took from the table a violin wrapped +in buckskin, and softly he played one of their old love songs. It was not +much more than a whisper, and yet it was filled with a joyous exultation. +He laid the violin down when he was finished, and laughed, and filled his +pipe, and lighted it. + +"It is good for a man's soul to know that a woman loves him, and has been +true," he said. "Mon pere, will you tell me again what she said? It is +strength for me--and I must soon be going." + +McDougall repeated, as if under a strain from which he could not free +himself: + +"She came to me late last night, unknown to Dupont. She had received your +message, and knew you were coming. And I tell you again that I saw +something in her eyes which makes me afraid! She told me, then, that her +father killed Bedore in a quarrel, and that she married Dupont to save +him from the law--and kneeling there, with her hand on the cross at her +breast, she swore that each day of her life she has let Dupont know that +she hates him, and that she loves you, and that some day Reese Beaudin +would return to avenge her. Yes, she told him that--I know it by what I +saw in her eyes. With that cross clutched in her fingers she swore that +she had suffered torture and shame, and that never a word of it had she +whispered to a living soul, that she might turn the passion of Jacques +Dupont's black heart into a great hatred. And today--Jacques Dupont will +kill you!" + +"I shall die hard," Reese repeated again. + +He tucked the violin in its buckskin covering under his arm. From the +table he took his cap and placed it on his head. + +In a last effort McDougall sprang from his chair and caught the other's +arm. + +"Reese Beaudin--you are going to your death! As factor of Lac Bain--agent +of justice under power of the Police--I forbid it!" + +"So-o-o-o," spoke Reese Beaudin gently. "Mon pere--" + +He unbuttoned his coat, which had remained buttoned. Under the coat was a +heavy shirt; and the shirt he opened, smiling into the factor's eyes, and +McDougall's face froze, and the breath was cut short on his lips. + +"That!" he gasped. + +Reese Beaudin nodded. + +Then he opened the door and went out. + +Joe Delesse had been watching the factor's house, and he worked his way +slowly along the edge of the feasters so that he might casually come into +the path of Reese Beaudin. And there was one other man who also had +watched, and who came in the same direction. He was a stranger, tall, +closely hooded, his mustached face an Indian bronze. No one had ever seen +him at Lac Bain before, yet in the excitement of the carnival the fact +passed without conjecture or significance. And from the cabin of Henri +Paquette another pair of eyes saw Reese Beaudin, and Mother Paquette +heard a sob that in itself was a prayer. + +In and out among the devourers of caribou-flesh, scanning the groups and +the ones and the twos and the threes, passed Jacques Dupont, and with him +walked his friend, one-eyed Layonne. Layonne was a big man, but Dupont +was taller by half a head. The brutishness of his face was hidden under a +coarse red beard; but the devil in him glowered from his deep-set, +inhuman eyes; it walked in his gait, in the hulk of his great shoulders, +in the gorilla-like slouch of his hips. His huge hands hung partly +clenched at his sides. His breath was heavy with whisky that Layonne +himself had smuggled in, and in his heart was black murder. + +"He has not come!" he cried for the twentieth time. "He has not come!" + +He moved on, and Reese Beaudin--ten feet away--turned and smiled at Joe +Delesse with triumph in his eyes. He moved nearer. + +"Did I not tell you he would not find in me that narrow-shouldered, +smooth-faced stripling of five years ago?" he asked. "N'est-ce pas, +friend Delesse?" + +The face of Joe Delesse was heavy with a somber fear. + +"His fist is like a wood-sledge, m'sieu." + +"So it was years ago." + +"His forearm is as big as the calf of your leg." + +"Oui, friend Delesse, it is the forearm of a giant." + +"He is half again your weight." + +"Or more, friend Delesse." + +"He will kill you! As the great God lives, he will kill you!" + +"I shall die hard," repeated Reese Beaudin for the third time that day. + +Joe Delesse turned slowly, doggedly. His voice rumbled. + +"The sale is about to begin, m'sieu. See!" + +A man had mounted the log platform raised to the height of a man's +shoulders at the far end of the clearing. It was Henri Paquette, master +of the day's ceremonies, and appointed auctioneer of the great wakao. A +man of many tongues was Paquette. To his lips he raised a great megaphone +of birchbark, and sonorously his call rang out--in French, in Cree, in +Chippewan, and the packed throng about the caribou-fires heaved like a +living billow, and to a man and a woman and a child it moved toward the +appointed place. + +"The time has come," said Reese Beaudin. "And all Lac Bain shall see!" + +Behind them--watching, always watching--followed the bronze-faced +stranger in his close-drawn hood. + +For an hour the men of Lac Bain gathered close-wedged about the log +platform on which stood Henri Paquette and his Indian helper. Behind the +men were the women and children, and through the cordon there ran a +babiche-roped pathway along which the dogs were brought. + +The platform was twenty feet square, with the floor side of the logs hewn +flat, and there was no lack of space for the gesticulation and wild +pantomime of Paquette. In one hand he held a notebook, and in the other a +pencil. In the notebook the sales of twenty dogs were already tabulated, +and the prices paid. + +Anxiously, Reese Beaudin was waiting. Each time that a new dog came up he +looked at Joe Delesse, but, as yet Joe had failed to give the signal. + +On the platform the Indian was holding two malamutes in leash now and +Paquette was crying, in a well simulated fit of great fury: + +"What, you cheap kimootisks, will you let this pair of malamutes go for +seven mink and a cross fox. Are you men? Are you poverty-stricken? Are +you blind? A breed dog and a male giant for seven mink and a cross fox? +Non, I will buy them myself first, and kill them, and use their flesh for +dog-feed, and their hides for fools' caps! I will--" + +"Twelve mink and a Number Two Cross," came a voice out of the crowd. + +"Twelve mink and a Number One," shouted another. + +"A little better--a little better!" wailed Paquette. "You are waking up, +but slowly--mon Dieu, so slowly! Twelve mink and--" + +A voice rose in Cree: + +"Nesi-tu-now-unisk!" + +Paquette gave a triumphant yell. + +"The Indian beats you! The Indian from Little Neck Lake--an Indian beats +the white man! He offers twenty beaver--prime skins! And beaver are +wanted in Paris now. They're wanted in London. Beaver and gold--they are +the same! But they are the price of one dog alone. Shall they both go at +that? Shall the Indian have them for twenty beaver--twenty beaver that +may be taken from a single house in a day--while it has taken these +malamutes two and a half years to grow? I say, you cheap kimootisks--" + +And then an amazing thing happened. It was like a bomb falling in that +crowded throng of wondering and amazed forest people. + +It was the closely hooded stranger who spoke. + +"I will give a hundred dollars cash," he said. + +A look of annoyance crossed Reese Beaudin's face. + +He was close to the bronze-faced stranger, and edged nearer. + +"Let the Indian have them," he said in a low voice. "It is Meewe. I knew +him years ago. He has carried me on his back. He taught me first to draw +pictures." + +"But they are powerful dogs," objected the stranger. "My team needs +them." + +The Cree had risen higher out of the crowd. One arm rose above his head. +He was an Indian who had seen fifty years of the forests, and his face +was the face of an Egyptian. + +"Nesi-tu-now Nesoo-sap umisk!" he proclaimed. + +Henri Paquette hopped excitedly, and faced the stranger. + +"Twenty-two beaver," he challenged. "Twenty-two--" + +"Let Meewe have them," replied the hooded stranger. + +Three minutes later a single dog was pulled up on the log platform. He +was a magnificent beast, and a rumble of approval ran through the crowd. + +The face of Joe Delesse was gray. He wet his lips. Reese Beaudin, +watching him, knew that the time had come. And Joe Delesse, seeing no way +of escape, whispered: + +"It is her dog, m'sieu. It is Parka--and Dupont sells him today to show +her that he is master." + +Already Paquette was advertising the virtues of Parka when Reese Beaudin, +in a single leap, mounted the log platform, and stood beside him. + +"Wait!" he cried. + +There fell a silence, and Reese said, loud enough for all to hear: + +"M'sieu Paquette, I ask the privilege of examining this dog that I want +to buy." + +At last he straightened, and all who faced him saw the smiling sneer on +his lips. + +"Who is it that offers this worthless cur for sale?" Lac Bain heard him +say. "P-s-s-st--it is a woman's dog! It is not worth bidding for!" + +"You lie!" Dupont's voice rose in a savage roar. His huge shoulders +bulked over those about him. He crowded to the edge of the platform. "You +lie!" + +"He is a woman's dog," repeated Reese Beaudin without excitement, yet so +clearly that every ear heard. "He is a woman's pet, and M'sieu Dupont +most surely does lie if he denies it!" + +So far as memory went back no man at Lac Bain that day had ever heard +another man give Jacques Dupont the lie. A thrill swept those who heard +and understood. There was a great silence, in that silence men near him +heard the choking rage in Dupont's great chest. He was staring +up--straight up into the smiling face of Reese Beaudin; and in that +moment he saw beyond the glossy black beard, and amazement and unbelief +held him still. In the next, Reese Beaudin had the violin in his hands. +He flung off the buckskin, and in a flash the instrument was at his +shoulder. + +"See! I will play, and the woman's pet shall sing!" + +And once more, after five years, Lac Bain listened to the magic of Reese +Beaudin's violin. And it was Elise's old love song that he played. He +played it, smiling down into the eyes of a monster whose face was turning +from red to black; yet he did not play it to the end, nor a quarter of +it, for suddenly a voice shouted: + +"It is Reese Beaudin--come back!" + +Joe Delesse, paralyzed, speechless, could have sworn it was the hooded +stranger who shouted; and then he remembered, and flung up his great +arms, and bellowed: + +"Oui--by the Saints, it is Reese Beaudin--Reese Beaudin come back!" + +Suddenly as it had begun the playing ceased, and Henri Paquette found +himself with the violin in his hands. Reese Beaudin turned, facing them +all, the wintry sun glowing in his beard, his eyes smiling, his head +high--unfraid now, more fearless than any other man that had ever set +foot in Lac Bain. And McDougall, with his arm touching Elise's hair, felt +the wild and throbbing pulse of her body. This day--this hour--this +minute in which she stood still, inbreathing--had confirmed her belief in +Reese Beaudin. As she had dreamed, so had he risen. First of all the men +in the world he stood there now, just as he had been first in the days +when she had loved his dreams, his music, and his pictures. To her he was +the old god, more splendid,--for he had risen above fear, and he was +facing Dupont now with that strange quiet smile on his lips. And then, +all at once, her soul broke its fetters, and over the women's heads she +reached out her arms, and all there heard her voice in its triumph, its +joy, its fear. + +"Reese! Reese--my sakeakun!" + +Over the heads of all the forest people she called him beloved! Like the +fang of an adder the word stung Dupont's brain. And like fire touched to +powder, swiftly as lightning illumines the sky, the glory of it blazed in +Reese Beaudin's face. And all that were there heard him clearly: + +"I am Reese Beaudin. I am the Yellow-back. I have returned to meet a man +you all know--Jacques Dupont. He is a monkey-man--a whipper of boys, a +stealer of women, a cheat, a coward, a thing so foul the crows will not +touch him when he dies--" + +There was a roar. It was not the roar of a man, but of a beast--and +Jacques Dupont was on the platform! + +Quick as Dupont's movement had been it was no swifter than that of the +closely-hooded stranger. He was as tall as Dupont, and about him there +was an air of authority and command. + +"Wait," he said, and placed a hand on Dupont's heaving chest. His smile +was cold as ice. Never had Dupont seen eyes so like the pale blue of +steel. + +"M'sieu Dupont, you are about to avenge a great insult. It must be done +fairly. If you have weapons, throw them away. I will search this--this +Reese Beaudin, as he calls himself! And if there is to be a fight, let it +be a good one. Strip yourself to that great garment you have on, friend +Dupont. See, our friend--this Reese Beaudin--is already stripping!" + +He was unbuttoning the giant's heavy Hudson's Bay coat. He pulled it off, +and drew Dupont's knife from its sheath. Paquette, like a stunned cat +that had recovered its ninth life, was scrambling from the platform. The +Indian was already gone. And Reese Beaudin had tossed his coat to Joe +Delesse, and with it his cap. His heavy shirt was closely buttoned; and +not only was it buttoned, Delesse observed, but also was it carefully +pinned. And even now, facing that monster who would soon be at him, Reese +Beaudin was smiling. + +For a moment the closely hooded stranger stood between them, and Jacques +Dupont crouched himself for his vengeance. Never to the people of Lac +Bain had he looked more terrible. He was the gorilla-fighter, the beast +fighter, the fighter who fights as the wolf, the bear and the +cat--crushing out life, breaking bones, twisting, snapping, inundating +and destroying with his great weight and his monstrous strength. He was a +hundred pounds heavier than Reese Beaudin. On his stooping shoulders he +could carry a tree. With his giant hands he could snap a two-inch +sapling. With one hand alone he had set a bear-trap. And with that mighty +strength he fought as the cave-man fought. It was his boast there was no +trick of the Chippewan, the Cree, the Eskimo or the forest man that he +did not know. And yet Reese Beaudin stood calmly, waiting for him, and +smiling! + +In another moment the hooded stranger was gone, and there was none +between them. + +"A long time I have waited for this, m'sieu," said Reese, for Dupont's +ears alone. "Five years is a long time. And my Elise still loves me." + +Still more like a gorilla Jacques Dupont crept upon him. His face was +twisted by a rage to which he could no longer give voice. Hatred and +jealousy robbed his eyes of the last spark of the thing that was human. +His great hands were hooked, like an eagle's talons. His lips were drawn +back, like a beast's. Through his red beard yellow fangs were bared. + +And Reese Beaudin no longer smiled. He laughed! + +"Until I went away and met real men, I never knew what a pig of a man you +were, M'sieu Dupont," he taunted amiably, as though speaking in jest to a +friend. "You remind me of an aged and over-fat porcupine with his big +paunch and crooked arms. What horror must it have been for my Elise to +have lived in sight of such a beast as you!" + +With a bellow Dupont was at him. And swifter than eyes had ever seen man +move at Lac Bain before, Reese Beaudin was out of his way, and behind +him; and then, as the giant caught himself at the edge of the platform, +and turned, he received a blow that sounded like the broadside of a +paddle striking water. Reese Beaudin had struck him with the flat of his +unclenched hand! + +A murmur of incredulity rose out of the crowd. To the forest man such a +blow was the deadliest of insults. It was calling him an Iskwao--a +woman--a weakling--a thing too contemptible to harden one's fist against. +But the murmur died in an instant. For Reese Beaudin, making as if to +step back, shot suddenly forward--straight through the giant's crooked +arms--and it was his fist this time that landed squarely between the eyes +of Dupont. The monster's head went back, his great body wavered, and then +suddenly he plunged backward off the platform and fell with a crash to +the ground. + +A yell went up from the hooded stranger. Joe Delesse split his throat. +The crowd drowned Reese Beaudin's voice. But above it all rose a woman's +voice shrieking forth a name. + +And then Jacques Dupont was on the platform again. In the moments that +followed one could almost hear his neighbor's heart beat. Nearer and +still nearer to each other drew the two men. And now Dupont crouched +still more, and Joe Delesse held his breath. He noticed that Reese +Beaudin was standing almost on the tips of his toes--that each instant he +seemed prepared, like a runner, for sudden flight. Five feet--four--and +Dupont leapt in, his huge arms swinging like the limb of a tree, and his +weight following with crushing force behind his blow. For an instant it +seemed as though Reese Beaudin had stood to meet that fatal rush, but in +that same instant--so swiftly that only the hooded stranger knew what had +happened--he was out of the way, and his left arm seemed to shoot +downward, and then up, and then his right straight out, and then again +his left arm downward, and up--and it was the third blow, all swift as +lightning, that brought a yell from the hooded stranger. For though none +but the stranger had seen it, Jacques Dupont's head snapped back--and all +saw the fourth blow that sent him reeling like a man struck by a club. + +There was no sound now. A mental and a vocal paralysis seized upon the +inhabitants of Lac Bain. Never had they seen fighting like this fighting +of Reese Beaudin. Until now had they lived to see the science of the +sawdust ring pitted against the brute force of Brobdingnagian, of Antaeus +and Goliath. For Reese Beaudin's fighting was a fighting without tricks +that they could see. He used his fists, and his fists alone. He was like +a dancing man. And suddenly, in the midst of the miracle, they saw +Jacques Dupont go down. And the second miracle was that Reese Beaudin did +not leap on him when he had fallen. He stood back a little, balancing +himself in that queer fashion on the balls and toes of his feet. But no +sooner was Dupont up than Reese Beaudin was in again, with the swiftness +of a cat, and they could hear the blows, like solid shots, and Dupont's +arms waved like tree-tops, and a second time he was off the platform. + +He was staggering when he rose. The blood ran in streams from his mouth +and nose. His beard dripped with it. His yellow teeth were caved in. + +This time he did not leap upon the platform--he clambered back to it, and +the hooded stranger gave him a lift which a few minutes before Dupont +would have resented as an insult. + +"Ah, it has come," said the stranger to Delesse. + +"He is the best close-in fighter in all--" + +He did not finish. + +"I could kill you now--kill you with a single blow," said Reese Beaudin +in a moment when the giant stood swaying. "But there is a greater +punishment in store for you, and so I shall let you live!" + +And now Reese Beaudin was facing that part of the crowd where the woman +he loved was standing. He was breathing deeply. But he was not winded. +His eyes were black as night, his hair wind-blown. He looked straight +over the heads between him and she whom Dupont had stolen from him. + +Reese Beaudin raised his arms, and where there had been a murmur of +voices there was now silence. + +For the first time the stranger threw back his hood. He was unbuttoning +his heavy coat. + +And Joe Delesse, looking up, saw that Reese Beaudin was making a mighty +effort to quiet a strange excitement within his breast. And then there +was a rending of cloth and of buttons and of pins as in one swift +movement he tore the shirt from his own breast--exposing to the eyes of +Lac Bain blood-red in the glow of the winter sun, the crimson badge of +the Royal Northwest Mounted Police! + +And above the gasp that swept the multitude, above the strange cry of the +woman, his voice rose: + +"I am Reese Beaudin, the Yellow-back. I am Reese Beaudin, who ran away. I +am Reese Beaudin,--Sergeant in His Majesty's Royal Northwest Mounted +Police, and in the name of the law I arrest Jacques Dupont for the murder +of Francois Bedore, who was killed on his trap-line five years ago! +Fitzgerald--" + +The hooded stranger leaped upon the platform. His heavy coat fell off. +Tall and grim he stood in the scarlet jacket of the Police. Steel clinked +in his hands. And Jacques Dupont, terror in his heart, was trying to see +as he groped to his knees. The steel snapped over his wrists. + +And then he heard a voice close over him. It was the voice of Reese +Beaudin. + +"And this is your final punishment, Jacques Dupont--to be hanged by the +neck until you are dead. For Bedore was not dead when Elise's father left +him after their fight on the trap-line. It was you who saw the fight, and +finished the killing, and laid the crime on Elise's father. Mukoki, the +Indian, saw you. It is my day, Dupont, and I have waited long--" + +The rest Dupont did not hear. For up from the crowd there went a mighty +roar. And through it a woman was making her way with outreaching +arms--and behind her followed the factor of Lac Bain. + + + + + +THE FIDDLING MAN + +Breault's cough was not pleasant to hear. A cough possesses manifold and +almost unclassifiable diversities. But there is only one cough when a man +has a bullet through his lungs and is measuring his life by minutes, +perhaps seconds. Yet Breault, even as he coughed the red stain from his +lips, was not afraid. Many times he had found himself in the presence of +death, and long ago it had ceased to frighten him. Some day he had +expected to come under the black shadow of it himself--not in a quiet and +peaceful way, but all at once, with a shock. And the time had come. He +knew that he was dying; and he was calm. More than that--in dying he was +achieving a triumph. The red-hot death-sting in his lung had given birth +to a frightful thought in his sickening brain. The day of his great +opportunity was at hand. The hour--the minute. + +A last flush of the pale afternoon sun lighted up his black-bearded face +as his eyes turned, with their new inspiration, to his sledge. It was a +face that one would remember--not pleasantly, perhaps, but as a fixture +in a shifting memory of things; a face strong with a brute strength, +implacable in its hard lines, emotionless almost, and beyond that, a +mystery. + +It was the best known face in all that part of the northland which +reaches up from Fort McMurray to Lake Athabasca and westward to Fond du +Lac and the Wholdais country. For ten years Breault had made that trip +twice a year with the northern mails. In all its reaches there was not a +cabin he did not know, a face he had not seen, or a name he could not +speak; yet there was not a man, woman, or child who welcomed him except +for what he brought. But the government had found its faith in him +justified. The police at their lonely outposts had come to regard his +comings and goings as dependable as day and night. They blessed him for +his punctuality, and not one of them missed him when he was gone. A +strange man was Breault. + +With his back against a tree, where he had propped himself after the +first shock of the bullet in his lung, he took a last look at life with a +passionless imperturbability. If there was any emotion at all in his face +it was one of vindictiveness--an emotion roused by an intense and +terrible hatred that in this hour saw the fulfilment of its vengeance. +Few men nursed a hatred as Breault had nursed his. And it gave him +strength now, when another man would have died. + +He measured the distance between himself and the sledge. It was, perhaps, +a dozen paces. The dogs were still standing, tangled a little in their +traces,--eight of them,--wide-chested, thin at the groins, a wolfish +horde, built for endurance and speed. On the sledge was a quarter of a +ton of his Majesty's mail. Toward this Breault began to creep slowly and +with great pain. A hand inside of him seemed crushing the fiber of his +lung, so that the blood oozed out of his mouth. When he reached the +sledge there were many red patches in the snow behind him. He opened with +considerable difficulty a small dunnage sack, and after fumbling a bit +took there-from a pencil attached to a long red string, and a soiled +envelope. + +For the first time a change came upon his countenance--a ghastly smile. +And above his hissing breath, that gushed between his lips with the sound +of air pumped through the fine mesh of a colander, there rose a still +more ghastly croak of exultation and of triumph. Laboriously he wrote. A +few words, and the pencil dropped from his stiffening fingers into the +snow. Around his neck he wore a long red scarf held together by a big +brass pin, and to this pin he fastened securely the envelope. + +This much done,--the mystery of his death solved for those who might some +day find him,--the ordinary man would have contented himself by yielding +up life's struggle with as little more physical difficulty as possible. +Breault was not ordinary. He was, in his one way, efficiency incarnate. +He made space for himself on the sledge, and laid himself out in that +space with great care, first taking pains to fasten about his thighs two +babiche thongs that were employed at times to steady his freight. Then he +ran his left arm through one of the loops of the stout mail-chest. By +taking these precautions he was fairly secure in the belief that after he +was dead and frozen stiff no amount of rough trailing by the dogs could +roll him from the sledge. + +In this conjecture he was right. When the starved and exhausted malamutes +dragged their silent burden into the Northwest Mounted Police outpost +barracks at Crooked Bow twenty-four hours later, an ax and a sapling bar +were required to pry Francois Breault from his bier. Previous to this +process, however, Sergeant Fitzgerald, in charge at the outpost, took +possession of the soiled envelope pinned to Breault's red scarf. The +information it bore was simple, and yet exceedingly definite. Few men in +dying as Breault had died could have made the matter easier for the +police. + +On the envelope he had written: + +Jan Thoreau shot me and left me for dead. Have just strength to write +this--no more. + +Francois Breault. + +It was epic--a colossal monument to this man, thought Sergeant +Fitzgerald, as they pried the frozen body loose. + +To Corporal Blake fell the unpleasant task of going after Jan Thoreau. +Unpleasant, because Breault's starved huskies and frozen body brought +with them the worst storm of the winter. In the face of this storm Blake +set out, with the Sergeant's last admonition in his ears: + +"Don't come back, Blake, until you've got him, dead or alive." + +That is a simple and efficacious formula in the rank and file of the +Royal Northwest Mounted Police. It has made volumes of stirring history, +because it means a great deal and has been lived up to. Twice before, the +words had been uttered to Blake--in extreme cases. The first time they +had taken him for six months into the Barren Lands between Hudson's Bay +and the Great Slave--and he came back with his man; the second time he +was gone for nearly a year along the rim of the Arctic--and from there +also he came back with his man. Blake was of that sort. A bull-dog, a +Nemesis when he was once on the trail, and--like most men of that +kind--without a conscience. In the Blue Books of the service he was +credited with arduous patrols and unusual exploits. "Put Blake on the +trail" meant something, and "He is one of our best men" was a firmly +established conviction at departmental headquarters. + +Only one man knew Blake as Blake actually lived under his skin--and that +was Blake himself. He hunted men and ran them down without mercy--not +because he loved the law, but for the reason that he had in him the +inherited instincts of the hound. This comparison, if quite true, is none +the less unfair to the hound. A hound is a good dog at heart. + +In the January storm it may be that the vengeful spirit of Francois +Breault set out in company with Corporal Blake to witness the +consummation of his vengeance. That first night, as he sat close to his +fire in the shelter of a thick spruce timber, Blake felt the unusual and +disturbing sensation of a presence somewhere near him. The storm was at +its height. He had passed through many storms, but to-night there seemed +to be an uncannily concentrated fury in its beating and wailing over the +roofs of the forests. + +He was physically comfortable. The spruce trees were so dense that the +storm did not reach him, and fortune favored him with a good fire and +plenty of fuel. But the sensation oppressed him. He could not keep away +from him his mental vision of Breault as he had helped to pry him from +the sledge--his frozen features, the stiffened fingers, the curious twist +of the icy lips that had been almost a grin. + +Blake was not superstitious. He was too much a man of iron for that. His +soul had lost the plasticity of imagination. But he could not forget +Breault's lips as they had seemed to grin up at him. There was a reason +for it. On his last trip down, Breault had said to him, with that same +half-grin on his face: + +"M'sieu, some day you may go after my murderer, and when you do, Francois +Breault will go with you." + +That was three months ago. Blake measured the time back as he sucked at +his pipe, and at the same time he looked at the shadowy and half-lost +forms of his dogs, curled up for the night in the outer rim of firelight. + +Over the tree-tops a sudden blast of wind howled. It was like a monster +voice. Blake rose to his feet and rolled upon the fire the big night log +he had dragged in, and to this he added, with the woodman's craft of long +experience, lengths of green timber, so arranged that they would hold +fire until morning. Then he went into his silk service tent and buried +himself in his sleeping-bag. + +For a long time he did not sleep. He listened to the crackle of the fire. +Again and again he heard that monster voice moaning and shrieking over +the forest. Never had the rage of storm filled him with the uneasiness of +to-night. At last the mystery of it was solved for him. The wind came and +went each time in a great moaning, half shrieking sound: +B-r-r-r-r--e-e-e-e--aw-w-w-w! + +It was like a shock to him; and yet, he was not a superstitious man. No, +he was not that. He would have staked his life on it. But it was not +pleasant to hear a dead man's name shrieked over one's head by the wind. +Under the cover of his sleeping-bag flap Corporal Blake laughed. Funny +things were always happening, he tried to tell himself. And this was a +mighty good joke. Breault wasn't so slow, after all. He had given his +promise, and he was keeping it; for, if it wasn't really Breault's voice +up there in the wind, multiplied a thousand times, it was a good +imitation of it. Again Corporal Blake laughed--a laugh as unpleasant as +the cough that had come from Breault's bullet-punctured lung. He fell +asleep after a time; but even sleep could not drive from him the clinging +obsession of the thought that strange things were to happen in this +taking of Jan Thoreau. + +With the gray dawn there was nothing to mark the passing of the storm +except freshly fallen snow, and Blake was on the trail before it was +light enough to see a hundred yards ahead. There was a defiance and a +contempt of last night in the crack of his long caribou-gut whip and the +halloo of his voice as he urged on his dogs. Breault's voice in the wind? +Bah! Only a fool would have thought that. Therefore he was a fool. And +Jan Thoreau--it would be like taking a child. There would be no +happenings to report--merely an arrest, a quick return journey, an affair +altogether too ordinary to be interesting. Perhaps it was all on account +of the hearty supper of caribou liver he had eaten. He was fond of liver, +and once or twice before it had played him tricks. + +He began to wonder if he would find Jan Thoreau at home. He remembered +Jan quite vividly. The Indians called him Kitoochikun because he played a +fiddle. Blake, the Iron Man, disliked him because of that fiddle. Jan was +never without it, on the trail or off. The Fiddling Man, he called him +contemptuously--a baby, a woman; not fit for the big north. Tall and +slim, with blond hair in spite of his French blood and name, a quiet and +unexcitable face, and an air that Blake called "damned superiority." He +wondered how the Fiddling Man had ever screwed up nerve enough to kill +Breault. Undoubtedly there had been no fight. A quick and treacherous +shot, no doubt. That was like a man who played a fiddle. POOF! He had no +more respect for him than if he dressed in woman's clothing. + +And he DID have a wife, this Jan Thoreau. They lived a good twenty miles +off the north-and-south trail, on an island in the middle of Black Bear +Lake. He had never seen the wife. A poor sort of woman, he made up his +mind, that would marry a fiddler. Probably a half-breed; maybe an Indian. +Anyway, he had no sympathy for her. Without a doubt, it was the woman who +did the trapping and cut the wood. Any man who would tote a fiddle around +on his back-- + +Corporal Blake traveled fast, and it was afternoon of the second day when +he came to the dense spruce forest that shut in Black Bear Lake. Here +something happened to change his plans somewhat. He met an Indian he +knew--an Indian who, for two or three good reasons that stuck in the back +of his head, dared not lie to him; and this tribesman, coming straight +from the Thoreau cabin, told him that Jan was not at home, but had gone +on a three-day trip to see the French missioner who lived on one of the +lower Wholdaia waterways. + +Blake was keen on strategem. With him, man-hunting was like a game of +chess; and after he had questioned the Indian for a quarter of an hour he +saw his opportunity. Pastamoo, the Cree, was made a part of his Majesty's +service on the spot, with the promise of torture and speedy execution if +he proved himself a traitor. + +Blake turned over to him his dogs and sledge, his provisions, and his +tent, and commanded him to camp in the heart of a cedar swamp a few miles +back, with the information that he would return for his outfit at some +time in the indefinite future. He might be gone a day or a week. When he +had seen Pastamoo off, he continued his journey toward the cabin, in the +hope that Jan Thoreau's wife was either an Indian or a fool. He was too +old a hand at his game to be taken in by the story that had been told to +the Cree. + +Jan had not gone to the French missioner's. A murderer's trail would not +be given away like that. Of course the wife knew. And Corporal Blake +desired no better string to a criminal than the faith of a wife. Wives +were easy if handled right, and they had put the finishing touch to more +than one of his great successes. + +At the edge of the lake he fell back on his old trick--hunger, +exhaustion, a sprained leg. It was not more than a quarter of a mile +across the snow-covered ice of the lake to the thin spiral of smoke that +he saw rising above the thick balsams on the island. Five times in that +distance he fell upon his face; he crawled like a man about to die. He +performed an arduous task, a devilish task, and when at last he reached +the balsams he cursed his luck until he was red in the face. No one had +seen him. That quarter-mile of labor was lost, its finesse a failure. But +he kept up the play, and staggered weakly through the sheltering balsams +to the cabin. His artifice had no shame, even when played on women; and +he fell heavily against the door, beat upon it with his fist; and slipped +down into the snow, where he lay with his head bowed, as if his last +strength was gone. + +He heard movement inside, quick steps--and then the door opened. He did +not look up for a moment. That would have been crude. When he did raise +his head, it was very slowly, with a look of anguish in his face. And +then--he stared. His body all at once grew tense, and the counterfeit +pain in his eyes died out like a flash in this most astounding moment of +his life. Man of iron though he was, steeled to the core against the +weaknesses of sudden emotions, it was impossible for him to restrain the +gasp of amazement that rose to his lips. + +In that stifled cry Jan Thoreau's wife heard the supplication of a dying +man. She did not catch, back of it, the note of a startled beast. She was +herself startled, frightened for a moment by the unexpectedness of it +all. + +And Blake stared. This--the fiddler's wife! She was clutching in her hand +a brush with which she had been arranging her hair. The hair, jet black, +was wonderful. Her eyes were still more wonderful to Blake. She was not +an Indian--not a half-breed--and beautiful. The loveliest face he had +ever visioned, sleeping or awake, was looking down at him. + +With a second gasp, he remembered himself, and his body sagged, and the +amazed stare went out of his eyes as he allowed his head to fall a +little. In this movement his cap fell off. In another moment she was at +his side, kneeling in the snow and bending over him. + +"You are hurt, m'sieu!" + +Her hair fell upon him, smothering his neck and shoulders. The perfume of +it was like the delicate scent of a rare flower in his nostrils. A +strange thrill swept through him. He did not try to analyze it in those +few astonishing moments. It was beyond his comprehension, even had he +tried. He was ignorant of the finer fundamentals of life, and of the +great truth that the case-hardened nature of a man, like the body of an +athlete, crumbles fastest under sudden and unexpected change and strain. + +He regained his feet slowly and stupidly, assisted by Marie. They climbed +the one step to the door. As he sank back heavily on the cot, in the room +they entered, a thick tress of her hair fell softly upon his face. He +closed his eyes for a space. When he opened them, Marie was bending over +the stove. + +And SHE was Thoreau's wife! The instant he had looked up into her face, +he had forgotten the fiddler; but he remembered him now as he watched the +woman, who stood with her back toward him. She was as slim as a reed. Her +hair fell to her hips. He drew a deep breath. Unconsciously he clenched +his hands. SHE--the fiddler's wife! The thought repeated itself again and +again. Jan Thoreau, MURDERER, and this woman--HIS WIFE. + +She returned in a moment with hot tea, and he drank with subtle hypocrisy +from the cup she held to his lips. + +"Sprained my leg," he said then, remembering his old part, and replying +to the questioning anxiety in her eyes. "Dogs ran away and left me, and I +got here just by chance. A little more and--" + +He smiled grimly, and as he sank back he gave a sharp cry. He had +practised that cry in more than one cabin, and along with it a convulsion +of his features to emphasize the impression he labored to make. + +"I'm afraid--I'll be a trouble to you," he apologized. "It's not broken; +but it's bad, and I won't be able to move--soon. Is Jan at home?" + +"No, m'sieu; he is away." + +"Away," repeated Blake disappointedly. "Perhaps sometime he has told you +about me," he added with sudden hopefulness. "I am John Duval." + +"M'sieu--DUVAL!" + +Marie's eyes, looking down at him, became all at once great pools of +glowing light. Her lips parted. She leaned toward him, her slim hands +clasped suddenly to her breast. + +"M'sieu Duval--who nursed him through the smallpox?" she cried, her voice +trembling. "M'sieu Duval--who saved my Jan's life!" + +Blake had looked up his facts at headquarters. He knew what Duval, the +Barren Land trapper, had once upon a time done for Jan. + +"Yes; I am John Duval," said. "And so--you see--I am sorry that Jan is +away." + +"But he is coming back soon--in a few days," exclaimed Marie. "You shall +stay, m'sieu! You will wait for him? Yes?" + +"This leg--" began Blake. He cut himself short with a grimace. "Yes, I'll +stay. I guess I'll have to." + +Marie had changed at the mention of Duval's name. With the glow in her +eyes had come a flush into her cheeks, and Blake could see the strange +little quiver at her throat as she looked at him. But she did not see +Blake so much as what lay beyond him--Duval's lonely cabin away up on the +edge of the Great Barren, the hours of darkness and agony through which +Jan had passed, and the magnificent comradeship of this man who had now +dragged himself to their own cabin, half dead. + +Many times Jan had told her the story of that terrible winter when Duval +had nursed him like a woman, and had almost given up his life as a +sacrifice. And this--THIS--was Duval? She bent over him again as he lay +on the cot, her eyes shining like stars in the growing dusk. In that dusk +she was unconscious of the fact that his fingers had found a long tress +of her hair and were clutching it passionately. Remembering Duval as Jan +had enshrined him in her heart, she said: + +"I have prayed many times that the great God might thank you, m'sieu." + +He raised a hand. For an instant it touched her soft, warm cheek and +caressed her hair. Marie did not shrink--yes, that would have been an +insult. Even Jan would have said that. For was not this Duval, to whom +she owed all the happiness in her life--Duval, more than brother to Jan +Thoreau, her husband? + +"And you--are Marie?" said Blake. + +"Yes, m'sieu, I am Marie." + +A joyous note trembled in her voice as she drew back from the cot. He +could hear her swiftly braiding her hair before she struck a match to +light the oil lamp hanging from the ceiling. After that, through partly +closed eyes, he watched her as she prepared their supper. Occasionally, +when she turned toward him as if to speak, he feigned a desire to sleep. +It was a catlike watchfulness, filled with his old cunning. In his face +there was no sign to betray its hideous significance. Outwardly he had +regained his iron-like impassiveness; but in his body and his brain every +nerve and fiber was consumed by a monstrous desire--a desire for this +woman, the murderer's wife. It was as strange and as sudden as the death +that had come to Francois Breault. + +The moment he had looked up into her face in the doorway, it had +overwhelmed him. And now even the sound of her footsteps on the floor +filled him with an exquisite exultation. It was more than exultation. It +was a feeling of POSSESSION. + +In the hollow of his hand he--Blake, the man-hunter--held the fate of +this woman. She was the Fiddler's wife--and the Fiddler was a murderer. + +Marie heard the sudden deep breath that forced itself from his lips, a +gasp that would have been a cry of triumph if he had given it voice. + +"You are in pain, m'sieu," she exclaimed, turning toward him quickly. + +"A little," he said, smiling at her. "Will you help me to sit up, Marie?" + +He saw ahead of him another and more thrilling game than the man-hunt +now. And Marie, unsuspicious, put her arms about the shoulders of the +Pharisee and helped him to rise. They ate their supper with a narrow +table between them. If there had been a doubt in Blake's mind before +that, the half hour in which she sat facing him dispelled it utterly. At +first the amazing beauty of Thoreau's wife had impinged itself upon his +senses with something of a shock. But he was cool now. He was again +master of his old cunning. Pitilessly and without conscience, he was +marshaling the crafty forces of his brute nature for this new and more +thrilling fight--the fight for a woman. + +That in representing the Law he was pledged to virtue as well as order +had never entered into his code of life. To him the Law was force--power. +It had exalted him. It had forged an iron mask over the face of his +savagery. And it was the savage that was dominant in him now. He saw in +Marie's dark eyes a great love--love for a murderer. + +It was not his thought that he might alienate that. For that look, turned +upon himself, he would have sacrificed his whole world as it had +previously existed. He was scheming beyond that impossibility, measuring +her even as he called himself Duval, counting--not his chances of +success, but the length of time it would take him to succeed. + +He had never failed. A man had never beaten him. A woman had never +tricked him. And he granted no possibility of failure now. But--HOW? That +was the question that writhed and twisted itself in his brain even as he +smiled at her over the table and told her of the black days of Jan's +sickness up on the edge of the Barren. + +And then it came to him--all at once. Marie did not see. She did not +FEEL. She had no suspicion of this loyal friend of her husband's. + +Blake's heart pounded triumphant. He hobbled back to the cot, leaning on +Marie slim shoulder; and as he hobbled he told her how he had helped Jan +into his cabin in just this same way, and how at the end Jan had +collapsed--just as he collapsed when he came to the cot. He pulled Marie +down with him--accidentally. His lips touched her head. He laughed. + +For a few moments he was like a drunken man in his new joy. Willingly he +would have gambled his life on his chance of winning. But confidence +displaced none of his cunning. He rubbed his hands and said: + +"Gawd, but won't it be a surprise for Jan? I told him that some day I'd +come. I told him!" + +It would be a tremendous joke--this surprise he had in store for Jan. He +chuckled over it again and again as Marie went about her work; and +Marie's face flushed and her eyes were bright and she laughed softly at +this great love which Duval betrayed for her husband. No; even the loss +of his dogs and his outfit couldn't spoil his pleasure! Why should it? He +could get other dogs and another outfit--but it had been three years +since he had seen Jan Thoreau! When Marie had finished her work he put +his hand suddenly to his eyes and said: + +"Peste! but last night's storm must have hurt my eyes. The light blinds +them, ma cheri. Will you put it out, and sit down near me, so that I can +see you as you talk, and tell me all that has happened to Jan Thoreau +since that winter three years ago?" + +She put out the light, and threw open the door of the box-stove. In the +dim firelight she sat on a stool beside Blake's cot. Her faith in him was +like that of a child. She was twenty-two. Blake was fifteen years older. +She felt the immense superiority of his age. + +This man, you must understand, had been more than a brother to Jan. He +had been a father. He had risked his life. He had saved him from death. +And Marie, as she sat at his side, did not think of him as a young +man--thirty-seven. She talked to him as she might have talked to an elder +brother of Jan's, and with something like the same reverence in her +voice. + +It was unfortunate--for her--that Jan had loved Duval, and that he had +never tired of telling her about him. And now, when Blake's caution +warned him to lie no more about the days of plague in Duval's cabin, she +told him--as he had asked her--about herself and Jan; how they had lived +during the last three years, the important things that had happened to +them, and what they were looking forward to. He caught the low note of +happiness that ran through her voice; and with a laugh, a laugh that +sounded real and wholesome, he put out his hand in the darkness--for the +fire had burned itself low--and stroked her hair. She did not shrink from +the caress. He was happy because THEY were happy. That was her thought! +And Blake did not go too far. + +She went on, telling Jan's life away, betraying him In her happiness, +crucifying him in her faith. Blake knew that she was telling the truth. +She did not know that Jan had killed Francois Breault, and she believed +that he would surely return--in three days. And the way he had left her +that morning! Yes, she confided even that to this big brother of Jan, her +cheeks flushing hotly in the darkness--how he had hated to go, and held +her a long time in his arms before he tore himself away. + +Had he taken his fiddle along with him? Yes--always that. Next to herself +he loved his violin. Oo-oo--no, no--she was not jealous of the violin! +Blake laughed--such a big, healthy, happy laugh, with an odd tremble in +it. He stroked her hair again, and his fingers lay for an instant against +her warm cheek. + +And then, quite casually, he played his second big card. + +"A man was found dead on the trail yesterday," he said. "Some one killed +him. He had a bullet through his lung. He was the mail-runner, Francois +Breault." + +It was then, when he said that Breault had been murdered, that Blake's +hand touched Marie's cheek and fell to her shoulder. It was too dark in +the cabin to see. But under his hand he felt her grow suddenly rigid, and +for a moment or two she seemed to stop breathing. In the gloom Blake's +lips were smiling. He had struck, and he needed no light to see the +effect. + +"Francois--Breault!" he heard her breathe at last, as if she was fighting +to keep something from choking her. "Francois Breault--dead--killed by +someone--" + +She rose slowly. His eyes followed her, a shadow in the gloom as she +moved toward the stove. He heard her strike a match, and when she turned +toward him again in the light of the oil-lamp, her face was pale and her +eyes were big and staring. He swung himself to the edge of the cot, his +pulse beating with the savage thrill of the inquisitor. Yet he knew that +it was not quite time for him to disclose himself--not quite. He did not +dread the moment when he would rise and tell her that he was not injured, +and that he was not M'sieu Duval, but Corporal Blake of the Royal Mounted +Police. He was eager for that moment. But he waited--discreetly. When the +trap was sprung there would be no escape. + +"You are sure--it was Francois Breault?" she said at last. + +He nodded. + +"Yes, the mail-runner. You knew him?" + +She had moved to the table, and her hand was gripping the edge of it. For +a space she did not answer him, but seemed to be looking somewhere +through the cabin walls--a long way off. Ferret-like, he was watching +her, and saw his opportunity. How splendidly fate was playing his way! + +He rose to his feet and hobbled painfully to her, a splendid hypocrite, a +magnificent dissembler. He seized her hand and held it in both his own. +It was small and soft, but strangely cold. + +"Ma cheri--my dear child--what makes you look like that? What has the +death of Francois Breault to do with you--you and Jan?" + +It was the voice of a friend, a brother, low, sympathetic, filled just +enough with anxiety. Only last winter, in just that way, it had won the +confidence and roused the hope of Pierrot's wife, over on the Athabasca. +In the summer that followed they hanged Pierrot. Gently Blake spoke the +words again. Marie's lips trembled. Her great eyes were looking at +him--straight into his soul, it seemed. + +"You may tell me, ma cheri," he encouraged, barely above a whisper. "I am +Duval. And Jan--I love Jan." + +He drew her back toward the cot, dragging his limb painfully, and seated +her again upon the stool. He sat beside her, still holding her hand, +patting it, encouraging her. The color was coming back into Marie's +cheeks. Her lips were growing full and red again, and suddenly she gave a +trembling little laugh as she looked up into Blake's face. His presence +began to dispel the terror that had possessed her all at once. + +"Tell me, Marie." + +He saw the shudder that passed through her slim shoulders. + +"They had a fight--here--in this cabin--three days ago," she confessed. +"It must have been--the day--he was killed." + +Blake knew the wild thought that was in her heart as she watched him. The +muscles of his jaws tightened. His shoulders grew tense. He looked over +her head as if he, too, saw something beyond the cabin walls. It was +Marie's hand that gripped his now, and her voice, panting almost, was +filled with an agonized protest. + +"No, no, no--it was not Jan," she moaned. "It was not Jan who killed +him!" + +"Hush!" said Blake. + +He looked about him as if there was a chance that someone might hear the +fatal words she had spoken. It was a splendid bit of acting, almost +unconscious, and tremendously effective. The expression in his face +stabbed to her heart like a cold knife. Convulsively her fingers clutched +more tightly at his hands. He might as well have spoken the words: "It +was Jan, then, who killed Francois Breault!" + +Instead of that he said: + +"You must tell me everything, Marie. How did it happen? Why did they +fight? And why has Jan gone away so soon after the killing? For Jan's +sake, you must tell me--everything." + +He waited. It seemed to him that he could hear the fighting struggle in +Marie's breast. Then she began, brokenly, a little at a time, now and +then barely whispering the story. It was a woman's story, and she told it +like a woman, from the beginning. Perhaps at one time the rivalry between +Jan Thoreau and Francois Breault, and their struggle for her love, had +made her heart beat faster and her cheeks flush warm with a woman's pride +of conquest, even though she had loved one and had hated the other. None +of that pride was in her voice now, except when she spoke of Jan. + +"Yes--like that--children together--we grew up," she confided. "It was +down there at Wollaston Post, in the heart of the big forests, and when I +was a baby it was Jan who carried me about on his shoulders. Oui, even +then he played the violin. I loved it. I loved Jan--always. Later, when I +was seventeen, Francois Breault came." + +She was trembling. + +"Jan has told me a little about those days," lied Blake. "Tell me the +rest, Marie." + +"I--I knew I was going to be Jan's wife," she went on, the hands she had +withdrawn from his twisting nervously in her lap. "We both knew. And +yet--he had not spoken--he had not been definite. Oo-oo, do you +understand, M'sieu Duval? It was my fault at the beginning! Francois +Breault loved me. And so--I played with him--only a little, m'sieu!--to +frighten Jan into the thought that he might lose me. I did not know what +I was doing. No--no; I didn't understand. + +"Jan and I were married, and on the day Jan saw the missioner--a week +before we were made man and wife--Francois Beault came in from the trail +to see me, and I confessed to him, and asked his forgiveness. We were +alone. And he--Francois Breault--was like a madman." + +She was panting. Her hands were clenched. "If Jan hadn't heard my cries, +and come just in time--" she breathed. + +Her blazing eyes looked up into Blake's face. He understood, and nodded. + +"And it was like that--again--three days ago," she continued. "I hadn't +seen Breault in two years--two years ago down at Wollaston Post. And he +was mad. Yes, he must have been mad when he came three days ago. I don't +know that he came so much for me as it was to kill Jan, He said it was +Jan. Ugh, and it was here--in the cabin--that they fought!" + +"And Jan--punished him," said Blake in a low voice. + +Again the convulsive shudder swept through Marie's shoulders. + +"It was strange--what happened, m'sieu. I was going to shoot. Yes, I +would have shot him when the chance came. But all at once Francois +Breault sprang back to the door, and he cried: 'Jan Thoreau, I am +mad--mad! Great God, what have I done?' Yes, he said that, m'sieu, those +very words--and then he was gone." + +"And that same day--a little later--Jan went away from the cabin, and was +gone a long time," whispered Blake. "Was it not so, Marie?" + +"Yes; he went to his trap-line, m'sieu." + +For the first time Blake made a movement. He took her face boldly between +his two hands, and turned it so that her staring eyes were looking +straight into his own. Every fiber in his body was trembling with the +thrill of his monstrous triumph. "My dear little girl, I must tell you +the truth," he said. "Your husband, Jan, did not go to his trap-line +three days ago. He followed Francois Breault, and killed him. And I am +not John Duval. I am Corporal Blake of the Mounted Police, and I have +come to get Jan, that he may be hanged by the neck until he is dead for +his crime. I came for that. But I have changed my mind. I have seen you, +and for you I would give even a murderer his life. Do you understand? For +YOU--YOU--YOU--" + +And then came the grand finale, just as he had planned it. His words had +stupefied her. She made no movement, no sound--only her great eyes seemed +alive. And suddenly he swept her into his arms with the wild passion of a +beast. How long she lay against his breast, his arms crushing her, his +hot lips on her face, she did not know. + +The world had grown suddenly dark. But in that darkness she heard his +voice; and what it was saying roused her at last from the deadliness of +her stupor. She strained against him, and with a wild cry broke from his +arms, and staggered across the cabin floor to the door of her bedroom. +Blake did not pursue her. He let the darkness of that room shut her in. +He had told her--and she understood. + +He shrugged his shoulders as he rose to his feet. Quite calmly, in spite +of the wild rush of blood through his body, he went to the cabin door, +opened it, and looked out into the night. It was full of stars, and +quiet. + +It was quiet in that inner room, too--so quiet that one might fancy he +could hear the beating of a heart. Marie had flung herself in the +farthest corner, beyond the bed. And there her hand had touched +something. It was cold--the chill of steel. She could almost have +screamed, in the mighty reaction that swept through her like an electric +shock. But her lips were dumb and her hand clutched tighter at the cold +thing. + +She drew it toward her inch by inch, and leveled it across the bed. It +was Jan's goose-gun, loaded with buck-shot. There was a single metallic +click as she drew the hammer back. In the doorway, looking at the stars, +Blake did not hear. + +Marie waited. She was not reasoning things now, except that in the outer +room there was a serpent that she must kill. She would kill him as he +came between her and the light; then she would follow over Jan's trail, +overtake him somewhere, and they would flee together. Of that much she +thought ahead. But chiefly her mind, her eyes, her brain, her whole +being, were concentrated on the twelve-inch opening between the bedroom +door and the outer room. The serpent would soon appear there. And then-- + +She heard the cabin door close, and Blake's footsteps approaching. Her +body did not tremble now. Her forefinger was steady on the trigger. She +held her breath--and waited. Blake came to the deadline and stopped. She +could see one arm and a part of his shoulder. But that was not enough. +Another half step--six inches--four even, and she would fire. Her heart +pounded like a tiny hammer in her breast. + +And then the very life in her body seemed to stand still. The cabin door +had opened suddenly, and someone had entered. In that moment she would +have fired, for she knew that it must be Jan who had returned. But Blake +had moved. And now, with her finger on the trigger, she heard his cry of +amazement: + +"Sergeant Fitzgerald!" + +"Yes. Put up your gun, Corporal. Have you got Jan Thoreau?" + +"He--is gone." + +"That is lucky for us." It was the stranger's voice, filled with a great +relief. "I have traveled fast to overtake you. Matao, the half-breed, was +stabbed in a quarrel soon after you left; and before he died he confessed +to killing Breault. The evidence is conclusive. Ugh, but this fire is +good! Anybody at home?" + +"Yes," said Blake slowly. "Mrs. Thoreau--is--at home." + + + +L'ANGE + +She stood in the doorway of a log cabin that was overgrown with woodvine +and mellow with the dull red glow of the climbing bakneesh, with the +warmth of the late summer sun falling upon her bare head. Cummins' shout +had brought her to the door when we were still half a rifle shot down the +river; a second shout, close to shore, brought her running down toward +me. In that first view that I had of her, I called her beautiful. It was +chiefly, I believe, because of her splendid hair. John Cummins' shout of +homecoming had caught her with it undone, and she greeted us with the +dark and lustrous masses of it sweeping about her shoulders and down to +her hips. That is, she greeted Cummins, for he had been gone for nearly a +month. I busied myself with the canoe for that first half minute or so. + +Then it was that I received my introduction and for the first time +touched the hand of Melisse Cummins, the Florence Nightingale of several +thousand square miles of northern wilderness. I saw, then, that what I +had at first taken for our own hothouse variety of beauty was a different +thing entirely, a type that would have disappointed many because of its +strength and firmness. Her hair was a glory, brown and soft. No woman +could have criticized its loveliness. But the flush that I had seen in +her face, flower-like at a short distance, was a tan that was almost a +man's tan. Her eyes were of a deep blue and as clear as the sky; but in +them, too, there was a strength that was not altogether feminine. There +was strength in her face, strength in the poise of her firm neck, +strength in every movement of her limbs and body. When she spoke, it was +in a voice which, like her hair, was adorable. I had never heard a +sweeter voice, and her firm mouth was all at once not only gentle and +womanly, but almost girlishly pretty. + +I could understand, now, why Melisse Cummins was the heroine of a hundred +true tales of the wilderness, and I could understand as well why there +was scarcely a cabin or an Indian hut in that ten thousand square miles +of wilderness in which she had not, at one time or another, been spoken +of as "L'ange Meleese." And yet, unlike that other "angel" of flesh and +blood, Florence Nightingale, the story of Melisse Cummins and her work +will live and die with her in that little cabin two hundred miles +straight north of civilization. No, that is wrong. For the wilderness +will remember. It will remember, as it has remembered Father Duchene and +the Missioner of Lac Bain and the heroic days of the early voyageurs. A +hundred "Meleeses" will bear her memory in name--for all who speak her +name call her "Meleese," and not Melisse. + +The wilderness itself may never forget, as it has never forgotten +beautiful Jeanne D'Arcambal, who lived and died on the shore of the great +bay more than one hundred and sixty years ago. It will never forget the +great heart this woman has given to her "people" from the days of +girlhood; it will not forget the thousand perils she faced to seek out +the sick, the plague-stricken and the starving; in old age there will +still be those who will remember the first prayers to the real God that +she taught them in childhood; and children still to come, in cabin, tepee +and hut, will live to bless the memory of L'ange Meleese, who made +possible for them a new birthright and who in the wild places lived to +the full measure and glory of the Golden Rule. + +To find Meleese Cummins and her home in the wilderness, one must start at +Le Pas as the last outpost of civilization and strike northward through +the long Pelican Lake waterways to Reindeer Lake. Nearly forty miles up +the east shore of the lake, the adventurer will come to the mouth of the +Gray Loon--narrow and silent stream that winds under overhanging +forests--and after that a two-hours' journey in a canoe will bring one to +the Cummins' cabin. + +It is set in a clearing, with the thick spruce and balsam and cedar +hemming it in, and a tall ridge capped with golden birch rising behind +it. In that clearing John Cummins raises a little fruit and a few +vegetables during the summer months; but it is chiefly given up to three +or four huge plots of scarlet moose-flowers, a garden of Labrador tea, +and wild flowering plants and vines of half a dozen varieties. And where +the radiant moose-flowers grow thickest, screened from the view of the +cabin by a few cedars and balsams, are the rough wooden slabs that mark +seven graves. Six of them are the graves of children--little ones who +died deep in the wilderness and whose tiny bodies Meleese Cummins could +not leave to the savage and pitiless loneliness of the forests, but whom +she has brought together that they might have company in what she calls +her, "Little Garden of God." + +Those little graves tell the story of Meleese--the woman who, all heart +and soul, has buried her own one little babe in that garden of flowers. +One of the slabs marks the grave of an Indian baby, whose little dead +body Meleese Cummins carried to her cabin in her own strong arms from +twenty miles back in the forest, when the temperature was fifty degrees +below zero. Another of them, a baby boy, a French half-breed and his wife +brought down from fifty miles up the Reindeer and begged "L'ange Meleese" +to let it rest with the others, where "it might not be lonely and would +not be frightened by the howl of the wolves." It was a wild and half +Indian mother who said that! + +It was almost twenty years ago that the romance began in the lives of +John and Meleese Cummins. Meleese was then ten years old; and she still +remembers as vividly as though they were but memories of yesterday the +fears and wild tales of that one terrible winter when the "Red +Terror"--the smallpox--swept in a pitiless plague of death throughout the +northern wilderness. It was then that there came down from the north, one +bitter cold day, a ragged and half-starved boy, whose mother and father +had died of the plague in a little cabin fifty miles away, and who from +the day he staggered into the home of Henry Janesse, became Meleese's +playmate and chum. This boy was John Cummins. + +When Janesse moved to Fort Churchill, where Meleese might learn more in +the way of reading and writing and books than her parents could teach +her, John Cummins went with her. He went with them to Nelson House, and +from there to Split Lake, where Janesse died. From that time, at the age +of eighteen, he became the head and support of the home. When he was +twenty and Meleese eighteen, the two were married by a missioner from +Nelson House. The following autumn the young wife's mother died, and that +winter Meleese began her remarkable work among her "people." + +In their little cabin on the Gray Loon, one will hear John Cummins say +but little about himself; but there is a glow in his eyes and a flush in +his cheeks as he tells of that first day he came home from a three-days +journey over a long trap line to find his home cold and fireless, and a +note written by Meleese telling him that she had gone with a +twelve-year-old boy who had brought her word through twenty miles of +forest that his mother was dying. That first "case" was more terrible for +John Cummins than for his wife, for it turned out to be smallpox, and for +six weeks Meleese would allow him to come no nearer than the edge of the +clearing' in which the pest-ridden cabin stood. First the mother, and +then the boy, she nursed back to life, locking the door against the two +husbands, who built themselves a shack in the edge of the forest. Half a +dozen times Meleese Cummins has gone through ordeals like that unscathed. +Once it was to nurse a young Indian mother through the dread disease, and +again she went into a French trapper's cabin where husband, wife and +daughter were all sick with the malady. At these times, when the "call" +came to Meleese from a far cabin or tepee, John Cummins would give up the +duties of his trap line to accompany her, and would pitch his tent or +make him a shack close by, where he could watch over her, hunt food for +the afflicted people and keep up the stack of needed firewood and water. + +But there were times when the "calls" came during the husband's absence, +and, if they were urgent, Meleese went alone, trusting to her own +splendid strength and courage. A half-breed woman came to her one day, in +the dead of winter, from twenty miles across the lake. Her husband had +frozen one of his feet, and the "frost malady" would kill him, she said, +unless he had help. Scarcely knowing what she could do in such a case, +Meleese left a note for her husband, and on snowshoes the two heroic +women set off across the wind-swept and unsheltered lake, with the +thermometer fifty degrees below zero. It was a terrible venture, but the +two won out. When Meleese saw the frozen man, she knew that there was but +one thing to do, and with all the courage of her splendid heart she +amputated his foot. The torture of that terrible hour no one will ever +know. But when John Cummins returned to his home and, wild with fear, +followed across the lake, he scarcely recognized the Meleese who flung +herself sobbing into his arms when he found her. For two weeks after that +Meleese herself was sick. Thus, through the course of years, it came +about that it was, indeed, a stranger in the land who had not heard her +name. During the summer months Meleese's work, in place of duty, was a +pleasure. With her husband she made canoe journeys for fifty miles about +her home, hearing with her the teachings of cleanliness, of health and of +God. She was the first to hold to her own loving breast many little +children who came into their wild and desolate inheritance of life. She +was the first to teach a hundred childish lips to say "Now I lay me down +to sleep," and more than one woman she made to see the clear and starry +way to brighter life. + +Far up on Reindeer Lake, close to the shore, there is a towering +"lob-stick tree"--which is a tall spruce or cedar lopped of all its +branches to the very crest, which is trimmed in the form of a plume. A +tree thus shriven and trimmed is the Cree cenotaph to one held in almost +spiritual reverence, and the tree far up on Reindeer Lake is one of the +half dozen or more "lob-sticks" dedicated to Meleese. Six weeks Meleese +and John Cummins spent in an Indian camp at this point, and when at last +the two bade their primitive friends good-bye and left for home, the +little Indian children and the women followed their canoe along the edge +of a stream and flung handfuls of flowers after them. + +Of what Meleese Cummins and her husband know of the great outside world, +or of what they do not know, it is wisest to leave unsaid. Details have +often marred a picture. They are children of the wilderness, born of that +wilderness, bred of it, and life of it--a beating and palpitating part of +a world which few can understand. I doubt if one or the other has ever +heard of a William Shakespeare or a Tennyson, for it has not been in my +mind or desire to ask; but they do know the human heart as it beats and +throbs in a land that is desolation and loneliness, where poetry runs not +in lines and meters, but in the bloom of the wild flower, the rush of the +rapid, the thunder of the waterfall and the murmuring of the wind in the +spruce tops; where drama exists not in the epic lines of literature, but +in the hunt cry of the wolf, the death dirges of the storms that wail +down from the Barrens, and in the strange cries that rise up out of the +silent forests, where for a half of each year life is that endless strife +that leaves behind only those whom we term the survival of the fittest. + + + +THE CASE OF BEAUVAIS + +Madness? Perhaps. And yet if it was madness. . . . + +But strange things happen up there, gentlemen. I have found it sometimes +hard to define that word. There are so many kinds of madness, so many +ways in which the human brain may go wrong; and so often it happens that +what we call madness is both reasonable and just. It is so. Yes. A little +reason is good for us, a little more makes wise men of some of us--but +when our reason over-grows us and we reach too far, something breaks and +we go insane. + +But I will tell you the story. That is what you want to hear, and you +expect that it will be prejudiced--that I will either deliberately +attempt to protect and prolong a human life, or shorten and destroy it. I +shall do neither, gentlemen of the Royal Mounted Police. I have a faith +in you that is in its way an unbounded as my faith in God. I have looked +up to you in all my life in the wilderness as the heart of chivalry and +the soul of honor and fairness to all men. Pathfinders, men of iron, +guardians of people and spaces of which civilization knows but little, I +have taught my children of the forests to honor, obey and to trust you. +And so I shall tell you the story without prejudice, with the gratitude +of a missioner who has lived his life for forty years in the wilderness, +gentlemen. + +I am a Catholic. It is four hundred miles straight north by dog-sledge or +snowshoe to my cabin, and this is the first time in nineteen years that I +have been down to the edge of the big world which I remember now as +little more than a dream. But up there I knew that my duty lay, just at +the edge of the Big Barren. See! My hands are knotted like the snarl of a +tree. The glare of your lights hurts my eyes. I traveled to-day in the +middle of your street because my moccasined feet stumbled on the +smoothness of your walks. People stared, and some of them laughed. + +Forty years I have lived in another world. You--and especially you +gentlemen who have trailed in the Patrols of the north--know what that +world is. As it shapes different hands, as it trains different feet, as +it gives to us different eyes, so also it has bred into my forest +children hearts and souls that may be a little different, and a code of +right and wrong that too frequently has had no court of law to guide it. +So judge fairly, gentlemen of the Royal Mounted Police! Understand, if +you can. + +It was a terrible winter--that winter of Le Mort Rouge. So far down as +men and children now living will remember, it will be called by my people +the winter of Famine and Red Death. Starvation, gentlemen--and the +smallpox. People died like--what shall I say? It is not easy to describe +a thing like that. They died in tepees. They died in shacks. They died on +the trail. From late December until March I said my prayers over the +dead. You are wondering what all this has to do with my story; why it +matters that the caribou had migrated in vast herds to the westward, and +there was no food; why it matters that there were famine and plague in +the great unknown land, and that people were dying and our world going +through a cataclysm. My backwoods eyes can see your thought. What has all +this to do with Joseph Brecht? What has it to do with Andre Beauvais? Why +does this little forest priest take up so much time in telling so little? +you ask. And because it has its place--because it has its meaning--I ask +you for permission to tell my story in my own way. For these sufferings, +this hunger and pestilence and death, had a strange and terrible effect +on many human creatures that were left alive when spring came. It was +like a great storm that had swept through a forest of tall trees. A storm +of suffering that left heads bowed, shoulders bent, and minds gone. Yes, +GONE! + +Since that winter of Le Mort Rouge I know of eyes into which the life of +laughter will never come again; I know of strong men who became as little +children; I have seen faces that were fair with youth shrivel into +age--and my people call it noot' akutawin keskwawin--the cold and hungry +madness. May God help Andre Beauvais! + +I will tell the story now. + +It was in June. The last of the mush-snows had gone early, nearly a +fortnight before, and the waters were free from ice, when word was +brought to me that Father Boget was dying at Old Fort Reliance. Father +Boget was twenty years older than I, and I called him mon pere. He was a +father to me in our earlier years. I made haste to reach him that I might +hold his hand before he died, if that was possible. And you, Sergeant +McVeigh, who have spent years in that country of the Great Slave, know +what a race with death from Christie Bay to Old Fort Eeliance would be. +To follow the broken and twisted waters of the Great Slave would mean two +hundred miles, while to cut straight across the land by smaller streams +and lakelets meant less than seventy. But on your maps that space of +seventy miles is a blank. You have in it no streams and no larger waters. +You know little of it. But I can tell you, for I have been though it. It +is a Lost Hell. It is a vast country in which berry bushes grow +abundantly, but on which there are no berries, where there are forests +and swamps, but not a living creature to inhabit them; a country of water +in which there are no fish, of air in which there are no birds, of plants +without flowers--a reeking, stinking country of brimstone, a hell. In +your Blue Books you have called it the Sulphur Country. And this country, +as you draw a line from Christie Bay to Old Fort Reliance, is straight +between. Mon pere was dying, and my time was short. I decided to venture +it--cut across that Sulphur Country, and I sought for a man to accompany +me. I could find none. To the Indian it was the land of Wetikoo--the +Devil Country; to the Breeds it was filled with horror. Forty miles +distant there was a man I knew would go, a white man. But to reach him +would lose me three days, and I was about to set out alone when the +stranger came. He was, indeed, a strange man. When he came to what I +called my chateau, from nowhere, going nowhere, I hardly knew whether to +call him young or old. But I made my guess. That terrib le winter had +branded him. When I asked him his name, he said: + +"I am a wanderer, and in wandering I have lost my name. Call me M'sieu." + +I found this was a long speech for him, that his tongue was tied by a +horrible silence. When I told him where I was going, and described the +country I was going through, and that I wanted a man, he merely nodded +that he would accompany me. + +We started in a canoe, and I placed him ahead of me so that I could make +out, if I could, something of what he was. His hair was dark. His beard +was dark. His eyes were sunken but strangely clear. They puzzled me. They +were always questing. Always seeking. And always expecting, it seemed to +me. A man of unfathomable mystery, of unutterable tragedy, of a silence +that was almost inhuman. Was he mad? I ask you, gentlemen--was he mad? +And I leave the answer to you. To me he was good. When I told him what +mon pere had been to me, and that I wanted to reach him before he died, +he spoke no word of hope or sympathy--but worked until his muscles +cracked. We ate together, we drank together, we slept side by side--and +it was like eating and drinking and sleeping with a sphinx which some +strange miracle had endowed with life. + +The second day we entered the Sulphur Country. The stink of it was in our +nostrils that second night we camped. The moon rose, and we saw it as if +through the fumes of a yellow smoke. Far behind us we heard a wolf howl, +and it was the last sound of life. With the dawn we went on. We passed +through broad, low morasses out of which rose the sulphurous fogs. In +many places the water we touched with our hands was hot; in other places +the forests we paddled through were so dense they were almost tropical. +And lifeless. Still, with the stillness of death for thousands and +perhaps tens of thousands of years. The food we ate seemed saturated with +the vileness of sulphur; it seeped into our water-bags; it turned us to +the color of saffron; it was terrible, frightening, inconceivable. And +still we went on by compass, and M'sieu showed no fear--even less, +gentlemen, than did I. + +And then, on the third day--in the heart of this diseased and horrible +region--we made a discovery that drew a strange cry even from those +mysteriously silent lips of M'sieu. + +It was the print of a naked human foot in a bar of mud. + +How it came there, why it was there, and why if was a naked foot I +suppose were the first thoughts that leaped into our startled minds. What +man could live in these infernal regions? WAS it a man, or was it the +footprint of some primeval ape, a monstrous survival of the centuries? + +The trail led through a steaming slough in which the mud and water were +tepid and which grew rank with yellow reeds and thick grasses--grasses +that were almost flesh-like, it seemed to me, as if swollen and about to +burst from some dreadful disease, Perhaps your scientists can tell why +sulphur has this effect on vegetation. It is so; there was sulphur in the +very wood we burned. Through those reeds and grasses we soon found where +a narrow trail was beaten, and then we came to a rise of land sheltered +in timber, a sort of hill in that flat world, and on the crest of this +hill we found a cabin. + +Yes, a cabin; a cabin built roughly of logs, and it was yellow with +sulphur, as if painted. We went inside and we found there the man whom +you know as Joseph Brecht. I did not look at M'sieu when he first rose +before us, but I heard a great gasp from his throat behind me. And I +think I stood as if life had suddenly gone out of me. Joseph Brecht was +half naked. His feet were bare. He looked like a wild man, with his uncut +hair--a wild man except that his face was smooth. Curious that a man +would shave there! And not so odd, perhaps, when one knows how a beard +gathers sulphur. He had risen from a cot on which there was a bed of +boughs, and in the light that came in through the open door he looked +terribly emaciated, with the skin drawn tightly over his cheek bones. It +was he who spoke first. + +"I am glad you have come," he said, his eyes staring wildly. "I guess I +am dying. Some water, please. There is a spring back of the cabin." + +Quite sanely he spoke, and yet the words were scarcely out of his mouth +when he fell back upon the cot, his eyes rolling in the top of his head, +his mouth agape, his breath coming in great panting gasps. It was a +strange sickness. I will not trouble you with all the details. You are +anxious for the story--the tragedy--which alone will count with you +gentlemen of the law. It came out in his fever, and in the fits of sanity +into which he at times succeeded in rousing himself. His name, he said, +was Joseph Brecht. For two years he had lived in that sulphur hell. He +had, by accident, found the spring of fresh, sweet water trickling out of +the hill--another miracle for which I have not tried to account; he built +his cabin; for two years he had gone with his canoe to the shore of the +great Slave, forty miles distant, for the food he ate. But WHY was he +here? That was the story that came bit by bit, half in his fever, half in +his sanity. I will tell it in my own words. He was a Government man, +mapping out the last timber lines along the edge of the Great Barren, +when he first met Andre Beauvais and his wife, Marie. An accident took +him to their cabin, a sprained leg. Andre was a fox-hunter, and it was +when he was coming home from one of his trips that he found Joseph Brecht +helpless in the deep snow, and carried him on his shoulders to his cabin. + +Ah, gentlemen, it was the old story--the story old as time. In his sanity +he told us about Marie, I hovering over him closely, M'sieu sitting back +in the shadows. She was like some wonderful wildflower, French, a little +Indian. He told us how her long black hair would stream in a shining +cascade, soft as the breast of a swan, to her knees and below; how it +would hang again in two great, lustrous braids, and how her eyes were +limpid pools that set his soul afire, and how her slim, beautiful body +filled him with a monstrous desire. She must have been beautiful. And her +husband, Andre Beauvais, worshipped her, and the ground she trod on. And +he had the faith in her that a mother has in her child. It was a sublime +love, and Joseph Brecht told us about it as he lay there, dying, as he +supposed. In that faith of his Andre went unsuspectingly to his +trap-lines and his poison-trails, and Marie and Joseph were for many +hours at a time alone, sometimes for a day, sometimes for two days, and +occasionally for three, for even after his limb had regained its strength +Joseph feigned that it was bad. It was a hard fight, he said--a hard +fight for him to win her; but win her he did, utterly, absolutely, heart, +body and soul. Remember, he was from the South, with all its power of +language, all its tricks of love, all its furtiveness of argument, a +strong man with a strong mind--and she had lived all her life in the +wilderness. She was no match for him. She surrendered. He told us how, +after that, he would unbind her wonderful hair and pillow his face in it; +how he lived in a heaven of transport, how utterly she gave herself to +him in those times when Andre, was away. + +Did he love her? + +Yes, in that mad passion of the brute. But not as you and I might love a +woman, gentlemen. Not as Andre loved her. Whether she had a heart or a +soul it did not matter. His eyes were blind with an insensate joy when he +shrouded himself in her wonderful hair. To see the wild color painting +her face like a flower filled his veins with fire. The beauty of her, the +touch of her, the mad beat of her heart against him made him like a +drunken man in his triumph. Love? Yes, the love of the brute! He +prolonged his stay. He had no idea of taking her with him. When the time +came, he would go. Day after day, week after week he put it off, feigning +that the bone of his leg was affected, and Andre Beauvais treated him +like a brother. He told us all this as he lay there in his cabin in that +sulphur hell. I am a man of God, and I do not lie. + +Is there need to tell you that Andre discovered them? Yes, he found +them--and with that wonderful hair of hers so closely about them that he +was still bound in the tresses when the discovery came. + +Andre had come in exhausted, and unexpectedly. There was a terrible +fight, and in spite of his exhaustion he would have killed Joseph Brecht +if at the last moment the latter had not drawn his revolver. After all is +said and done, gentlemen, can a woman love but once? Joseph Brecht fired. +In that infinitesimal moment between the leveling of the gun and the +firing of the shot Marie Beauvais found answer to that question. Who was +it she loved? She sprang to her husband's breast, sheltering him with the +body that had been disloyal to its soul, and she died there--with a +bullet through her heart. + +Joseph Brecht told us how, in the horror of his work--and possessed now +by a terrible fear--he ran from the cabin and fled for his life. And +Andre Beauvais must have remained with his dead. For it was many hours +later before he took up the trail of the man whom he made solemn oath to +his God to kill. Like a hunted hare, Joseph Brecht eluded him, and it was +weeks before the fox-trapper came upon him. Andre Beauvais scorned to +kill him from ambush. He wanted to choke his life out slowly, with his +two hands, and he attacked him openly and fairly. + +And in that cabin--gasping for breath, dying as he thought, Joseph Brecht +said to us: "It was one or the other. He had the best of me. I drew my +revolver again--and killed him, killed Andre Beauvais, as I had killed +his wife, Marie!" + +Here in the South Joseph Brecht might not have been a bad man, gentlemen. +In every man's heart there is a devil, but we do not know the man as bad +until the devil is roused. And passion, the mad passion for a woman, had +roused him. Now that it had made twice a murderer of him the devil slunk +back into his hiding, and the man who had once been the clean-living, +red-blooded Joseph Brecht was only a husk without a heart, slinking from +place to place in the evasion of justice. For you men of the Royal +Mounted Police were on his trail. You would have caught him, but you did +not think of seeking for him in the Sulphur Hell. For two years he had +lived there, and when he finished his story he was sitting on the edge of +the cot, quite sane, gentlemen. + +And for the first time M'sieu, my comrade, spoke. + +"Let us bring up the dunnage from the canoe, mon pere." + +He led the way out of the cabin, and I followed. We were fifty steps away +when he stopped suddenly. + +"Ah," he said, "I have forgotten something. I will overtake you." + +He turned back to the cabin, and I went on to the canoe. + +He did not join me. When I returned with my burden, M'sieu appeared at +the door. He amazed me, startled me, I will say, gentlemen. I could not +imagine such a change as I saw in him--that man of horrible silence, of +grim, dark mystery. He was smiling; his white teeth shone; his voice was +the voice of another man. He seemed to me ten years younger as he stood +there, and as I dropped my load and went in he was laughing, and his hand +was laid pleasantly on my shoulder. + +Across the cot, with his head stretched down to the floor, his eyes +bulging and his jaws agape, lay Joseph Brecht. I sprang to him. He was +dead. And then I SAW Gentlemen, he had been choked to death! + +"He made one leetle meestake, mon pere. Andre Beauvais did not die. I am +Andre Beauvais." + +That is all, gentlemen of the Royal Mounted. May the Law have mercy! + + + +THE OTHER MAN'S WIFE + +Thornton wasn't the sort of man in whom you'd expect to find the devil +lurking. He was big, blond, and broad-shouldered. When I first saw him I +thought he was an Englishman. That was at the post at Lac la Biche, six +hundred miles north of civilization. Scotty and I had been doing some +exploration work for the government, and for more than six months we +hadn't seen a real white man who looked like home. + +We came in late at night, and the factor gave us a room in his house. +When we looked out of our window in the morning, we saw a little shack +about a hundred feet away, and in front of that shack was Thornton, only +half dressed, stretching himself in the sun, and LAUGHING. There wasn't +anything to laugh at, but we could see his teeth shining white, and he +grinned every minute while he went through a sort of setting-up exercise. + +When you begin to analyze a man, there is always some one human trait +that rises above all others, and that laugh was Thornton's. Even the +wolfish sledge-dogs at the post would wag their tails when they heard it. + +We soon established friendly relations, but I could not get very far +beyond the laugh. Indeed, Thornton was a mystery. DeBar, the factor, said +that he had dropped into the post six months before, with a pack on his +back and a rifle over his shoulder. He had no business, apparently. He +was not a propectory and it was only now and then that he used his rifle, +and then only to shoot at marks. + +One thing puzzled DeBar more than all else. Thornton worked like three +men about the post, cutting winter fire-wood, helping to catch and clean +the tons of whitefish which were stored away for the dogs in the +company's ice-houses, and doing other things without end. For this he +refused all payment except his rations. + +Scotty continued eastward to Churchill, and for seven weeks I bunked with +Thornton in the shack. At the end of those seven weeks I knew little more +about Thornton than at the beginning. I never had a closer or more +congenial chum, and yet in his conversation he never got beyond the big +woods, the mountains, and the tangled swamps. He was educated and a +gentleman, and I knew that in spite of his brown face and arms, his hard +muscles and splendid health, he was three-quarters tenderfoot. But he +loved the wilderness. + +"I never knew what life could hold for a man until I came up here," he +said to me one day, his gray eyes dancing in the light of a glorious +sunset. + +"I'm ten years younger than I was two years ago." + +"You've been two years in the north?" + +"A year and ten months," he replied. + +Something brought to my lips the words that I had forced back a score of +times. + +"What brought you up here, Thornton?" + +"Two things," he said quietly, "a woman--and a scoundrel." + +He said no more, and I did not press the matter. There was a strange +tremble in his voice, something that I took to be a note of sadness; but +when he turned from the sunset to me his eyes were filled with a yet +stranger joy, and his big boyish laugh rang out with such wholesome +infectiousness that I laughed with him, in spite of myself. + +That night, in our shack, he produced a tightly bound bundle of letters +about six inches thick, scattered them out before him on the table, and +began reading them at random, while I sat bolstered back in my bunk, +smoking and watching him. He was a curious study. Every little while I'd +hear him chuckling and rumbling, his teeth agleam, and between these +times he'd grow serious. Once I saw tears rolling down his cheeks. + +He puzzled me; and the more he puzzled me, the better I liked him. Every +night for a week he spent an hour or two reading those letters over and +over again. I had a dozen opportunities to see that they were a woman's +letters: but he never offered a word of explanation. + +With the approach of September, I made preparations to leave for the +south, by way of Moose Factory and the Albany. + +"Why not go the shorter way--by the Reindeer Lake water route to Prince +Albert?" asked Thornton. "If you'll do that, I'll go with you." + +His proposition delighted me, and we began planning for our trip. From +that hour there came a curious change in Thornton. It was as if he had +come into contact with some mysterious dynamo that had charged him with a +strange nervous energy. We were two days in getting our stuff ready, and +the night between he did not go to bed at all, but sat up reading the +letters, smoking, and then reading over again what he had read half a +hundred times before. + +I was pretty well hardened, but during the first week of our canoe trip +he nearly had me bushed a dozen times. He insisted on getting away before +dawn, laughing, singing, and talking, and urged on the pace until sunset. +I don't believe that he slept two hours a night. Often, when I woke up, +I'd see him walking back and forth in the moonlight, humming softly to +himself. There was almost a touch of madness in it all; but I knew that +Thornton was sane. + +One night--our fourteenth down--I awoke a little after midnight, and as +usual looked about for Thornton. It was glorious night. There was a full +moon over us, and with the lake at our feet, and the spruce and balsam +forest on each side of us, the whole scene struck me as one of the most +beautiful I had ever looked upon. + +When I came out of our tent, Thornton was not in sight. Away across the +lake I heard a moose calling. Back of me an owl hooted softly, and from +miles away I could hear faintly the howling of a wolf. The night sounds +were broken by my own startled cry as I felt a hand fall, without +warning, upon my shoulder. It was Thornton. I had never seen his face as +it looked just then. + +"Isn't it beautiful--glorious?" he cried softly. + +"It's wonderful!" I said. "You won't see this down there, Thornton!" + +"Nor hear those sounds," he replied, his hand tightening on my arm. +"We're pretty close to God up here, aren't we? She'll like it--I'll bring +her back!" + +"She!" He looked at me, his teeth shining in that wonderful silent laugh. +"I'm going to tell you about it," he said. "I can't keep it in any +longer. Let's go down by the lake." + +We walked down and seated ourselves on the edge of a big rock. + +"I told you that I came up here because of a woman--and a man," continued +Thornton. "Well, I did. The man and woman were husband and wife, and I--" + +He interrupted himself with one of his chuckling laughs. There was +something in it that made me shudder. + +"No use to tell you that I loved her," he went on. "I worshipped her. She +was my life. And I believe she loved me as much. I might have added that +there was a third thing that drove me up here--what remained of the rag +end of a man's honor." + +"I begin to understand," I said, as he paused. "You came up here to get +away from the woman. But this woman--her husband--" + +For the first time since I had known him I saw a flash of anger leap into +Thornton's face. He struck his hand against the rock. + +"Her husband was a scoundrel, a brute, who came home from his club drunk, +a cheap money-spender, a man who wasn't fit to wipe the mud from her +little feet, much less call her wife! He ought to have been shot. I can +see it, now; and--well, I might as well tell you. I'm going back to her!" + +"You are?" I cried. "Has she got a divorce? Is her husband still living?" + +"No, she hasn't got a divorce, and her husband is still living; but for +all that, we've arranged it. Those were her letters I've been reading, +and she'll be at Prince Albert waiting for me on the 15th--three days +from now. We shall be a little late, and that's why I'm hustling so. I've +kept away from her for two years, but I can't do it any longer--and she +says that if I do she'll kill herself. So there you have it. She's the +sweetest, most beautiful girl in the whole world--eyes the color of those +blue flowers you have up here, brown hair, and--but you've got to see her +when we reach Prince Albert. You won't blame me for doing all this, +then!" + +I had nothing to say. At my silence he turned toward me suddenly, with +that happy smile of his, and said again: + +"I tell you that you won't blame me when you see her. You'll envy me, and +you'll call me a confounded fool for staying away so long. It has been +terribly hard for both of us. I'll wager that she's no sleepier than I am +to-night, just from knowing that I'm hurrying to her." + +"You're pretty confident," I could not help sneering. "I don't believe +I'd wager much on such a woman. To be frank with you, Thornton, I don't +care to meet her, so I'll decline your invitation. I've a little wife of +my own, as true as steel, and I'd rather keep out of an affair like this. +You understand?" + +"Perfectly," said Thornton, and there was not the slightest ill-humor in +his voice. "You--you think I am a cur?" + +"If you have stolen another man's wife--yes." + +"And the woman?" + +"If she is betraying her husband, she is no better than you." + +Thornton rose and stretched his long arms above his head. + +"Isn't the moon glorious?" he cried exultantly. "She has never seen a +moon like that. She has never seen a world like this. Do you know what +we're going to do? We'll come up here and build a cabin, and--and she'll +know what a real man is at last! She deserves it. And we'll have you up +to visit us--you and your wife--two months out of each year. But +then"--he turned and laughed squarely into my face--"you probably won't +want your wife to know her." + +"Probably not," I said, not without embarrassment. + +"I don't blame you," he exclaimed, and before I could draw back he had +caught my hand and was shaking it hard in his own. "Let's be friends a +little longer, old man," he went on. "I know you'll change your mind +about the little girl and me when we reach Prince Albert." + +I didn't go to sleep again that night; and the half-dozen days that +followed were unpleasant enough--for me, at least. In spite of my own +coolness toward him, there was absolutely no change in Thornton. Not once +did he make any further allusion to what he had told me. + +As we drew near to our journey's end, his enthusiasm and good spirits +increased. He had the bow end of the canoe, and I had abundant +opportunity of watching him. It was impossible not to like him, even +after I knew his story. + +We reached Prince Albert on a Sunday, after three days' travel in a +buckboard. When we drove up in front of the hotel, there was just one +person on the long veranda looking out over the Saskatchewan. It was a +woman, reading a book. + +As he saw her, I heard a great breath heave up inside Thornton's chest. +The woman looked up, stared for a moment, and then dropped her book with +a welcoming cry such as I had never heard before in my life. She sprang +down the steps, and Thornton leaped from the wagon. They met there a +dozen paces from me, Thornton catching her in his arms, and the woman +clasping her arms about his neck. + +I heard her sobbing, and I saw Thornton kissing her again and again, and +then the woman pulled his blond head down close to her face. It was +sickening, knowing what I did, and I began helping the driver to throw +off our dunnage. + +In about two minutes I heard Thornton calling me. + +I didn't turn my head. Then Thornton came to me, and as he straightened +me around by the shoulders I caught a glimpse of the woman. He was +right--she was very beautiful. + +"I told you that her husband was a scoundrel and a rake," he said gently. +"Well, he was--and I was that scoundrel! I came up here for a chance of +redeeming myself, and your big, glorious North has made a man of me. Will +you come and meet my wife?" + + + +THE STRENGTH OF MEN + +There was the scent of battle in the air. The whole of Porcupine City +knew that it was coming, and every man and woman in its two hundred +population held their breath in anticipation of the struggle between two +men for a fortune--and a girl. For in some mysterious manner rumor of the +girl had got abroad, passing from lip to lip, until even the children +knew that there was some other thing than gold that would play a part in +the fight between Clarry O'Grady and Jan Larose. On the surface it was +not scheduled to be a fight with fists or guns. But in Porcupine City +there were a few who knew the "inner story"--the story of the girl, as +well as the gold, and those among them who feared the law would have +arbitrated in a different manner for the two men if it had been in their +power. But law is law, and the code was the code. There was no +alternative. It was an unusual situation, and yet apparently simple of +solution. Eighty miles north, as the canoe was driven, young Jan Larose +had one day staked out a rich "find" at the headwaters of Pelican Creek. +The same day, but later, Clarry O'Grady had driven his stakes beside +Jan's. It had been a race to the mining recorder's office, and they had +come in neck and neck. Popular sentiment favored Larose, the slim, quiet, +dark-eyed half Frenchman. But there was the law, which had no sentiment. +The recorder had sent an agent north to investigate. If there were two +sets of stakes there could be but one verdict. Both claims would be +thrown out, and then-- + +All knew what would happen, or thought that they knew. It would be a +magnificent race to see who could set out fresh stakes and return to the +recorder's office ahead of the other. It would be a fight of brawn and +brain, unless--and those few who knew the "inner story" spoke softly +among themselves. + +An ox in strength, gigantic in build, with a face that for days had worn +a sneering smile of triumph, O'Grady was already picked as a ten-to-one +winner. He was a magnificent canoeman, no man in Porcupine City could +equal him for endurance, and for his bow paddle he had the best Indian in +the whole Reindeer Lake country. He stalked up and down the one street of +Porcupine City, treating to drinks, cracking rough jokes, and offering +wagers, while Jan Larose and his long-armed Cree sat quietly in the shade +of the recorder's office waiting for the final moment to come. + +There were a few of those who knew the "inner story" who saw something +besides resignation and despair in Jan's quiet aloofness, and in the +disconsolate droop of his head. His face turned a shade whiter when +O'Grady passed near, dropping insult and taunt, and looking sidewise at +him in a way that only HE could understand. But he made no retort, though +his dark eyes glowed with a fire that never quite died--unless it was +when, alone and unobserved, he took from his pocket a bit of buckskin in +which was a silken tress of curling brown hair. Then his eyes shone with +a light that was soft and luminous, and one seeing him then would have +known that it was not a dream of gold that filled his heart, but of a +brown-haired girl who had broken it. + +On this day, the forenoon of the sixth since the agent had departed into +the north, the end of the tense period of waiting was expected. Porcupine +City had almost ceased to carry on the daily monotony of business. A +score were lounging about the recorder's office. Women looked forth at +frequent intervals through the open doors of the "city's" cabins, or +gathered in two and threes to discuss this biggest sporting event ever +known in the history of the town. Not a minute but scores of anxious eyes +were turned searchingly up the river, down which the returning agent's +canoe would first appear. With the dawn of this day O'Grady had refused +to drink. He was stripped to the waist. His laugh was louder. Hatred as +well as triumph glittered in his eyes, for to-day Jan Larose looked him +coolly and squarely in the face, and nodded whenever he passed. It was +almost noon when Jan spoke a few low words to his watchful Indian and +walked to the top of the cedar-capped ridge that sheltered Porcupine City +from the north winds. + +From this ridge he could look straight into the north--the north where he +was born. Only the Cree knew that for five nights he had slept, or sat +awake, on the top of this ridge, with his face turned toward the polar +star, and his heart breaking with loneliness and grief. Up there, far +beyond where the green-topped forests and the sky seemed to meet, he +could see a little cabin nestling under the stars--and Marie. Always his +mind traveled back to the beginning of things, no matter how hard he +tried to forget--even to the old days of years and years ago when he had +toted the little Marie around on his back, and had crumpled her brown +curls, and had revealed to her one by one the marvelous mysteries of the +wilderness, with never a thought of the wonderful love that was to come. +A half frozen little outcast brought in from the deep snows one day by +Marie's father, he became first her playmate and brother--and after that +lived in a few swift years of paradise and dreams. For Marie he had made +of himself what he was. He had gone to Montreal. He had learned to read +and write, he worked for the Company, he came to know the outside world, +and at last the Government employed him. This was a triumph. He could +still see the glow of pride and love in Marie's beautiful eyes when he +came home after those two years in the great city. The Government sent +for him each autumn after that. Deep into the wilderness he led the men +who made the red and black lined maps. It was he who blazed out the +northern limit of Banksian pine, and his name was in Government reports +down in black and white--so that Marie and all the world could read. + +One day he came back--and he found Clarry O'Grady at the Cummins' cabin. +He had been there for a month with a broken leg. Perhaps it was the +dangerous knowledge of the power of her beauty--the woman's instinct in +her to tease with her prettiness, that led to Marie's flirtation with +O'Grady. But Jan could not understand, and she played with fire--the fire +of two hearts instead of one. The world went to pieces under Jan after +that. There came the day when, in fair fight, he choked the taunting +sneer from O'Grady's face back in the woods. He fought like a tiger, a +mad demon. No one ever knew of that fight. And with the demon still +raging in his breast he faced the girl. He could never quite remember +what he had said. But it was terrible--and came straight from his soul. +Then he went out, leaving Marie standing there white and silent. He did +not go back. He had sworn never to do that, and during the weeks that +followed it spread about that Marie Cummins had turned down Jan Larose, +and that Clarry O'Grady was now the lucky man. It was one of the +unexplained tricks of fate that had brought them together, and had set +their discovery stakes side by side on Pelican Creek. + +To-day, in spite of his smiling coolness, Jan's heart rankled with a +bitterness that seemed to be concentrated of all the dregs that had ever +entered into his life. It poisoned him, heart and soul. He was not a +coward. He was not afraid of O'Grady. + +And yet he knew that fate had already played the cards against him. He +would lose. He was almost confident of that, even while he nerved himself +to fight. There was the drop of savage superstition in him, and he told +himself that something would happen to beat him out. O'Grady had gone +into the home that was almost his own and had robbed him of Marie. In +that fight in the forest he should have killed him. That would have been +justice, as he knew it. But he had relented, half for Marie's sake, and +half because he hated to take a human life, even though it were +O'Grady's. But this time there would be no relenting. He had come alone +to the top of the ridge to settle the last doubts with himself. Whoever +won out, there would be a fight. It would be a magnificent fight, like +that which his grandfather had fought and won for the honor of a woman +years and years ago. He was even glad that O'Grady was trying to rob him +of what he had searched for and found. There would be twice the justice +in killing him now. And it would be done fairly, as his grandfather had +done it. + +Suddenly there came a piercing shout from the direction of the river, +followed by a wild call for him through Jackpine's moose-horn. He +answered the Cree's signal with a yell and tore down through the bush. +When he reached the foot of the ridge at the edge of the clearing he saw +the men, women and children of Porcupine City running to the river. In +front of the recorder's office stood Jackpine, bellowing through his +horn. O'Grady and his Indian were already shoving their canoe out into +the stream, and even as he looked there came a break in the line of +excited spectators, and through it hurried the agent toward the +recorder's cabin. + +Side by side, Jan and his Indian ran to their canoe. Jackpine was +stripped to the waist, like O'Grady and his Chippewayan. Jan threw off +only his caribou-skin coat. His dark woolen shirt was sleeveless, and his +long slim arms, as hard as ribbed steel, were free. Half the crowd +followed him. He smiled, and waved his hand, the dark pupils of his eyes +shining big and black. Their canoe shot out until it was within a dozen +yards of the other, and those ashore saw him laugh into O'Grady's sullen, +set face. He was cool. Between smiling lips his white teeth gleamed, and +the women stared with brighter eyes and flushed cheeks, wondering how +Marie Cummins could have given up this man for the giant hulk and +drink-reddened face of his rival. Those among the men who had wagered +heavily against him felt a misgiving. There was something in Jan's smile +that was more than coolness, and it was not bravado. Even as he smiled +ashore, and spoke in low Cree to Jackpine, he felt at the belt that he +had hidden under the caribou-skin coat. There were two sheaths there, and +two knives, exactly alike. It was thus that his grandfather had set forth +one summer day to avenge a wrong, nearly seventy years before. + +The agent had entered the cabin, and now he reappeared, wiping his +sweating face with a big red handkerchief. The recorder followed. He +paused at the edge of the stream and made a megaphone of his hands. + +"Gentlemen," he cried raucously, "both claims have been thrown out!" + +A wild yell came from O'Grady. In a single flash four paddles struck the +water, and the two canoes shot bow and bow up the stream toward the lake +above the bend. The crowd ran even with them until the low swamp at the +lake's edge stopped them. In that distance neither had gained a yard +advantage. But there was a curious change of sentiment among those who +returned to Porcupine City. That night betting was no longer two and +three to one on O'Grady. It was even money. + +For the last thing that the men of Porcupine City had seen was that cold, +quiet smile of Jan Larose, the gleam of his teeth, the something in his +eyes that is more to be feared among men than bluster and brute strength. +They laid it to confidence. None guessed that this race held for Jan no +thought of the gold at the end. None guessed that he was following out +the working of a code as old as the name of his race in the north. + +As the canoes entered the lake the smile left Jan's face. His lips +tightened until they were almost a straight line. His eyes grew darker, +his breath came more quickly. For a little while O'Grady's canoe drew +steadily ahead of them, and when Jackpine's strokes went deeper and more +powerful Jan spoke to him in Cree, and guided the canoe so that it cut +straight as an arrow in O'Grady's wake. There was an advantage in that. +It was small, but Jan counted on the cumulative results of good +generalship. + +His eyes never for an instant left O'Grady's huge, naked back. Between +his knees lay his .303 rifle. He had figured on the fraction of time it +would take him to drop his paddle, pick up the gun, and fire. This was +his second point in generalship--getting the drop on O'Grady. + +Once or twice in the first half hour O'Grady glanced back over his +shoulder, and it was Jan who now laughed tauntingly at the other. There +was something in that laugh that sent a chill through O'Grady. It was as +hard as steel, a sort of madman's laugh. + +It was seven miles to the first portage, and there were nine in the +eighty-mile stretch. O'Grady and his Chippewayan were a hundred yards +ahead when the prow of their canoe touched shore. They were a hundred and +fifty ahead when both canoes were once more in the water on the other +side of the portage, and O'Grady sent back a hoarse shout of triumph. Jan +hunched himself a little lower. He spoke to Jackpine--and the race began. +Swifter and swifter the canoes cut through the water. From five miles an +hour to six, from six to six and a half--seven--seven and a quarter, and +then the strain told. A paddle snapped in O'Grady's hands with a sound +like a pistol shot. A dozen seconds were lost while he snatched up a new +paddle and caught the Chippewayan's stroke, and Jan swung close into +their wake again. At the end of the fifteenth mile, where the second +portage began, O'Grady was two hundred yards in the lead. He gained +another twenty on the portage and with a breath that was coming now in +sobbing swiftness Jan put every ounce of strength behind the thrust of +his paddle. Slowly they gained. Foot by foot, yard by yard, until for a +third time they cut into O'Grady's wake. A dull pain crept into Jan's +back. He felt it slowly creeping into his shoulders and to his arms. He +looked at Jackpine and saw that he was swinging his body more and more +with the motion of his arms. And then he saw that the terrific pace set +by O'Grady was beginning to tell on the occupants of the canoe ahead. The +speed grew less and less, until it was no more than seventy yards. In +spite of the pains that were eating at his strength like swimmer's cramp, +Jan could not restrain a low cry of exultation. O'Grady had planned to +beat him out in that first twenty-mile spurt. And he had failed! His +heart leaped with new hope even while his strokes were growing weaker. + +Ahead of them, at the far end of the lake, there loomed up the black +spruce timber which marked the beginning of the third portage, thirty +miles from Porcupine City. Jan knew that he would win there--that he +would gain an eighth of a mile in the half-mile carry. He knew of a +shorter cut than that of the regular trail. He had cleared it himself, +for he had spent a whole winter on that portage trapping lynx. + +Marie lived only twelve miles beyond. More than once Marie had gone with +him over the old trap line. She had helped him to plan the little log +cabin he had built for himself on the edge of the big swamp, hidden away +from all but themselves. It was she who had put the red paper curtains +over the windows, and who, one day, had written on the corner of one of +them: "My beloved Jan." He forgot O'Grady as he thought of Marie and +those old days of happiness and hope. It was Jackpine who recalled him at +last to what was happening. In amazement he saw that O'Grady and his +Chippewayan had ceased paddling. They passed a dozen yards abreast of +them. O'Grady's great arms and shoulders were glistening with +perspiration. His face was purplish. In his eyes and on his lips was the +old taunting sneer. He was panting like a wind-broken animal. As Jan +passed he uttered no word. + +An eighth of a mile ahead was the point where the regular portage began, +but Jan swung around this into a shallow inlet from which his own secret +trail was cut. Not until he was ashore did he look back. O'Grady and his +Indian were paddling in a leisurely manner toward the head of the point. +For a moment it looked as though they had given up the race, and Jan's +heart leaped exultantly. O'Grady saw him and waved his hand. Then he +jumped out to his knees in the water and the Chippewayan followed him. He +shouted to Jan, and pointed down at the canoe. The next instant, with a +powerful shove, he sent the empty birchbark speeding far out into the +open water. + +Jan caught his breath. He heard Jackpine's cry of amazement behind him. +Then he saw the two men start on a swift run over the portage trail, and +with a fierce, terrible cry he sprang toward his rifle, which he had +leaned against a tree. + +In that moment he would have fired, but O'Grady and the Indian had +disappeared into the timber. He understood--O'Grady had tricked him, as +he had tricked him in other ways. He had a second canoe waiting for him +at the end of the portage, and perhaps others farther on. It was unfair. +He could still hear O'Grady's taunting laughter as it had rung out in +Porcupine City, and the mystery of it was solved. His blood grew hot--so +hot that his eyes burned, and his breath seemed to parch his lips. In +that short space in which he stood paralyzed and unable to act his brain +blazed like a volcano. Who--was helping O'Grady by having a canoe ready +for him at the other side of the portage? He knew that no man had gone +North from Porcupine City during those tense days of waiting. The code +which all understood had prohibited that. Who, then, could it be?--who +but Marie herself! In some way O'Grady had got word to her, and it was +the Cummins' canoe that was waiting for him! + +With a strange cry Jan lifted the bow of the canoe to his shoulder and +led Jackpine in a run. His strength had returned. He did not feel the +whiplike sting of boughs that struck him across the face. He scarcely +looked at the little cabin of logs when they passed it. Deep down in his +heart he called upon the Virgin to curse those two--Marie Cummins and +Clarry O'Grady, the man and the girl who had cheated him out of love, out +of home, out of everything he had possessed, and who were beating him now +through perfidy and trickery. + +His face and his hands were scratched and bleeding when they came to the +narrow waterway, half lake and half river, which let into the Blind Loon. +Another minute and they were racing again through the water. From the +mouth of the channel he saw O'Grady and the Chippewayan a quarter of a +mile ahead. Five miles beyond them was the fourth portage. It was hidden +now by a thick pall of smoke rising slowly into the clear sky. Neither +Jan nor the Indian had caught the pungent odors of burning forests in the +air, and they knew that it was a fresh fire. Never in the years that Jan +could remember had that portage been afire, and he wondered if this was +another trick of O'Grady's. The fire spread rapidly as they advanced. It +burst forth in a dozen places along the shore of the lake, sending up +huge volumes of black smoke riven by lurid tongues of flame. O'Grady and +his canoe became less and less distinct. Finally they disappeared +entirely in the lowering clouds of the conflagration. Jan's eyes searched +the water as they approached shore, and at last he saw what he had +expected to find--O'Grady's empty canoe drifting slowly away from the +beach. O'Grady and the Chippewayan were gone. + +Over that half-mile portage Jan staggered with his eyes half closed and +his breath coming in gasps. The smoke blinded him, and at times the heat +of the fire scorched his face. In several places it had crossed the +trail, and the hot embers burned through their moccasins. Once Jackpine +uttered a cry of pain. But Jan's lips were set. Then, above the roar of +the flames sweeping down upon the right of them, he caught the low +thunder of Dead Man's Whirlpool and the cataract that had made the +portage necessary. From the heated earth their feet came to a narrow +ledge of rock, worn smooth by the furred and moccasined tread of +centuries, with the chasm on one side of them and a wall of rock on the +other. Along the crest of that wall, a hundred feet above them, the fire +swept in a tornado of flame and smoke. A tree crashed behind them, a +dozen seconds too late. Then the trail widened and sloped down into the +dip that ended the portage. For an instant Jan paused to get his bearing, +and behind him Jackpine shouted a warning. + +Up out of the smoldering oven where O'Grady should have found his canoe +two men were rushing toward them. They were O'Grady and the Chippewayan. +He caught the gleam of a knife in the Indian's hand. In O'Grady's there +was something larger and darker--a club, and Jan dropped his end of the +canoe with a glad cry, and drew one of the knives from his belt. Jackpine +came to his side, with his hunting knife in his hand, measuring with +glittering eyes the oncoming foe of his race--the Chippewayan. + +And Jan laughed softly to himself, and his teeth gleamed again, for at +last fate was playing his game. The fire had burned O'Grady's canoe, and +it was to rob him of his own canoe that O'Grady was coming to fight. A +canoe! He laughed again, while the fire roared over his head and the +whirlpool thundered at his feet. O'Grady would fight for a canoe--for +gold--while he--HE--would fight for something else, for the vengeance of +a man whose soul and honor had been sold. He cared nothing for the canoe. +He cared nothing for the gold. He told himself, in this one tense moment +of waiting, that he cared no longer for Marie. It was the fulfillment of +the code. + +He was still smiling when O'Grady was so near that he could see the red +glare in his eyes. There was no word, no shout, no sound of fury or +defiance as the two men stood for an instant just out of striking +distance. Jan heard the coming together of Jackpine and the Chippewayan. +He heard them straggling, but not the flicker of an eyelash did his gaze +leave O'Grady's face. Both men understood. This time had to come. Both +had expected it, even from that day of the fight in the woods when +fortune had favored Jan. The burned canoe had only hastened the hour a +little. Suddenly Jan's free hand reached behind him to his belt. He drew +forth the second knife and tossed it at O'Grady's feet. + +O'Grady made a movement to pick it up, and then, while Jan was partly off +his guard, came at him with a powerful swing of the club. It was his +catlike quickness, the quickness almost of the great northern loon that +evades a rifle ball, that had won for Jan in the forest fight. It saved +him now. The club cut through the air over his head, and, carried by the +momentum of his own blow, O'Grady lurched against him with the full force +of his two hundred pounds of muscle and bone. Jan's knife swept in an +upward flash and plunged to the hilt through the flesh of his enemy's +forearm. With a cry of pain O'Grady dropped his club, and the two crashed +to the stone floor of the trail. This was the attack that Jan had feared +and tried to foil, and with a lightning-like squirming movement he swung +himself half free, and on his back, with O'Grady's huge hands linking at +his throat, he drew back his knife arm for the fatal plunge. + +In this instant, so quick that he could scarcely have taken a breath in +the time, his eyes took in the other struggle between Jackpine and the +Chippewayan. The two Indians had locked themselves in a deadly embrace. +All thought of masters, of life or death, were forgotten in the roused-up +hatred that fired them now in their desire to kill. They had drawn close +to the edge of the chasm. Under them the thundering roar of the whirlpool +was unheard, their ears caught no sound of the moaning surge of the +flames far over their heads. Even as Jan stared horror-stricken in that +one moment, they locked at the edge of the chasm. Above the tumult of the +flood below and the fire above there rose a wild yell, and the two +plunged down into the abyss, locked and fighting even as they fell in a +twisting, formless shape to the death below. + +It happened in an instant--like the flash of a quick picture on a +screen--and even as Jan caught the last of Jackpine's terrible face, his +hand drove eight inches of steel toward O'Grady's body. The blade struck +something hard--something that was neither bone nor flesh, and he drew +back again to strike. He had struck the steel buckle on O'Grady's belt. +This time-- + +A sudden hissing roar filled the air. Jan knew that he did not +strike--but he scarcely knew more than that in the first shock of the +fiery avalanche that had dropped upon them from the rock wall of the +mountain. He was conscious of fighting desperately to drag himself from +under a weight that was not O'Grady's--a weight that stifled the breath +in his lungs, that crackled in his ears, that scorched his face and his +hands, and was burning out his eyes. A shriek rang in his ears unlike any +other cry of man he had ever heard, and he knew that it was O'Grady's. He +pulled himself out, foot by foot, until fresher air struck his nostrils, +and dragged himself nearer and nearer to the edge of the chasm. He could +not rise. His limbs were paralyzed. His knife arm dragged at his side. He +opened his eyes and found that he could see. Where they had fought was +the smoldering ruin of a great tree, and standing out of the ruin of that +tree, half naked, his hands tearing wildly at his face, was O'Grady. +Jan's fingers clutched at a small rock. He called out, but there was no +meaning to the sound he made. Clarry O'Grady threw out his great arms. + +"Jan--Jan Larose--" he cried. "My God, don't strike now! I'm +blind--blind--" + +He staggered back, as if expecting a blow. "Don't strike!" he almost +shrieked. "Mother of Heaven--my eyes are burned out--I'm blind--blind--" + +He backed to the wall, his huge form crouched, his hands reaching out as +if to ward off the deathblow. Jan tried to move, and the effort brought a +groan of agony to his lips. A second crash filled his ears as a second +avalanche of fiery debris plunged down upon the trail farther back. He +stared straight up through the stifling smoke. Lurid tongues of flame +were leaping over the wall of the mountain where the edge of the forest +was enveloped in a sea of twisting and seething fire. It was only a +matter of minutes--perhaps seconds. Death had them both in its grip. + +He looked again at O'Grady, and there was no longer the desire for the +other's life in his heart. He could see that the giant was unharmed, +except for his eyes. + +"Listen, O'Grady," he cried. "My legs are broken, I guess, and I can't +move. It's sure death to stay here another minute. You can get away. +Follow the wall--to your right. The slope is still free of fire, +and--and--" + +O'Grady began to move, guiding himself slowly along the wall. Then, +suddenly, he stopped. + +"Jan Larose--you say you can't move?" he shouted. + +"Yes." + +Slowly O'Grady turned and came gropingly toward the sound of Jan's voice. +Jan held tight to the rock that he had gripped in his left hand. Was it +possible that O'Grady would kill him now, stricken as he was? He tried to +drag himself to a new position, but his effort was futile. + +"Jan! Jan Larose!" called O'Grady, stopping to listen. + +Jan held his breath. Then the truth seemed to dawn upon O'Grady. He +laughed, differently than he had laughed before, and stretched out his +arms. + +"My God, Jan," he cried, "you don't think I'm clean BEAST, do you? The +fight's over, man, an' I guess God A'mighty brought this on us to show +what fools we was. Where are y', Jan Larose? I'm goin' t' carry you out!" + +"I'm here!" called Jan. + +He could see truth and fearlessness in O'Grady's sightless face, and he +guided him without fear. Their hands met. Then O'Grady lowered himself +and hoisted Jan to his shoulders as easily as he would have lifted a boy. +He straightened himself and drew a deep breath, broken by a stabbing +throb of pain. + +"I'm blind an' I won't see any more," he said, "an' mebbe you won't ever +walk any more. But if we ever git to that gold I kin do the work and you +kin show me how. Now--p'int out the way, Jan Larose!" + +With his arms clasped about O'Grady's naked shoulders, Jan's smarting +eyes searched through the thickening smother of fire and smoke for a road +that the other's feet might tread. He shouted +"Left"--"right"--"right"--"right"--"left" into this blind companion's +ears until they touched the wall. As the heat smote them more fiercely, +O'Grady bowed his great head upon his chest and obeyed mutely the signals +that rang in his ears. The bottoms of his moccasins were burned from his +feet, live embers ate at his flesh, his broad chest was a fiery blister, +and yet he strode on straight into the face of still greater heat and +greater torture, uttering no sound that could be heard above the steady +roar of the flames. And Jan, limp and helpless on his back, felt then the +throb and pulse of a giant life under him, the straining of thick neck, +of massive shoulders and the grip of powerful arms whose strength told +him that at last he had found the comrade and the man in Clarry O'Grady. +"Right"--"left"--"left"--"right" he shouted, and then he called for +O'Grady to stop in a voice that was shrill with warning. + +"There's fire ahead," he yelled. "We can't follow the wall any longer. +There's an open space close to the chasm. We can make that, but there's +only about a yard to spare. Take short steps--one step each time I tell +you. Now--left--left--left--left--" + +Like a soldier on drill, O'Grady kept time with his scorched feet until +Jan turned him again to face the storm of fire, while one of his own +broken legs dangled over the abyss into which Jackpine and the +Chippewayan had plunged to their death. Behind them, almost where they +had fought, there crashed down a third avalanche from the edge of the +mountain. Not a shiver ran through O'Grady's great body. Steadily and +unflinchingly--step--step--step--he went ahead, while the last threads of +his moccasins smoked and burned. Jan could no longer see half a dozen +yards in advance. A wall of black smoke rose in their faces, and he +pulled O'Grady's ear: + +"We've got just one chance, Clarry. I can't see any more. Keep straight +ahead--and run for it, and may the good God help us now!" + +And Clarry O'Grady, drawing one great breath that was half fire into his +lungs, ran straight into the face of what looked like death to Jan +Larose. In that one moment Jan closed his eyes and waited for the plunge +over the cliff. But in place of death a sweep of air that seemed almost +cold struck his face, and he opened his eyes to find the clear and +uncharred slope leading before them down to the edge of the lake. He +shouted the news into O'Grady's ear, and then there arose from O'Grady's +chest a great sobbing cry, partly of joy, partly of pain, and more than +all else of that terrible grief which came of the knowledge that back in +the pit of death from which he had escaped he had left forever the vision +of life itself. He dropped Jan in the edge of the water, and, plunging in +to his waist, he threw handful after handful of water into his own +swollen face, and then stared upward, as though this last experiment was +also his last hope. + +"My God, I'm blind--stone blind!" + +Jan was staring hard into O'Grady's face. He called him nearer, took the +swollen and blackened face between his two hands, and his voice was +trembling with joy when he spoke. + +"You're not blind--not for good--O'Grady," he said. "I've seen men like +you before--twice. You--you'll get well. O'Grady--Clarry O'Grady--let's +shake! I'm a brother to you from this day on. And I'm glad--glad--that +Marie loves a man like you!" + +O'Grady had gripped his hand, but he dropped it now as though it had been +one of the live brands that had hurtled down upon them from the top of +the mountain. + +"Marie--man--why--she HATES me!" he cried. "It's you--YOU--Jan Larose, +that she loves! I went there with a broken leg, an' I fell in love with +her. But she wouldn't so much as let me touch her hand, an' she talked of +you--always--always--until I had learned to hate you before you came. I +dunno why she did it--that other thing--unless it was to make you +jealous. I guess it was all f'r fun, Jan. She didn't know. The day you +went away she sent me after you. But I hated you--hated you worse'n she +hated me. It's you--you--" + +He clutched his hands at his sightless face again, and suddenly Jan gave +a wild shout. Creeping around the edge of a smoking headland, he had +caught sight of a man and a canoe. + +"There's a man in a canoe!" he cried, "He sees us! O'Grady--" + +He tried to lift himself, but fell back with a groan. Then he laughed, +and, in spite of his agony, there was a quivering happiness in his voice. + +"He's coming, O'Grady. And it looks--it looks like a canoe we both know. +We'll go back to her cabin together, O'Grady. And when we're on our legs +again--well, I never wanted the gold. That's yours--all of it." + +A determined look had settled in O'Grady's face. He groped his way to +Jan's side, and their hands met in a clasp that told more than either +could have expressed of the brotherhood and strength of men. + +"You can't throw me off like that, Jan Larose," he said. "We're +pardners!" + + + +THE MATCH + +Sergeant Brokaw was hatchet-faced, with shifting pale blue eyes that had +a glint of cruelty in them. He was tall, and thin, and lithe as a cat. He +belonged to the Royal Northwest Mounted Police, and was one of the best +men on the trail that had ever gone into the North. His business was man +hunting. Ten years of seeking after human prey had given to him many of +the characteristics of a fox. For six of those ten years he had +represented law north of fifty-three. Now he had come to the end of his +last hunt, close up to the Arctic Circle. For one hundred and +eighty-seven days he had been following a man. The hunt had begun in +midsummer, and it was now midwinter. Billy Loring, who was wanted for +murder, had been a hard man to find. But he was caught at last, and +Brokaw was keenly exultant. It was his greatest achievement. It would +mean a great deal for him down at headquarters. + +In the rough and dimly lighted cabin his man sat opposite him, on a +bench, his manacled hands crossed over his knees. He was a younger man +than Brokaw--thirty, or a little better. His hair was long, reddish, and +untrimmed. A stubble of reddish beard covered his face. His eyes, too, +were blue--of the deep, honest blue that one remembers, and most +frequently trusts. He did not look like a criminal. There was something +almost boyish in his face, a little hollowed by long privation. He was +the sort of man that other men liked. Even Brokaw, who had a heart like +flint in the face of crime, had melted a little. + +"Ugh!" he shivered. "Listen to that beastly wind! It means three days of +storm." Outside a gale was blowing straight down from the Arctic. They +could hear the steady moaning of it in the spruce tops over the cabin, +and now and then there came one of those raging blasts that filled the +night with strange shrieking sounds. Volleys of fine, hard snow beat +against the one window with a rattle like shot. In the cabin it was +comfortable. It was Billy's cabin. He had built it deep in a swamp, where +there were lynx and fisher cat to trap, and where he had thought that no +one could find him. The sheet-iron stove was glowing hot. An oil lamp +hung from the ceiling. Billy was sitting so that the glow of this fell in +his face. It scintillated on the rings of steel about his wrists. Brokaw +was a cautious man, as well as a clever one, and he took no chances. + +"I like storms--when you're inside, an' close to a stove," replied Billy. +"Makes me feel sort of--safe." He smiled a little grimly. Even at that it +was not an unpleasant smile. + +Brokaw's snow-reddened eyes gazed at the other. + +"There's something in that," he said. "This storm will give you at least +three days more of life." + +"Won't you drop that?" asked the prisoner, turning his face a little, so +that it was shaded from the light. + +"You've got me now, an' I know what's coming as well as you do." His +voice was low and quiet, with the faintest trace of a broken note in it, +deep down in his throat. "We're alone, old man, and a long way from +anyone. I ain't blaming you for catching me. I haven't got anything +against you. So let's drop this other thing--what I'm going down to--and +talk something pleasant. I know I'm going to hang. That's the law. It'll +be pleasant enough when it comes, don't you think? Let's talk +about--about--home. Got any kids?" + +Brokaw shook his head, and took his pipe from his mouth. + +"Never married," he said shortly. + +"Never married," mused Billy, regarding him with a curious softening of +his blue eyes. "You don't know what you've missed, Brokaw. Of course, +it's none of my business, but you've got a home--somewhere--" Brokaw +shook his head again. + +"Been in the service ten years," he said. "I've got a mother living with +my brother somewhere down in York State. I've sort of lost track of them. +Haven't seen 'em in five years." + +Billy was looking at him steadily. Slowly he rose to his feet, lifted his +manacled hands, and turned down the light. + +"Hurts my eyes," he said, and he laughed frankly as he caught the +suspicious glint in Brokaw's eyes. He seated himself again, and leaned +over toward the other. "I haven't talked to a white man for three +months," he added, a little hesitatingly. "I've been hiding--close. I had +a dog for a time, and he died, an' I didn't dare go hunting for another. +I knew you fellows were pretty close after me. But I wanted to get enough +fur to take me to South America. Had it all planned, an' SHE was going to +join me there--with the kid. Understand? If you'd kept away another +month--" + +There was a husky break in his voice, and he coughed to clear it. + +"You don't mind if I talk, do you--about her, an' the kid? I've got to do +it, or bust, or go mad. I've got to because--to-day--she was +twenty-four--at ten o'clock in the morning--an' it's our wedding day--" + +The half gloom hid from Brokaw what was in the other's face. And then +Billy laughed almost joyously. "Say, but she's been a true little +pardner," he whispered proudly, as there came a lull in the storm. "She +was just born for me, an' everything seemed to happen on her birthday, +an' that's why I can't be downhearted even NOW. It's her birthday? you +see, an' this morning, before you came, I was just that happy that I set +a plate for her at the table, an' put her picture and a curl of her hair +beside it--set the picture up so it was looking at me--an' we had +breakfast together. Look here--" + +He moved to the table, with Brokaw watching him like a cat, and brought +something back with him, wrapped in a soft piece of buckskin. He unfolded +the buckskin tenderly, and drew forth a long curl that rippled a dull red +and gold in the lamp-glow, and then he handed a photograph to Brokaw. + +"That's her!" he whispered. + +Brokaw turned so that the light fell on the picture. A sweet, girlish +face smiled at him from out of a wealth of flowing, disheveled curls. + +"She had it taken that way just for me," explained Billy, with the +enthusiasm of a boy in his voice. "She's always wore her hair in +curls--an' a braid--for me, when we're home. I love it that way. Guess I +may be silly but I'll tell you why. THAT was down in York State, too. She +lived in a cottage, all grown over with honeysuckle an' morning glory, +with green hills and valleys all about it--and the old apple orchard just +behind. That day we were in the orchard, all red an' white with bloom, +and she dared me to a race. I let her beat me, and when I came up she +stood under one of the trees, her cheeks like the pink blossoms, and her +hair all tumbled about her like an armful of gold, shaking the loose +apple blossoms down on her head. I forgot everything then, and I didn't +stop until I had her in my arms, an'--an' she's been my little pardner +ever since. After the baby came we moved up into Canada, where I had a +good chance in a new mining town. An' then--" A furious blast of the +storm sent the overhanging spruce tops smashing against the top of the +cabin. Straight overhead the wind shrieked almost like human voices, and +the one window rattled as though it were shaken by human hands. The lamp +had been burning lower and lower. It began to flicker now, the quick +sputter of the wick lost in the noise of the gale. Then it went out. +Brokaw leaned over and opened the door of the big box stove, and the red +glow of the fire took the place of the lamplight. He leaned back and +relighted his pipe, eyeing Billy. The sudden blast, the going out of the +light, the opening of the stove door, had all happened in a minute, but +the interval was long enough to bring a change in Billy's voice. It was +cold and hard when he continued. He leaned over toward Brokaw, and the +boyishness had gone from his face. + +"Of course, I can't expect you to have any sympathy for this other +business, Brokaw," he went on. "Sympathy isn't in your line, an' you +wouldn't be the big man you are in the service if you had it. But I'd +like to know what YOU would have done. We were up there six months, and +we'd both grown to love the big woods, and she was growing prettier and +happier every day--when Thorne, the new superintendent, came up. One day +she told me that she didn't like Thorne, but I didn't pay much attention +to that, and laughed at her, and said he was a good fellow. After that I +could see that something was worrying her, and pretty soon I couldn't +help from seeing what it was, and everything came out. It was Thorne. He +was persecuting her. She hadn't told me, because she knew it would make +trouble and I'd lose my job. One afternoon I came home earlier than +usual, and found her crying. She put her arms round my neck, and just +cried it all out, with her face snuggled in my neck, and kissin' me--" + +Brokaw could see the cords in Billy's neck. His manacled hands were +clenched. + +"What would you have done, Brokaw?" he asked huskily. "What if you had a +wife, an' she told you that another man had insulted her, and was forcing +his attentions on her, and she asked you to give up your job and take her +away? Would you have done it, Brokaw? No, you wouldn't. You'd have hunted +up the man. That's what I did. He had been drinking--just enough to make +him devilish, and he laughed at me--I didn't mean to strike so hard.--But +it happened. I killed him. I got away. She and the baby are down in the +little cottage again--down in York State--an' I know she's awake this +minute--our wedding day--thinking of me, an' praying for me, and counting +the days between now and spring. We were going to South America then." + +Brokaw rose to his feet, and put fresh wood into the stove. + +"I guess it must be pretty hard," he said, straightening himself. "But +the law up here doesn't take them things into account--not very much. It +may let you off with manslaugher--ten or fifteen years. I hope it does. +Let's turn in." + +Billy stood up beside him. He went with Brokaw to a bunk built against +the wall, and the sergeant drew a fine steel chain from his pocket. Billy +lay down, his hands crossed over his breast, and Brokaw deftly fastened +the chain about his ankles. + +"And I suppose you think THIS is hard, too," he added. "But I guess you'd +do it if you were me. Ten years of this sort of work learns you not to +take chances. If you want anything in the night just whistle." It had +been a hard day with Brokaw, and he slept soundly. For an hour Billy lay +awake, thinking of home, and listening to the wail of the storm. Then he, +too, fell into sleep--a restless, uneasy slumber filled with troubled +visions. For a time there had come a lull in the storm, but now it broke +over the cabin with increased fury. A hand seemed slapping at the window, +threatening to break it. The spruce boughs moaned and twisted overhead, +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 Billy's dreams. In all those dreams, and segments of dreams, the +girl--his wife--was present. Once they had gone for wild flowers and had +been caught in a thunderstorm, and had run to an old and disused barn in +the middle of a field for shelter. He was back in that barn again, with +HER--and he could feel her 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 the early autumn +nights when they had gone 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 she +had always laughed when the smoke persisted in following him about, like +a young scamp of a boy bent on tormenting him. The smoke was unusually +persistent to-night. 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 the girl's face disappeared. He +sneezed again--and awoke. + +A startled gasp broke from his lips, and the handcuffs about his wrists +clanked as he raised his hands to his face. 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 could hear the crackling of burning pitch, and he yelled +wildly to Brokaw. In an instant the sergeant was on his feet. He rushed +to the table, where he had placed a pail of water the evening before, and +Billy heard the hissing of the water as it struck the flaming wall. + +"Never mind that," he shouted. "The shack's built of pitch cedar. We've +got to get out!" Brokaw groped his way to him through the smoke and began +fumbling at the chain about his ankles. + +"I can't--find--the key--" he gasped chokingly. "Here grab hold of me!" + +He caught Billy under the arms and dragged him to the door. As he opened +it the wind came in with a rush and behind them the whole cabin burst +into a furnace of flame. Twenty yards from the cabin he dropped Billy in +the snow, and ran back. In that seething room of smoke and fire was +everything on which their lives depended, food, blankets, even their +coats and caps and snowshoes. But he could go no farther than the door. +He returned to Billy, found the key in his pocket, and freed him from the +chain about his ankles. Billy stood up. As he looked at Brokaw the glass +in the window broke and a sea of flame sprouted through. It lighted up +their faces. The sergeant's jaw was set hard. His leathery face was +curiously white. He could not keep from shivering. There was a strange +smile on Billy's face, and a strange look in his eyes. Neither of the two +men had undressed for sleep, but their coats, and caps, and heavy mittens +were in the flames. + +Billy rattled his handcuffs. Brokaw looked him squarely in the eyes. + +"You ought to know this country," he said. "What'll we do?" + +"The nearest post is sixty miles from here," said Billy. + +"I know that," replied Brokaw. "And I know that Thoreau's cabin is only +twenty miles from here. There must be some trapper or Indian shack nearer +than that. Is there?" In the red glare of the fire Billy smiled. His +teeth gleamed at Brokaw. It was a lull of the wind, and he went close to +Brokaw, and spoke quietly, his eyes shining more and more with that +strange light that had come into them. + +"This is going to be a big sight easier than hanging, or going to jail +for half my life, Brokaw--an' you don't think I'm going to be fool enough +to miss the chance, do you? It ain't hard to die of cold. I've almost +been there once or twice. I told you last night why I couldn't give up +hope--that something good for me always came on her birthday, or near to +it. An' it's come. It's forty below, an' we won't live the day out. We +ain't got a mouthful of grub. We ain't got clothes enough on to keep us +from freezing inside the shanty, unless we had a fire. Last night I saw +you fill your match bottle and put it in your coat pocket. Why, man, WE +AIN'T EVEN GOT A MATCH!" + +In his voice there was a thrill of triumph. Brokaw's hands were clenched, +as if some one had threatened to strike him. + +"You mean--" he gasped. + +"Just this," interrupted Billy, and his voice was harder than Brokaw's +now. "The God you used to pray to when you was a kid has given me a +choice, Brokaw, an' I'm going to take it. If we stay by this fire, an' +keep it up, we won't die of cold, but of starvation. We'll be dead before +we get half way to Thoreau's. There's an Indian shack that we could make, +but you'll never find it--not unless you unlock these irons and give me +that revolver at your belt. Then I'll take you over there as my prisoner. +That'll give me another chance for South America--an' the kid an' home." +Brokaw was buttoning the thick collar of his shirt close up about his +neck. On his face, too, there came for a moment a grim and determined +smile. + +"Come on," he said, "we'll make Thoreau's or die." + +"Sure," said Billy, stepping quickly to his side. "I suppose I might lie +down in the snow, an' refuse to budge. I'd win my game then, wouldn't I? +But we'll play it--on the square. It's Thoreau's, or die. And it's up to +you to find Thoreau's." + +He looked back over his shoulder at the burning cabin as they entered the +edge of the forest, and in the gray darkness that was preceding dawn he +smiled to himself. Two miles to the south, in a thick swamp, was Indian +Joe's cabin. They could have made it easily. On their way to Thoreau's +they would pass within a mile of it. But Brokaw would never know. And +they would never reach Thoreau's. Billy knew that. He looked at the man +hunter as he broke trail ahead of him--at the pugnacious hunch of his +shoulders, his long stride, the determined clench of his hands, and +wondered what the soul and the heart of a man like this must be, who in +such an hour would not trade life for life. For almost three-quarters of +an hour Brokaw did not utter a word. The storm had broke. Above the +spruce tops the sky began to clear. Day came slowly. And it was growing +steadily colder. The swing of Brokaw'a arms and shoulders kept the blood +in them circulating, while Billy's manacled wrists held a part of his +body almost rigid. He knew that his hands were already frozen. His arms +were numb, and when at last Brokaw paused for a moment on the edge of a +frozen stream Billy thrust out his hands, and clanked the steel rings. + +"It must be getting colder," he said. "Look at that." + +The cold steel had seared his wrists like hot iron, and had pulled off +patches of skin and flesh. Brokaw looked, and hunched his shoulders. His +lips were blue. His cheeks, ears, and nose were frost-bitten. There was a +curious thickness in his voice when he spoke. + +"Thoreau lives on this creek," he said. "How much farther is it?" + +"Fifteen or sixteen miles," replied Billy. "You'll last just about five, +Brokaw. I won't last that long unless you take these things off and give +me the use of my arms." + +"To knock out my brains when I ain't looking," growled Brokaw. "I +guess--before long--you'll be willing to tell where the Indian's shack +is." He kicked his way through a drift of snow to the smoother surface of +the stream. There was a breath of wind in their faces, and Billy bowed +his head to it. In the hours of his greatest loneliness and despair Billy +had kept up his fighting spirit by thinking of pleasant things, and now, +as he followed in Brokaw's trail, he began to think of home. It was not +hard for him to bring up visions of the girl wife who would probably +never know how he had died. He forgot Brokaw. He followed in the trail +mechanically, failing to notice that his captor's pace was growing +steadily slower, and that his own feet were dragging more and more like +leaden weights. He was back among the old hills again, and the sun was +shining, and he heard laughter and song. He saw Jeanne standing at the +gate in front of the little white cottage, smiling at him, and waving +Baby Jeanne's tiny hand at him as he looked back over his shoulder from +down the dusty road. His mind did not often travel as far as the mining +camp, and he had completely forgotten it now. He no longer felt the sting +and pain of the intense cold. It was Brokaw who brought him back into the +reality of things. The sergeant stumbled and fell in a drift, and Billy +fell over him. For a moment the two men sat half buried in the snow, +looking at each other without speaking. Brokaw moved first. He rose to +his feet with an effort. Billy made an attempt to follow him. After three +efforts he gave it up, and blinked up into Brokaw's face with a queer +laugh. The laugh was almost soundless. There had come a change in +Brokaw's face. Its determination and confidence were gone. At last the +iron mask of the Law was broken, and there shone through it something of +the emotions and the brotherhood of man. He was fumbling in one of his +pockets, and drew out the key to the handcuffs. It was a small key, and +he held it between his stiffened fingers with diffic ulty. He knelt down +beside Billy. The keyhole was filled with snow. It took a long time--ten +minutes--before the key was fitted in and the lock clicked. He helped to +tear off the cuffs. Billy felt no sensation as bits of skin and flesh +came "with them. Brokaw gave him a hand, and assisted him to rise. For +the first time he spoke. + +"Guess you've got me beat, Billy," he said. + +"Where's the Indian's?" + +He drew his revolver from its holster and tossed it in the snowdrift. The +shadow of a smile passed grimly over his face. Billy looked about him. +They had stopped where the frozen path of a smaller stream joined the +creek. He raised one of his stiffened arms and pointed to it. + +"Follow that creek--four miles--and you'll come to Indian Joe's shack," +he said. + +"And a mile is just about our limit" + +"Just about--your's," replied Billy. "I can't make another half. If we +had a fire--" + +"IF--" wheezed Brokaw. + +"If we had a fire," continued Billy. "We could warm ourselves, an' make +the Indian's shack easy, couldn't we?" + +Brokaw did not answer. He had turned toward the creek when one of Billy's +pulseless hands fell heavily on his arm. + +"Look here, Brokaw." + +Brokaw turned. They looked into each other's eyes. + +"I guess mebby you're a man, Brokaw," said Billy quietly. "You've done +what you thought was your duty. You've kept your word to th' law, an' I +believe you'll keep your word with me. If I say the word that'll save us +now will you go back to headquarters an' report me dead?" For a full half +minute their eyes did not waver. + +Then Brokaw said: + +"No." + +Billy dropped his hand. It was Brokaw's hand that fell on his arm now. + +"I can't do that," he said. "In ten years I ain't run out the white flag +once. It's something that ain't known in the service. There ain't a +coward in it, or a man who's afraid to die. But I'll play you square. +I'll wait until we're both on our feet, again, and then I'll give you +twenty-four hours the start of me." + +Billy was smiling now. His hand reached out. Brokaw's met it, and the two +joined in a grip that their numb fingers scarcely felt. + +"Do you know," said Billy softly, "there's been somethin' runnin' in my +head ever since we left the burning cabin. It's something my mother +taught me: 'Do unto others as you'd have others do unto you.' I'm a d--- +fool, ain't I? But I'm goin' to try the experiment, Brokaw, an' see what +comes of it. I could drop in a snowdrift an' let you go on--to die. Then +I could save myself. But I'm going to take your word--an' do the other +thing. I'VE GOT A MATCH." + +"A MATCH!" + +"Just one. I remember dropping it in my pants pocket yesterday when I was +out on the trail. It's in THIS pocket. Your hand is in better shape than +mine. Get it." + +Life had leaped into Brokaw's face. He thrust his hand into Billy's +pocket, staring at him as he fumbled, as if fearing that he had lied. +When he drew his hand out the match was between his fingers. + +"Ah!" he whispered excitedly. + +"Don't get nervous," warned Billy. "It's the only one." + +Brokaw's eyes were searching the low timber along the shore. "There's a +birch tree," he cried. "Hold it--while I gather a pile of bark!" + +He gave the match to Billy, and staggered through the snow to the bank. +Strip after strip of the loose bark he tore from the tree. Then he +gathered it in a heap in the shelter of a low-hanging spruce, and added +dry sticks, and still more bark, to it. When it was ready he stood with +his hands in his pockets, and looked at Billy. + +"If we had a stone, an' a piece of paper--" he began. + +Billy thrust a hand that felt like lifeless lead inside his shirt, and +fumbled in a pocket he had made there. Brokaw watched him with red, eager +eyes. The hand reappeared, and in it was the buckskin wrapped photograph +he had seen the night before, Billy took off the buckskin. About the +picture there was a bit of tissue paper. He gave this and the match to +Brokaw. + +"There's a little gun-file in the pocket the match came from," he said. +"I had it mending a trapchain. You can scratch the match on that." + +He turned so that Brokaw could reach into the pocket, and the man hunter +thrust in his hand. When he brought it forth he held the file. There was +a smile on Billy's frostbitten face as he held the picture for a moment +under Brokaw's eyes. Billy's own hands had ruffled up the girl's shining +curls an instant before the picture was taken, and she was laughing at +him when the camera clicked. + +"It's all up to her, Brokaw," Billy said gently. "I told you that last +night. It was she who woke me up before the fire got us. If you ever +prayed--pray a little now. FOR SHE'S GOING TO STRIKE THAT MATCH!" + +He still looked at the picture as Brokaw knelt beside the pile he had +made. He heard the scratch of the match on the file, but his eyes did not +turn. The living, breathing face of the most beautiful thing in the world +was speaking to him from out of that picture. His mind was dazed. He +swayed a little. He heard a voice, low and sweet, and so distant that it +came to him like the faintest whisper. "I am coming--I am coming, +Billy--coming--coming--coming--" A joyous cry surged up from his soul, +but it died on his lips in a strange gasp. A louder cry brought him back +to himself for a moment. It was from Brokaw. The sergeant's face was +terrible to behold. He rose to his feet, swaying, his hands clutched at +his breast. His voice was thick--hopeless. + +"The match--went--out--" He staggered up to Billy, his eyes like a +madman's. Billy swayed dizzily. He laughed, even as he crumpled down in +the snow. As if in a dream he saw Brokaw stagger off on the frozen trail. +He saw him disappear in his hopeless effort to reach the Indian's shack. +And then a strange darkness closed him in, and in that darkness he heard +still the sweet voice of his wife. It spoke his name again and again, and +it urged him to wake up--wake up--WAKE UP! It seemed a long time before +he could respond to it. But at last he opened his eyes. He dragged +himself to his knees, and looked first to find Brokaw. But the man hunter +had gone--forever. The picture was still in his hand. Less distinctly +than before he saw the girl smiling at him. And then--at his back--he +heard a strange and new sound. With an effort he turned to discover what +it was. + +The match had hidden an unseen spark from Brokaw's eyes. From out of the +pile of fuel was rising a pillar of smoke and flame. + + + + + +THE HONOR OF HER PEOPLE + +"It ees not so much--What you call heem?--leegend, thees honor of the +Beeg Snows!" said Jan softly. + +He had risen to his feet and gazed placidly over the crackling box-stove +into the eyes of the red-faced Englishman. + +"Leegend is lie! Thees is truth!" + +There was no lack of luster in the black eyes that roved inquiringly from +the Englishman's bantering grin to the others in the room. Mukee, the +half Cree, was sitting with his elbows on his knees gazing with stoic +countenance at this new curiosity who had wandered four hundred miles +northward from civilization. Williams, the Hudson's Bay man who claimed +to be all white, was staring hard at the red side of the stove, and the +factor's son looked silently at Jan. He and the half-breed noted the warm +glow in the eyes that rested casually upon the Englishman. + +"It ees truth--thees honor of the Beeg Snows!" said Jan again, and his +moccasined feet fell in heavy, thumping tread to the door. + +That was the first time he had spoken that evening, and not even the half +Cree, or Williams, or the factor's son guessed how the blood was racing +through his veins. Outside he stood with the pale, cold glow of the +Aurora Borealis shining upon him, and the limitless wilderness, heavy in +its burden of snow, reaching out into the ghost-gray fabric of the night. +The Englishman's laugh followed him, boisterous and grossly thick, and +Jan moved on,--wondering how much longer the half Cree and Williams and +the factor's son would listen to the things that this man was saying of +the most beautiful thing that had ever come into their lives. + +"It ees truth, I swear, by dam'--thees honor of what he calls the 'Beeg +Snows!'" persisted Jan to himself, and he set his back to the factor's +office and trudged through the snow. + +When he came to the black ledge of the spruce and balsam forest he +stopped and looked back. It was an hour past bedtime at the post. The +Company's store loomed up silent and lightless. The few log cabins +betrayed no signs of life. Only in the factor's office, which was the +Company's haven for the men of the wilderness, was there a waste of +kerosene, and that was because of the Englishman whom Jan was beginning +to hate. He stared back at the one glowing window with a queer thickening +in his throat and a clenching of the hands in the pockets of his +caribou-skin coat. Then he looked long and wistfully at a little cabin +which stood apart from the rest, and to himself he whispered again what +he had said to the Englishman. Until to-night--or, perhaps, until two +weeks ago--Jan had been satisfied with his world. It was a big, +passionless world, mostly of snow and ice and endless privation, but he +loved it, and there was only a fast-fading memory of another world in his +brain. It was a world of big, honest hearts kept warm within caribou +skins, of moccasined men whom endless solitude had taught to say little +and do much--a world of "Big Snows," as the Englishman had said, in which +Jan and all his people had come very close to the things which God +created. Without the steely gray flash of those mystery-lights over the +Arctic pole Jan would have been homesick; his soul would have withered +and died in anything but this wondrous land which he knew, with its +billion dazzling stars by night and its eye-blinding brilliancy by day. +For Jan, in a way, was fortunate. He had in him an infinitesimal measure +of the Cree, which made him understand what the winds sometimes whispered +in the pine-tops; and a part of him was French, which added jet to his +eyes and a twist to his tongue and made him susceptible to the beautiful, +and the rest was "just white"--the part of him that could be stirred into +such thoughts and visions as he was now thinking and dreaming of the +Englishman. + +The "honor of the Beeg Snows" was a part of Jan's soul; it was his +religion, and the religion of those few others who lived with him four +hundred miles from a settlement, in a place where God's name could not be +spelled or written. It meant what civilization could not understand, and +the Englishman could not understand--freezing and slow starvation rather +than theft, and the living of the tenth commandment above all other +things. It came naturally and easily, this "honor of the Beeg Snows." It +was an unwritten law which no man cared or dared to break, and to Jan, +with his Cree and his French and his "just white" blood, it was in full +measure just what the good God meant it to be. + +He moved now toward the little isolated cabin, half hidden in its drift +of snow, keeping well in the deep shadows of the spruce and balsam, and +when he stopped again he saw faintly a gleam of light falling in a wan +streak through a big hole in a curtained window. Each night, always when +the twenty-odd souls of the post were deep in slumber, Jan's heart would +come near to bursting with joy at the sight of this grow from the +snow-smothered cabin, for it told him that the most beautiful thing in +the world was safe and well. He heard, suddenly, the slamming of a door, +and the young Englishman's whistle sounded shrill and untuneful as he +went to his room in the factor's house. For a moment Jan straightened +himself rigidly, and there was a strange tenseness in the thin, dark face +that he turned straight up to where the Northern Lights were shivering in +their midnight play. When he looked again at the light in the little +cabin the passion-blood was rushing through his veins, and he fingered +the hilt of the hunting knife in his belt. + +The most beautiful thing in the world had come into Jan's life, and the +other lives at the post, just two summers before. Cummins, red-headed, +lithe as a cat, big-souled as the eternal mountain of the Crees and the +best of the Company's hunters, had brought her up as his bride. Seventeen +rough hearts had welcomed them. They had assembled about that little +cabin in which the light was shining, speechless in their adoration of +this woman who had come among them, their caps in their hands, faces +shining, eyes shifting before the glorious ones that looked at them and +smiled at them as the woman shook their hands, one by one. Perhaps she +was not beautiful, as most people judge. But she was beautiful here--four +hundred miles beyond civilization. Mukee, the half-Cree, had never seen a +white woman, for even the factor's wife was part Chippewayan, and no one +of the others went down to the edge of the southern wilderness more than +once each twelve-month or so. Her hair was brown and soft, and it shone +with a sunny glory that reached away back into their conception of things +dreamed of but never seen, her eyes were as blue as the early snowflowers +that came after the spring floods, and her voice was the sweetest sound +that had ever fallen upon their ears. So these men thought when Cummins +first brought home his wife, and the masterpiece which each had painted +in his soul and brain was never changed. Each week and month added to the +deep-toned value of that picture, as the passing of a century might add +to a Raphael or a Van Dyke. The woman became more human, and less an +angel, of course, but that only made her more real, and allowed them to +become acquainted with her, to talk with her, and to love her more. There +was no thought of wrong--until the Englishman came; for the devotion of +these men who lived alone, and mostly wifeless, was a great passionless +love unhinting of sin, and Cummins and his wife accepted it, and added to +it when they could, and were the happiest pair in all that vast +Northland. + +The first year brought great changes. The girl--she was scarce more than +budding into womanhood--fell happily into the ways of her new life. She +did nothing that was elementally unusual--nothing more than any pure +woman reared in the love of a God and home would have done. In her spare +hours she began to teach the half dozen wild little children about the +post, and every Sunday told them wonderful stories out of the Bible. She +ministered to the sick, for that was a part of her code of life. +Everywhere she carried her glad smile, her cheery greeting, her wistful +earnestness to brighten what seemed to her the sad and lonely lives of +these silent, worshipful men of the North. And she succeeded, not because +she was unlike other millions of her kind, but because of the difference +between the fortieth and the sixtieth degrees--the difference in the +viewpoint of men who fought themselves into moral shreds in the big game +of life and those who lived a thousand miles nearer to the dome of the +earth. At the end of this first year came the wonderful event in the +history of the Company's post, which had the Barren Lands at its back +door. One day a new life was born into the little cabin of Cummins and +his wife. + +After this the silent, wordless worship of Jan and his people was filled +with something very near to pathos. Cummins' wife was a mother. She was +one of them now, a part of their indissoluble existence--a part of it as +truly as the strange lights forever hovering over the Pole, as surely as +the countless stars that never left the night skies, as surely as the +endless forests and the deep snows! There was an added value to Cummins +now. If there was a long and dangerous mission to perform it was somehow +arranged so that he was left behind. Only Jan and one or two others knew +why his traps made the best catch of fur, for more than once he had +slipped a mink of an ermine or a fox into one of Cummins' traps, knowing +that it would mean a luxury or two for the woman and the baby. And when +Cummins left the post, sometimes for a day and sometimes longer, the +mother and her child fell as a brief heritage to those who remained. The +keenest eyes would not have discovered that this was so. + +In the second year, with the beginning of trapping, fell the second and +third great events. Cummins disappeared. Then came the Englishman. For a +time the first of these two overshadowed everything else at the post. +Cummins had gone to prospect a new trap-line, and was to sleep out the +first night. The second night he was still gone. On the third day came +the "Beeg Snow." It began at dawn, thickened as the day went, and +continued to thicken until it became that soft, silent deluge of white in +which no man dared venture a thousand yards from his door. The Aurora was +hidden. There were no stars in the sky at night. Day was weighted with a +strange, noiseless gloom. In all that wilderness there was not a creature +that moved. Sixty hours later, when visible life was resumed again, the +caribou, the wolf and the fox dug themselves up out of six feet of snow, +and found the world changed. + +It was at the beginning of the "Beeg Snow" that Jan went to the woman's +cabin. He tapped upon her door with the timidity of a child, and when she +opened it, her great eyes glowing at him in wild questioning, her face +white with a terrible fear, there was a chill at his heart which choked +back what he had come to say. He walked in dumbly and stood with the snow +falling off him in piles, and when Cummins' wife saw neither hope nor +foreboding in his dark, set face she buried her face in her arms upon the +little table and sobbed softly in her despair. Jan strove to speak, but +the Cree in him drove back what was French and "just white," and he stood +in mute, trembling torture. "Ah, the Great God!" his soul was crying. +"What can I do?" + +Upon its little cot the woman's child was asleep. Beside the stove there +were a few sticks of wood. He stretched himself until his neck creaked to +see if there was water in the barrel near the door. Then he looked again +at the bowed head and the shivering form at the table. In that moment +Jan's resolution soared very near to the terrible. + +"Mees Cummin, I go hunt for heem!" he cried. "I go hunt for heem--an' +fin' heem!" + +He waited another moment, and then backed softly toward the door. + +"I hunt for heem!" he repeated, fearing that she had not heard. + +She lifted her face, and the beating of Jan's heart sounded to him like +the distant thrumming of partridge wings. Ah, the Great God--would he +ever forget that look! She was coming to him, a new glory in her eyes, +her arms reaching out, her lips parted! Jan knew how the Great Spirit had +once appeared to Mukee, the half-Cree, and how a white mist, like a snow +veil, had come between the half-breed's eyes and the wondrous thing he +beheld. And that same snow veil drifted between Jan and the woman. Like +in a vision he saw her glorious face so near to him that his blood was +frightened into a strange, wonderful sensation that it had never known +before. He felt the touch of her sweet breath, he heard her passionate +prayer, he knew that one of his rough hands was clasped in both her +own--and he knew, too, that their soft, thrilling warmth would remain +with him until he died, and still go into Paradise with him. + +When he trudged back into the snow, knee-deep now, he sought Mukee, the +half-breed. Mukee had suffered a lynx bite that went deep into the bone, +and Cummins' wife had saved his hand. After that the savage in him was +enslaved to her like an invisible spirit, and when Jan slipped on his +snowshoes to set out into the deadly chaos of the "Beeg Storm" Mukee was +ready to follow. A trail through the spruce forest led them to the lake +across which Jan knew that Cummins had intended to go. Beyond that, a +matter of six miles or so, there was a deep and lonely break between two +mountainous ridges in which Cummins believed he might find lynx. Indian +instinct guided the two across the lake. There they separated, Jan going +as nearly as he could guess into the northwest, Mukee trailing swiftly +and hopelessly into the south, both inspired in the face of death by the +thought of a woman with sunny hair, and with lips and eyes that had sent +many a shaft of hope and gladness into their desolate hearts. + +It was no great sacrifice for Jan, this struggle with the "Beeg Snows" +for the woman's sake. What it was to Mukee, the half-Cree, no man ever +guessed or knew, for it was not until the late spring snows had gone that +they found what the foxes and the wolves had left of him, far to the +south. + + + +A hand, soft and gentle, guided Jan. He felt the warmth of it and the +thrill of it, and neither the warmth nor the thrill grew less as the +hours passed and the snow fell deeper. His soul was burning with a joy +that it had never known. Beautiful visions danced in his brain, and +always he heard the woman's voice praying to him in the little cabin, saw +her eyes upon him through that white snow veil! Ah, what would he not +give if he could find the man, if he could take Cummins back to his wife, +and stand for one moment more with her hands clasping his, her joy +flooding him with a sweetness that would last for all time! He plunged +fearlessly into the white world beyond the lake, his wide snowshoes +sinking ankle-deep at every step. There was neither rock nor tree to +guide him, for everywhere was the heavy ghost-raiment of the Indian God. +The balsams were bending under it, the spruces were breaking into +hunchback forms, the whole world was twisted in noiseless torture under +its increasing weight, and out through the still terror of it all Jan's +voice went in wild echoing shouts. Now and then he fired his rifle, and +always he listened long and intently. The echoes came back to him, +laughing, taunting, and then each time fell the mirthless silence of the +storm. Night came, a little darker than the day, and Jan stopped to build +a fire and eat sparingly of his food, and to sleep. It was still night +when he aroused himself and stumbled on. Never did he take the weight of +his rifle from his right hand or shoulder, for he knew this weight would +shorten the distance traveled at each step by his right foot, and would +make him go in a circle that would bring him back to the lake. But it was +a long circle. The day passed. A second night fell upon him, and his hope +of finding Cummins was gone. A chill crept in where his heart had been so +warm, and somehow that soft pressure of a woman's hand upon his seemed to +become less and less real to him. The woman's prayers were following him, +her heart was throbbing with its hope in him--and he had failed! On the +third day, when the storm was over, Jan staggered hopelessly into the +post. He went straight to the woman, disgraced, heartbroken. When he came +out of the little cabin he seemed to have gone mad. A wondrously strange +thing had happened. He had spoken not a word, but his failure and his +sufferings were written in his face, and when Cummins' wife saw and +understood she went as white as the underside of a poplar leaf in a +clouded sun. But that was not all. She came to him, and clasped one of +his half-frozen hands to her bosom, and he heard her say, "God bless you +forever, Jan! You have done the best you could!" The Great God--was that +not reward for the risking of a miserable, worthless life such as his? He +went to his shack and slept long, and dreamed, sometimes of the woman, +and of Cummins and Mukee, the half-Cree. + + + +On the first crust of the new snow came the Englishman up from Fort +Churchill, on Hudson's Bay. He came behind six dogs, and was driven by an +Indian, and he bore letters to the factor which proclaimed him something +of considerable importance at the home office of the Company, in London. +As such he was given the best bed in the factor's rude home. On the +second day he saw Cummins' wife at the Company's store, and very soon +learned the history of Cummins' disappearance. + +That was the beginning of the real tragedy at the post. The wilderness is +a grim oppressor of life. To those who survive in it the going out of +life is but an incident, an irresistible and natural thing, unpleasant +but without horror. So it was with the passing of Cummins. But the +Englishman brought with him something new, as the woman had brought +something new, only in this instance it was an element of life which Jan +and his people could not understand, an element which had never found a +place, and never could, in the hearts and souls of the post. On the other +hand, it promised to be but an incident to the Englishman, a passing +adventure in pleasure common to the high and glorious civilization from +which he had come. Here again was that difference of viewpoint, the +eternity of difference between the middle and the end of the earth. As +the days passed, and the crust grew deeper upon the "Beeg Snows," the +tragedy progressed rapidly toward finality. At first Jan did not +understand. The others did not understand. When the worm of the +Englishman's sin revealed itself it struck them with a dumb, terrible +fear. + +The Englishman came from among women. For months he had been in a torment +of desolation. Cummins' wife was to him like a flower suddenly come to +relieve the tantalizing barrenness of a desert, and with the wiles and +soft speech of his kind he sought to breathe its fragrance. In the weeks +that followed the flower seemed to come nearer to him, and this was +because Jan and his people had not as yet fully measured the heart of the +woman, and because the Englishman had not measured Jan and his people he +talked a great deal when enthused by the warmth of the box stove and his +thoughts. So human passions were set at play. Because the woman knew +nothing of what was said about the box stove she continued in the even +course of her pure life, neither resisting nor encouraging the newcomer, +yet ever tempting him with that sweetness which she gave to all alike, +and still praying in the still hours of night that Cummins would return +to her. As yet there was no suspicion in her soul. She accepted the +Englishman's friendship. His sympathy for her won him a place in her +recognition of things good and true. She did not hear the false note, she +saw no step that promised evil. Only Jan and his people saw and +understood the one-sided struggle, and shivered at the monstrous evil of +it. At least they thought they saw and understood, which was enough. Like +so many faithful beasts they were ready to spring, to rend flesh, to tear +life out of him who threatened the desecration of all that was good and +pure and beautiful to them, and yet, dumb in their devotion and faith, +they waited and watched for a sign from the woman. The blue eyes of +Cummins' wife, the words of her gentle lips, the touch of her hands had +made law at the post. She, herself, had become the omniscience of all +that was law to them, and if she smiled upon the Englishman, and talked +with him, and was pleased with him, that was only one other law that she +had made for them to respect. So they were quiet, evaded the Englishman +as much as possible, and watched--always watch ed. + +These were days when something worse than disease was eating at the few +big honest hearts that made up the life at the post. The search for +Cummins never ceased, and always the woman was receiving hope. Now it was +Williams who went far into the South, and brought back word that a +strange white man had been seen among the Indians; then it was Thoreau, +the Frenchman, who skirted the edge of the Barren Lands three days into +the West, and said that he had found the signs of strange campfires. And +always Jan was on the move, to the South, the North, the East and the +West. The days began to lengthen. It was dawn now at eight o'clock +instead of nine, the silvery white of the sun was turning day by day more +into the glow of fire, and for a few minutes at midday the snow softened +and water dripped from the roofs. + +Jan knew what it meant. Very soon the thick crust of the "Beeg Snow" +would drop in, and they would find Cummins. They would bring what was +left of him back to the post. And then--what would happen then? + +Every day or two Jan found some pretext that took him to the little log +cabin. Now it was to convey to the woman a haunch of a caribou he had +slain. Again it was to bring her child a strange plaything from the +forest. More frequently it was to do the work that Cummins would have +done. He seldom went within the low door, but stood outside, speaking a +few words, while Cummins' wife talked to him. But one morning, when the +sun was shining down with the first promising warmth of spring, the woman +stepped hack from the door and asked him in. + +"I want to tell you something, Jan," she said softly. "I have been +thinking about it for a long time. I must find some work to do. I must do +something--to earn--money." + +Jan's eyes leaped straight to hers in sudden horror. + +"Work!" + +The word fell from him as if in its utterance there was something of +crime. Then he stood speechless, awed by the look in her eyes, the hard +gray pallor that came into her face. + +"May God bless you for all you have done, Jan, and may God bless the +others! I want you to take that word to them from me. But he will never +come back, Jan--never. Tell the men that I love them as brothers, and +always shall love them, but now that I know he is dead I can no longer +live as a drone among them. I will do anything. I will make your coats, +do your washing and mend your moccasins. To-morrow I begin my first +work--for money." + +He heard what she said after that as if in a dream. When he went out into +the day again, with her word to his people, he knew that in some way +which he could not understand this big, cold world had changed for him. +To-morrow Cummins' wife was to begin writing letters for the Englishman! +His eyes glittered, his hands clenched themselves upon his breast, and +all the blood in him submerged itself in one wild resistless impulse. An +hour later Jan and his four dogs were speeding swiftly into the South. + +The next day the Englishman went to the woman's cabin. He did not return +in the afternoon. And that same afternoon, when Cummins' wife came into +the Company's store, a quick flush shot into her cheeks and the glitter +of blue diamonds into her eyes when she saw the Englishman standing +there. The man's red face grew redder, and he shifted his gaze. When +Cummins' wife passed him she drew her skirt close to her, and there was +the poise of a queen in her head, the glory of mother and wife and +womanhood, the living, breathing essence of all that was beautiful in +Jan's "honor of the Beeg Snows." But Jan, twenty miles to the south, did +not know. + +He returned on the fourth night and went quietly to his little shack in +the edge of the balsam forest. In the glow of the oil lamp which he +lighted he rolled up his treasure of winter-caught furs into a small +pack. Then he opened his door and walked straight and fearlessly toward +the cabin of Cummins' wife. It was a pale, glorious night, and Jan lifted +his face to its starry skies and filled his lungs near to bursting with +its pure air, and when he was within a few steps of the woman's door he +burst into a wild snatch of triumphant forest song. For this was a new +Jan who was returning to her, a man who had gone out into the solitudes +and fought a great battle with the elementary things in him, and who, +because of his triumph over these things, was filled with the strength +and courage to live a great lie. The woman heard his voice, and +recognized it. The door swung open, wide and brimful of light, and in it +stood Cummins' wife, her child hugged close in her arms. + +Jan crowed close up out of the starry gloom. + +"I fin' heem, Mees Cummins--I fin' heem nint' miles back in Cree +wigwam--with broke leg. He come home soon--he sen' great love--an' +THESE!" + +And he dropped his furs at the woman's feet.... + + + +"Ah, the Great God!" cried Jan's tortured soul when it was all over. "At +least she shall not work for the dirty Englishman." + +First he awoke the factor, and told him what he had done. Then he went to +Williams, and after that, one by one, these three visited the four other +white and part white men at the post. They lived very near to the earth, +these seven, and the spirit of the golden rule was as natural to their +living as green sap to the trees. So they stood shoulder to shoulder to +Jan in a scheme that appalled them, and in the very first day of this +scheme they saw the woman blossoming forth in her old beauty and joy, and +at times fleeting visions of the old happiness at the post came to these +lonely men who were searing their souls for her. But to Jan one vision +came to destroy all others, and as the old light returned to the woman's +eyes, the glad smile to her lips, the sweetness of thankfulness and faith +into her voice, this vision hurt him until he rolled and tossed in agony +at night, and by day his feet were never still. His search for Cummins +now had something of madness in it. It was his one hope--where to the +other six there was no hope. And one day this spark went out of him. The +crust was gone. The snow was settling. Beyond the lake he found the chasm +between the two mountains, and, miles of this chasm, robbed to the bones +of flesh, he found Cummins. The bones, and Cummins' gun, and all that was +left of him, he buried in a crevasse. + +He waited until night to return to the post. Only one light was burning +when he came out into the clearing, and that was the light in the woman's +cabin. In the edge of the balsams he sat down to watch it, as he had +watched it a hundred nights before. Suddenly something came between him +and the light. Against the cabin he saw the shadow of a human form, and +as silently as the steely flash of the Aurora over his head, as swiftly +as a lean deer, he sped through the gloom of the forest's edge and came +up behind the home of the woman and her child. With the caution of a +lynx, his head close to the snow, he peered around the end of the logs. +It was the Englishman who stood looking through the tear in the curtained +window! Jan's moccasined feet made no sound. His hand fell as gently as a +child's upon the Englishman's arm. + +"Thees is not the honor of the Beeg Snows!" he whispered. "Come." + +A sickly pallor filled the Englishman's face. But Jan's voice was soft +and dispassionate, his touch was velvety in its hint, and he went with +the guiding hand away from the curtained window, smiling in a +companionable way. Jan's teeth gleamed back. The Englishman chuckled. +Then Jan's hands changed. They flew to the thick reddening throat of the +man from civilization, and without a sound the two sank together upon the +snow. It was many minutes before Jan rose to his feet. The next day +Williams set out for Fort Churchill with word for the Company's home +office that the Englishman had died in the "Beeg Snow," which was true. + +The end was not far away now. Jan was expecting it day by day, hour by +hour. But it came in a way that he did not expect. A month had gone, and +Cummins had not come up from among the Crees. At times there was a +strange light in the woman's eyes as she questioned the men at the post. +Then, one day, the factor's son told Jan that she wanted to see him in +the little cabin at the other end of the clearing. + +A shiver went through him as he came to the door. It was more than a +spirit of unrest in Jan to-day, more than suspicion, more than his old +dread of that final moment of the tragedy he was playing, which would +condemn him to everlasting perdition in the woman's eyes. It was pain, +poignant, terrible--something which he could not name, something upon +which he could place his hand, and yet which filled him with a desire to +throw himself upon his face in the snow and sob out his grief as he had +seen the little children do. It was not dread, but the torment of +reality, that gripped him now, and when he faced the woman he knew why. +There had come a terrible change, but a quiet change, in Cummins' wife. +The luster had gone from her eyes. There was a dead whiteness in her face +that went to the roots of her shimmering hair, and as she spoke to Jan +she clutched one hand upon her bosom, which rose and fell as Jan had seen +the breast of a mother lynx rise and fall in the last torture of its +death. + +"Jan," she panted, "Jan--you have lied to me!" + +Jan's head dropped. The worn caribou skin of his coat crumpled upon his +breast. His heart died. And yet he found voice, soft, low, simple. + +"Yes, me lie!" + +"You--you lied to me!" + +"Yes--me--lie--" + +His head dropped lower. He heard the sobbing breath of the woman, and +gently his arm crooked itself, and his fingers rose slowly, very slowly, +toward the hilt of his hunting knife. + +"Yes--Mees Cummins--me lie--" + +There came a sudden swift, sobbing movement, and the woman was at Jan's +feet, clasping his hand to her bosom as she had clasped it once before +when he had gone out to face death for her. But this time the snow veil +was very thick before Jan's eyes, and he did not see her face. Only he +heard. + +"Bless you, dear Jan, and may God bless you evermore! For you have been +good to me, Jan--so good--to me--" + +And he went out into the day again a few moments later, leaving her alone +in her great grief, for Jan was a man in the wild and mannerless ways of +a savage world, and he knew not how to comfort in the fashion of that +other world which had other conceptions and another understanding of what +was to him the "honor of the Beeg Snows." A week later the woman +announced her intention of returning to her people, for the dome of the +earth had grown sad and lonely and desolate to her now that Cummins was +forever gone. Sometimes the death of a beloved friend brings with it the +sadness that spread like a pall over Jan and those others who had lived +very near to contentment and happiness for nearly two years, only each +knew that this grief of his would be as enduring as life itself. For a +brief space the sweetest of all God's things had come among them, a pure +woman who brought with her the gentleness and beauty and hallowed +thoughts of civilization in place of its iniquities, and the pictures in +their hearts were imperishable. + +The parting was as simple and as quiet as when the woman had come. They +went to the little cabin where the sledge dogs stood harnessed. Hatless, +silent, crowding back their grief behind grim and lonely countenances, +they waited for Cummins' wife to say good-bye. The woman did not speak. +She held up her child for each man to kiss, and the baby babbled +meaningless things into the bearded faces that it had come to know and +love, and when it came to Williams' turn he whispered, "Be a good baby, +be a good baby." And when it was all over the woman crushed the child to +her breast and dropped sobbing upon the sledge, and Jan cracked his whip +and shouted hoarsely to the dogs, for it was Jan who was to drive her to +civilization. Long after they had disappeared beyond the clearing those +who remained stood looking at the cabin; and then, with a dry, strange +sob in his throat, Williams led the way inside. When they came out +Williams brought a hammer with him, and nailed the door tight. + +"Mebby she'll come back some day," he said. + +That was all, but the others understood. + +For nine days Jan raced his dogs into the South. On the tenth they came +to Le Pas. It was night when they stopped before the little log hotel, +and the gloom hid the twitching in Jan's face. + +"You will stay here--to-night?" asked the woman. + +"Me go back--now," said Jan. + +Cummins' wife came very close to him. She did not urge, for she, too, was +suffering the torture of this last parting with the "honor of the Beeg +Snows." It was not the baby's face that came to Jan's now, but the +woman's. He felt the soft touch of her lips, and his soul burst forth in +a low, agonized cry. + +"The good God bless you, and keep you, and care for you evermore, Jan," +she whispered. "Some day we will meet again." + +And she kissed him again, and lifted the child to him, and Jan turned his +tired dogs back into the grim desolation of the North, where the Aurora +was lighting his way feebly, and beckoning to him, and telling him that +the old life of centuries and centuries ago was waiting for him there. + + + + + +BUCKY SEVERN + +Father Brochet had come south from Fond du Lac, and Weyman, the Hudson's +Bay Company doctor, north through the Geikee River country. They had met +at Severn's cabin, on the Waterfound. Both had come on the same +mission--to see Severn; one to keep him from dying, if that was possible, +one to comfort him in the last hour, if death came. Severn insisted on +living. Bright-eyed, hollow-cheeked, with a racking cough that reddened +the gauze handkerchief the doctor had given him, he sat bolstered up in +his cot and looked out through the open door with glad and hopeful gaze. +Weyman had arrived only half an hour before. Outside was the Indian +canoeman who had helped to bring him up. + +It was a glorious day, such as comes in its full beauty only in the far +northern spring, where the air enters the lungs like sharp, warm wine, +laden with the tang of spruce and balsam, and the sweetness of the +bursting poplar-buds. + +"It was mighty good of you to come up," Severn was saying to the doctor. +"The company has always been the best friend I've ever had--except +one--and that's why I've hung to it all these years, trailing the sledges +first as a kid, you know, then trapping, running, and--oh, Lord!" + +He stopped to cough, and the little black-frocked missioner, looking +across at Weyman, saw him bite his lips. + +"That cough hurts, but it's better," Severn apologized, smiling weakly. +"Funny, ain't it, a man like me coming down with a cough? Why, I've slept +in ice a thousand times, with snow for a pillow and the thermometer down +to fifty. But this last winter it was cold, seventy or lower, an' I +worked in it when I ought to have been inside, warming my toes. But, you +see, I wanted to get the cabin built, an' things all cleared up about +here, before SHE came. It's the cold that got me, wasn't it, doc?" + +"That's it," said Weyman, rolling and lighting a cigarette. Then he +laughed, as the sick man finished another coughing spell, and said: + +"I never thought you'd have a love affair, Bucky!" + +"Neither did I," chuckled Severn. "Ain't it a wonder, doc? Here I'm +thirty-eight, with a hide on me like leather, an' no thought of a woman +for twenty years, until I saw HER. I don't mean it's a wonder I fell in +love, doc--you'd 'a' done that if you'd met her first. The wonder of it +is that she fell in love with me." He laughed softly. "I'll bet Father +Brochet'll go in a heap himself when he marries us! It's goin' to happen +next month. Did you ever see her, father--Marie La Corne, over at the +post on Split Lake?" + +Severn dropped his head to cough, but Weyman say the sudden look of +horror that leaped into the little priest's face. + +"Marie La Corne!" + +"Yes, at Split Lake." + +Severn looked up again. He had missed what Weyman had seen. + +"Yes, I've seen her." + +Bucky Severn's eyes lit up with pleasure. + +"She's--she's beautiful, ain't she?" he cried in hoarse whisper. "Ain't +it a wonder, father? I come up there with a canoe full of supplies, last +spring about this time, an'--an' at first I hardly dast to look at her; +but it came out all right. When I told her I was coming over here to +build us a home, she wanted me to bring her along to help; but I +wouldn't. I knew it was goin' to be hard this winter, and she's never +goin' to work--never so long as I live. I ain't had much to do with +women, but I've seen 'em and I've watched 'em an' she's never goin' to +drudge like the rest. If she'll let me, I'm even goin' to do the cookin' +an' the dish-washing and scrub the floors! I've done it for twenty-five +years, an' I'm tough. She ain't goin' to do nothin' but sew for the kids +when they come, an' sing, an' be happy. When it comes to the work that +there ain't no fun in, I'll do it. I've planned it all out. We're goin' +to have half an arpent square of flowers, an' she'll love to work among +'em. I've got the ground cleared--out there--you kin see it by twisting +your head through the door. An' she's goin' to have an organ. I've got +the money saved, an' it's coming to Churchill on the next ship. That's +goin' to be a surprise--'bout Christmas, when the snow is hard an' +sledging good. You see--" + +He stopped again to cough. A hectic flush filled his hollow cheeks, and +there was a feverish glow in his eyes. As he bent his head, the priest +looked at Weyman. The doctor's lips were tense. His cigarette was +unlighted. + +"I know what it means for a woman to die a workin'," Severn went on. "My +mother did that. I can remember it, though I was only a kid. She was bent +an' stoop-shouldered, an' her hands were rough and twisted. I know now +why she used to hug me up close and croon funny things over me when +father was away. When I first told my Marie what I was goin' to do, she +laughed at me; but when I told her 'bout my mother, an' how work an' +freezin' an' starvin' killed her when I needed her most, Marie jest put +her hand up to my face an' looked queer--an' then she burst out crying +like a baby. She understands, Marie does! She knows what I'm goin' to +do--" + +"You mustn't talk any more, Bucky," warned the doctor, feeling his pulse. +"It'll hurt you." + +"Hurt me!" Severn laughed hysterically, as If what the doctor had said +was a joke. "Hurt me? It's what's going to put me on my feet, doc. I know +it now, I been too much alone this last winter, with nothin' but my dogs +to talk to when night come. I ain't never been much of a talker, but she +got me out o' that. She used to tease me at first, an' I'd get red in the +face an' almost bust. An' then, one day, it come, like a bung out of a +hole, an' I've had a hankerin' to talk ever since. Hurt me!" + +He gave an incredulous chuckle, which ended in a cough. + +"Do you know, I wish I could read better 'n I can!" he said suddenly, +leaning almost eagerly toward Father Brochet. "She knows I ain't great +shucks at that. She's goin' to have a school just as soon as she comes, +an' I'm goin' to be the scholar. She's got a packful of books an' +magazines an' I'm goin' to tote over a fresh load every winter. I'd like +to surprise her. Can't you help me to--" + +Weyman pressed him back gently. + +"See here, Bucky, you've got to lie down and keep quiet," he said. "If +you don't, it will take you a week longer to get well. Try and sleep a +little, while Father Brochet and I go outside and see what you've done." + +When they went out, Weyman closed the door after them. He spoke no word +as he turned and looked upon what Bucky Severn had done for the coming of +his bride. Father Brochet's hand touched the doctor's and it was cold and +trembling. + +"How is he?" he asked. + +"It is the bad malady," said Weyman softly. "The frost has touched his +lungs. One does not feel the effect of that until spring comes. Then--a +cough--and the lungs begin literally to slough away." + +"You mean--" + +"That there is no hope--absolutely none. He will die within two days." + +As he spoke, the little priest straightened himself and lifted his hands +as if about to pronounce a benediction. + +"Thank God!" he breathed. Then, as quickly, he caught himself. "No, I +don't mean that. God forgive me! But--it is best." Weyman stared +incredulously into his face. + +"It is best," repeated the other, as gently as if speaking a prayer. "How +strangely the Creator sometimes works out His ends! I came straight here +from Split Lake. Marie La Corne died two weeks ago. It was I who said the +last prayer over her dead body!" + + + + + +HIS FIRST PENITENT + +In a white wilderness of moaning storm, in a wilderness of miles and +miles of black pine-trees, the Transcontinental Flier lay buried in the +snow. In the first darkness of the wild December night, engine and tender +had rushed on ahead to division headquarters, to let the line know that +the flier had given up the fight, and needed assistance. They had been +gone two hours, and whiter and whiter grew the brilliantly lighted +coaches in the drifts and winnows of the whistling storm. From the black +edges of the forest, prowling eyes might have looked upon scores of human +faces staring anxiously out into the blackness from the windows of the +coaches. + +In those coaches it was growing steadily colder. Men were putting on +their overcoats, and women snuggled deeper in their furs. Over it all, +the tops of the black pine-trees moaned and whistled in sounds that +seemed filled both with menace and with savage laughter. + +In the smoking-compartment of the Pullman sat five men, gathered in a +group. Of these, one was Forsythe, the timber agent; two were traveling +men; the fourth a passenger homeward bound from a holiday visit; and the +fifth was Father Charles. The priest's pale, serious face lit up in +surprise or laughter with the others, but his lips had not broken into a +story of their own. He was a little man, dressed in somber black, and +there was that about him which told his companions that within his +tight-drawn coat of shiny black there were hidden tales which would have +gone well with the savage beat of the storm against the lighted windows +and the moaning tumult of the pine-trees. + +Suddenly Forsythe shivered at a fiercer blast than the others, and said: + +"Father, have you a text that would fit this night--and the situation?" + +Slowly Father Charles blew out a spiral of smoke from between his lips, +and then he drew himself erect and leaned a little forward, with the +cigar between his slender white fingers. + +"I had a text for this night," he said, "but I have none now, gentlemen. +I was to have married a couple a hundred miles down the line. The guests +have assembled. They are ready, but I am not there. The wedding will not +be to-night, and so my text is gone. But there comes another to my mind +which fits this situation--and a thousand others--'He who sits in the +heavens shall look down and decide.' To-night I was to have married these +young people. Three hours ago I never dreamed of doubting that I should +be on hand at the appointed hour. But I shall not marry them. Fate has +enjoined a hand. The Supreme Arbiter says 'No,' and what may not be the +consequences'?" + +"They will probably be married to-morrow," said one of the traveling men. +"There will be a few hours' delay--nothing more." + +"Perhaps," replied Father Charles, as quietly as before. "And--perhaps +not. Who can say what this little incident may not mean in the lives of +that young man and that young woman--and, it may be, in my own? Three or +four hours lost in a storm--what may they not mean to more than one human +heart on this train? The Supreme Arbiter plays His hand, if you wish to +call it that, with reason and intent. To someone, somewhere, the most +insignificant occurrence may mean life or death. And +to-night--this--means something." + +A sudden blast drove the night screeching over our heads, and the whining +of the pines was almost like human voices. Forsythe sucked a cigar that +had gone out. + +"Long ago," said Father Charles, "I knew a young man and a young woman +who were to be married. The man went West to win a fortune. Thus fate +separated them, and in the lapse of a year such terrible misfortune came +to the girl's parents that she was forced into a marriage with wealth--a +barter of her white body for an old man's gold. When the young man +returned from the West he found his sweetheart married, and hell upon +earth was their lot. But hope lingers in your hearts. He waited four +years; and then, discouraged, he married another woman. Gentlemen, three +days after the wedding his old sweetheart's husband died, and she was +released from bondage. Was not that the hand of the Supreme Arbiter? If +he had waited but three days more, the old happiness might have lived. + +"But wait! One month after that day the young man was arrested, taken to +a Western State, tried for murder, and hanged. Do you see the point? In +three days more the girl who had sold herself into slavery for the +salvation of those she loved would have been released from her bondage +only to marry a murderer!" + +There was silence, in which all five listened to that wild moaning of the +storm. There seemed to be something in it now--something more than the +inarticulate sound of wind and trees. Forsythe scratched a match and +relighted his cigar. + +"I never thought of such things in just that light," he said. + +"Listen to the wind," said the little priest. "Hear the pine-trees shriek +out there! It recalls to me a night of years and years ago--a night like +this, when the storm moaned and twisted about my little cabin, and when +the Supreme Arbiter sent me my first penitent. Gentlemen, it is something +which will bring you nearer to an understanding of the voice and the hand +of God. It is a sermon on the mighty significance of little things, this +story of my first penitent. If you wish, I will tell it to you." + +"Go on," said Forsythe. + +The traveling men drew nearer. + +"It was a night like this," repeated Father Charles, "and it was in a +great wilderness like this, only miles and miles away. I had been sent to +establish a mission; and in my cabin, that wild night, alone and with the +storm shrieking about me, I was busy at work sketching out my plans. +After a time I grew nervous. I did not smoke then, and so I had nothing +to comfort me but my thoughts; and, in spite of my efforts to make them +otherwise, they were cheerless enough. The forest grew to my door. In the +fiercer blasts I could hear the lashing of the pine-trees over my head, +and now and then an arm of one of the moaning trees would reach down and +sweep across my cabin roof with a sound that made me shudder and fear. +This wilderness fear is an oppressive and terrible thing when you are +alone at night, and the world is twisting and tearing itself outside. I +have heard the pine-trees shriek like dying women, I have heard them +wailing like lost children, I have heard them sobbing and moaning like +human souls writhing in agony--" + +Father Charles paused, to peer through the window out into the black +night, where the pine-trees were sobbing and moaning now. When he turned, +Forsythe, the timber agent, whose life was a wilderness life, nodded +understandingly. + +"And when they cry like that," went on Father Charles, "a living voice +would be lost among them as the splash of a pebble is lost in the roaring +sea. A hundred times that night I fancied that I heard human voices; and +a dozen times I went to my door, drew back the bolt, and listened, "with +the snow and the wind beating about my ears. + +"As I sat shuddering before my fire, there came a thought to me of a +story which I had long ago read about the sea--a story of impossible +achievement and of impossible heroism. As vividly as if I had read it +only the day before, I recalled the description of a wild and stormy +night when the heroine placed a lighted lamp in the window of her +sea-bound cottage, to guide her lover home in safety. Gentlemen, the +reading of that book in my boyhood days was but a trivial thing. I had +read a thousand others, and of them all it was possibly the least +significant; but the Supreme Arbiter had not forgotten. + +"The memory of that book brought me to my feet, and I placed a lighted +lamp close up against my cabin window. Fifteen minutes later I heard a +strange sound at the door, and when I opened it there fell in upon the +floor at my feet a young and beautiful woman. And after her, dragging +himself over the threshold on his hands and knees, there came a man. + +"I closed the door, after the man had crawled in and fallen face downward +upon the floor, and turned my attention first to the woman. She was +covered with snow. Her long, beautiful hair was loose and disheveled, and +had blown about her like a veil. Her big, dark eyes looked at me +pleadingly, and in them there was a terror such as I had never beheld in +human eyes before. I bent over her, intending to carry her to my cot; but +in another moment she had thrown herself upon the prostrate form of the +man, with her arms about his head, and there burst from her lips the +first sounds that she had uttered. They were not much more intelligible +than the wailing grief of the pine-trees out in the night, but they told +me plainly enough that the man on the floor was dearer to her than life. + +"I knelt beside him, and found that he was breathing in a quick, panting +sort of way, and that his wide-open eyes were looking at the woman. Then +I noticed for the first time that his face was cut and bruised, and his +lips were swollen. His coat was loose at the throat, and I could see +livid marks on his neck. + +"'I'm all right,' he whispered, struggling for breath, and turning his +eyes to me. 'We should have died--in a few minutes more--if it hadn't +been for the light in your window!' + +"The young woman bent down and kissed him, and then she allowed me to +help her to my cot. When I had attended to the young man, and he had +regained strength enough to stand upon his feet, she was asleep. The man +went to her, and dropped upon his knees beside the cot. Tenderly he drew +back the heavy masses of hair from about her face and shoulders. For +several minutes he remained with his face pressed close against hers; +then he rose, and faced me. The woman--his wife--knew nothing of what +passed between us during the next half-hour. During that half-hour +gentlemen, I received my first confession. The young man was of my faith. +He was my first penitent." + +It was growing colder in the coach, and Father Charles stopped to draw +his thin black coat closer to him. Forsythe relighted his cigar for the +third time. The transient passenger gave a sudden start as a gust of wind +beat against the window like a threatening hand. + +"A rough stool was my confessional, gentlemen," resumed Father Charles. +"He told me the story, kneeling at my feet--a story that will live with +me as long as I live, always reminding me that the little things of life +may be the greatest things, that by sending a storm to hold up a coach +the Supreme Arbiter may change the map of the world. It is not a long +story. It is not even an unusual story. + +"He had come into the North about a year before, and had built for +himself and his wife a little home at a pleasant river spot ten miles +distant from my cabin. Their love was of the kind we do not often see, +and they were as happy as the birds that lived about them in the +wilderness. They had taken a timber claim. A few months more, and a new +life was to come into their little home; and the knowledge of this made +the girl an angel of beauty and joy. Their nearest neighbor was another +man, several miles distant. The two men became friends, and the other +came over to see them frequently. It was the old, old story. The neighbor +fell in love with the young settler's wife. + +"As you shall see, this other man was a beast. On the day preceding the +night of the terrible storm, the woman's husband set out for the +settlement to bring back supplies. Hardly had he gone, when the beast +came to the cabin. He found himself alone with the woman. + +"A mile from his cabin, the husband stopped to light his pipe. See, +gentlemen, how the Supreme Arbiter played His hand. The man attempted to +unscrew the stem, and the stem broke. In the wilderness you must smoke. +Smoke is your company. It is voice and companionship to you. There were +other pipes at the settlement, ten miles away; but there was also another +pipe at the cabin, one mile away. So the husband turned back. He came up +quietly to his door, thinking that he would surprise his wife. He heard +voices--a man's voice, a woman's cries. He opened the door, and in the +excitement of what was happening within neither the man nor the woman saw +nor heard him. They were struggling. The woman was in the man's arms, her +hair torn down, her small hands beating him in the face, her breath +coming in low, terrified cries. Even as the husband stood there for the +fraction of a second, taking in the terrible scene, the other man caught +the woman's face to him, and kissed her. And then--it happened. + +"It was a terrible fight; and when it was over the beast lay on the +floor, bleeding and dead. Gentlemen, the Supreme Arbiter BROKE A +PIPE-STEM, and sent the husband back in time!" + +No one spoke as Father Charles drew his coat still closer about him. +Above the tumult of the storm another sound came to them--the distant, +piercing shriek of a whistle. + +"The husband dug a grave through the snow and in the frozen earth," +concluded Father Charles; "and late that afternoon they packed up a +bundle and set out together for the settlement. The storm overtook them. +They had dropped for the last time into the snow, about to die in each +other's arms, when I put my light in the window. That is all; except that +I knew them for several years afterward, and that the old happiness +returned to them--and more, for the child was born, a miniature of its +mother. Then they moved to another part of the wilderness, and I to still +another. So you see, gentlemen, what a snow-bound train may mean, for if +an old sea tale, a broken pipe-stem--" + +The door at the end of the smoking-room opened suddenly. Through it there +came a cold blast of the storm, a cloud of snow, and a man. He was +bundled in a great bearskin coat, and as he shook out its folds his +strong, ruddy face smiled cheerfully at those whom he had interrupted. + +Then, suddenly, there came a change in his face. The merriment went from +it. He stared at Father Charles. The priest was rising, his face more +tense and whiter still, his hands reaching out to the stranger. + +In another moment the stranger had leaped to him--not to shake his hands, +but to clasp the priest in his great arms, shaking him, and crying out a +strange joy, while for the first time that night the pale face of Father +Charles was lighted up with a red and joyous glow. + +After several minutes the newcomer released Father Charles, and turned to +the others with a great hearty laugh. + +"Gentlemen," he said, "you must pardon me for interrupting you like this. +You will understand when I tell you that Father Charles is an old friend +of mine, the dearest friend I have on earth, and that I haven't seen him +for years. I was his first penitent!" + + + + + +PETER GOD + +Peter God was a trapper. He set his deadfalls and fox-baits along the +edge of that long, slim finger of the Great Barren, which reaches out of +the East well into the country of the Great Bear, far to the West. The +door of his sapling-built cabin opened to the dark and chilling gray of +the Arctic Circle; through its one window he could watch the sputter and +play of the Northern Lights; and the curious hissing purr of the Aurora +had grown to be a monotone in his ears. + +Whence Peter God had come, and how it was that he bore the strange name +by which he went, no man had asked, for curiosity belongs to the white +man, and the nearest white men were up at Fort MacPherson, a hundred or +so miles away. + +Six or seven years ago Peter God had come to the post for the first time +with his furs. He had given his name as Peter God, and the Company had +not questioned it, or wondered. Stranger names than Peter's were a part +of the Northland; stranger faces than his came in out of the white +wilderness trails; but none was more silent, or came in and went more +quickly. In the gray of the afternoon he drove in with his dogs and his +furs; night would see him on his way back to the Barrens, supplies for +another three months of loneliness on his sledge. + +It would have been hard to judge his age--had one taken the trouble to +try. Perhaps he was thirty-eight. He surely was not French. There was no +Indian blood in him. His heavy beard was reddish, his long thick hair +distinctly blond, and his eyes were a bluish-gray. + +For seven years, season after season, the Hudson's Bay Company's clerk +had written items something like the following in his record-books: + +Feb. 17. Peter God came in to-day with his furs. He leaves this afternoon +or to-night for his trapping grounds with fresh supplies. + +The year before, in a momentary fit of curiosity, the clerk had added: + +Curious why Peter God never stays in Fort MacPherson overnight. + +And more curious than this was the fact that Peter God never asked for +mail, and no letter ever came to Fort MacPherson for him. + +The Great Barren enveloped him and his mystery. The yapping foxes knew +more of him than men. They knew him for a hundred miles up and down that +white finger of desolation; they knew the peril of his baits and his +deadfalls; they snarled and barked their hatred and defiance at the glow +of his lights on dark nights; they watched for him, sniffed for signs of +him, and walked into his clever deathpits. + +The foxes and Peter God! That was what this white world was made up +of--foxes and Peter God. It was a world of strife between them. Peter God +was killing--but the foxes were winning. Slowly but surely they were +breaking him down--they and the terrible loneliness. Loneliness Peter God +might have stood for many more years. But the foxes were driving him mad. +More and more he had come to dread their yapping at night. That was the +deadly combination--night and the yapping. In the day-time he laughed at +himself for his fears; nights he sweated, and sometimes wanted to scream. +What manner of man Peter God was or might have been, and of the +strangeness of the life that was lived in the maddening loneliness of +that mystery-cabin in the edge of the Barren, only one other man knew. + +That was Philip Curtis. + + + +Two thousand miles south, Philip Curtis sat at a small table in a +brilliantly lighted and fashionable cafe. It was early June, and Philip +had been down from the North scarcely a month, the deep tan was still in +his face, and tiny wind and snow lines crinkled at the corners of his +eyes. He exuded the life of the big outdoors as he sat opposite +pallid-cheeked and weak-chested Barrow, the Mica King, who would have +given his millions to possess the red blood in the other's veins. + +Philip had made his "strike," away up on the Mackenzie. That day he had +sold out to Barrow for a hundred thousand. To-night he was filled with +the flush of joy and triumph. + +Barrow's eyes shone with a new sort of enthusiasm as he listened to this +man's story of grim and fighting determination that had led to the +discovery of that mountain of mica away up on the Clearwater Bulge. He +looked upon the other's strength, his bronzed face and the glory of +achievement in his eyes, and a great and yearning hopelessness burned +like a dull fire in his heart. He was no older than the man who sat on +the other side of the table--perhaps thirty-five; yet what a vast gulf +lay between them! He with his millions; the other with that flood of red +blood coming and going in his body, and his wonderful fortune of a +hundred thousand! Barrow leaned a little over the table, and laughed. It +was the laugh of a man who had grown tired of life, in spite of his +millions. Day before yesterday a famous specialist had warned him that +the threads of his life were giving way, one by one. He told this to +Curtis. He confessed to him, with that strange glow in his eyes,--a glow +that was like making a last fight against total extinguishment,--that he +would give up his millions and all he had won for the other's health and +the mountain of mica. + +"And if it came to a close bargain," he said, "I wouldn't hold out for +the mountain. I'm ready to quit--and it's too late." + +Which, after a little, brought Philip Curtis to tell so much as he knew +of the story of Peter God. Philip's voice was tuned with the winds and +the forests. It rose above the low and monotonous hum about them. People +at the two or three adjoining tables might have heard his story, if they +had listened. Within the immaculateness of his evening dress, Barrows +shivered, fearing that Curtis' voice might attract undue attention to +them. But other people were absorbed in themselves. Philip went on with +his story, and at last, so clearly that it reached easily to the other +tables, he spoke the name of Peter God. + +Then came the interruption, and with that interruption a strange and +sudden upheaval in the life of Philip Curtis that was to mean more to him +than the discovery of the mica mountain. His eyes swept over Barrow's +shoulder, and there he saw a woman. She was standing. A low, stifled cry +had broken from her almost simultaneously with his first glimpse of her, +and as he looked, Philip saw her lips form gaspingly the name he had +spoken--Peter God! + +She was so near that Barrow could have turned and touched her. Her eyes +were like luminous fires as she stared at Philip. Her face was strangely +pale. He could see her quiver, and catch her breath. And she was looking +at him. For that one moment she had forgotten the presence of others. + +Then a hand touched her arm. It was the hand of her elderly escort, in +whose face were anxiety and wonder. The woman started and took her eyes +from Philip. With her escort she seated herself at a table a few paces +away, and for a few moments Philip could see she was fighting for +composure, and that it cost her a struggle to keep her eyes from turning +in his direction while she talked in a low voice to her companion. + +Philip's heart was pounding like an engine. He knew that she was talking +about him now, and he knew that she had cried out when he had spoken +Peter God's name. He forgot Barrow as he looked at her. She was +exquisite, even with that gray pallor that had come so suddenly into her +cheeks. She was not young, as the age of youth is measured. Perhaps she +was thirty, or thirty-two, or thirty-five. If some one had asked Philip +to describe her, he would have said simply that she was glorious. Yet her +entrance had caused no stir. Few had looked at her until she had uttered +that sharp cry. There were a score of women under the brilliantly lighted +chandeliers possessed of more spectacular beauty, Barrow had partly +turned in his seat, and now, with careful breeding, he faced his +companion again. + +"Do you know her?" Philip asked. + +Barrow shook his head. + +"No." Then he added: "Did you see what made her cry out like that?" + +"I believe so," said Philip, and he turned purposely so that the four +people at the next table could hear him. "I think she twisted her ankle. +It's an occasional penance the women make for wearing these high-heeled +shoes, you know." + +He looked at her again. Her form was bent toward the white-haired man who +was with her. The man was staring straight over at Philip, a strange +searching look in his face as he listened to what she was saying. He +seemed to question Philip through the short distance that separated them. +And then the woman turned her head slowly, and once more Philip met her +eyes squarely--deep, dark, glowing eyes that thrilled him to the quick of +his soul. He did not try to understand what he saw in them. Before he +turned his glance to Barrow he saw that color had swept back into her +face; her lips were parted; he knew that she was struggling to suppress a +tremendous emotion. + +Barrow was looking at him curiously--and Philip went on with his story of +Peter God. He told it in a lower voice. Not until he had finished did he +look again in the direction of the other table. The woman had changed her +position slightly, so that he could not see her face. The uptilt of her +hat revealed to him the warm soft glow of shining coils of brown hair. He +was sure that her escort was keeping watch of his movements. + +Suddenly Barrow drew his attention to a man sitting alone a dozen tables +from them. + +"There's DeVoe, one of the Amalgamated chiefs," he said. "He has almost +finished, and I want to speak to him before he leaves. Will you excuse me +a minute--or will you come along and meet him?" + +"I'll wait," said Philip. + +Ten seconds later, the woman's white-haired escort was on his feet. He +came to Philip's table, and seated himself casually in Barrow's chair, as +though Philip were an old friend with whom he had come to chat for a +moment. + +"I beg your pardon for the imposition which I am laying upon you," he +said in a low, quiet voice. "I am Colonel McCloud. The lady with me is my +daughter. And you, I believe, are a gentleman. If I were not sure of +that, I should not have taken advantage of your friend's temporary +absence. You heard my daughter cry out a few moments ago? You observed +that she was--disturbed?" + +Philip nodded. + +"I could not help it. I was facing her. And since then I have thought +that I--unconsciously--was the cause of her perturbation. I am Philip +Curtis, Colonel McCloud, from Fort MacPherson, two thousand miles north +of here, on the Mackenzie Kiver. So you see, if it is a case of mistaken +identity--" + +"No--no--it is not that," interrupted the older man. "As we were passing +your table we--my daughter--heard you speak a name. Perhaps she was +mistaken. It was--Peter God." + +"Yes. I know Peter God. He is a friend of mine." + +Barrow was returning. The other saw him over Philip's shoulder, and his +voice trembled with a sudden and subdued excitement as he said quickly: + +"Your friend is coming' back. No one but you must know that my daughter +is interested in this man--Peter God. She trusts you. She sent me to you. +It is important that she should see you to-night and talk with you alone. +I will wait for you outside. I will have a taxicab ready to take you to +our apartments. Will you come?" + +He had risen. Philip heard Barrow's footsteps behind him. + +"I will come," he said. + +A few minutes later Colonel McCloud and his daughter left the cafe. The +half-hour after that passed with leaden slowness to Philip. The fortunate +arrival of two or three friends of Barrow gave him an opportunity to +excuse himself on the plea of an important engagement, and he bade the +Mica King good-night. Colonel McCloud was waiting for him outside the +cafe, and as they entered a taxicab, he said: + +"My daughter is quite unstrung to-night, and I sent her home. She is +waiting for us. Will you have a smoke, Mr. Curtis?" + +With a feeling that this night had set stirring a brew of strange and +unforeseen events for him, Philip sat in a softly lighted and richly +furnished room and waited. The Colonel had been gone a full quarter-hour. +He had left a box half filled with cigars on a table at Philip's elbow, +pressing him to smoke. They were an English brand of cigar, and on the +box was stamped the name of the Montreal dealer from whom they had been +purchased. + +"My daughter will come presently," Colonel McCloud had said. + +A curious thrill shot through Philip as he heard her footsteps and the +soft swish of her skirt. Involuntarily he rose to his feet as she entered +the room. For fully ten seconds they stood facing each other without +speaking. She was dressed in filmy gray stuff. There was lace at her +throat. She had shifted the thick bright coils of her hair to the crown +of her head; a splendid glory of hair, he thought. Her cheeks were +flushed, and with her hands against her breast, she seemed crushing back +the strange excitement that glowed in her eyes. Once he had seen a fawn's +eyes that looked like hers. In them were suspense, fear--a yearning that +was almost pain. Suddenly she came to him, her hands outstretched. +Involuntarily, too, he took them. They were warm and soft. They thrilled +him--and they clung to him. + +"I am Josephine McCloud," she said. "My father has explained to you? You +know--a man--who calls himself--God?" + +Her fingers clung more tightly to his, and the sweetness of her hair, her +breath, her eyes were very close as she waited. + +"Yes, I know a man who calls himself Peter God." + +"Tell me--what he is like?" she whispered. "He is tall--like you?" + +"No. He is of medium height." + +"And his hair? It is dark--dark like yours?" + +"No. It is blond, and a little gray." + +"And he is young--younger than you?" + +"He is older." + +"And his eyes--are dark?" + +He felt rather than heard the throbbing of her heart as she waited for +him to reply. There was a reason why he would never forget Peter God's +eyes. + +"Sometimes I thought they were blue, and sometimes gray," he said; and at +that she dropped his hands with a strange little cry, and stood a step +back from him, a joy which she made no effort to keep from him flaming in +her face. + +It was a look which sent a sudden hopelessness through Curtis--a stinging +pang of jealousy. This night had set wild and tumultous emotions aflame +in his breast. He had come to Josephine McCloud like one in a dream. In +an hour he had placed her above all other women in the world, and in that +hour the little gods of fate had brought him to his knees in the worship +of a woman. The fact did not seem unreal to him. Here was the woman, and +he loved her. And his heart sank like a heavily weighted thing when he +saw the transfiguration of joy that came into her face when he said that +Peter God's eyes were not dark, but were sometimes blue and sometimes +gray. + +"And this Peter God?" he said, straining to make his voice even. "What is +he to you?" + +His question cut her like a knife. The wild color ebbed swiftly out of +her cheeks. Into her eyes swept a haunting fear which he was to see and +wonder at more than once. It was as if he had done something to frighten +her. "We--my father and I--are interested in him," she said. Her words +cost her a visible effort. He noticed a quick throbbing in her throat, +just above the filmy lace. "Mr. Curtis, won't you pardon this--this +betrayal of excitement in myself? It must be unaccountable to you. +Perhaps a little later you will understand. We are imposing on you by not +confiding in you what this interest is, and I beg you to forgive me. But +there is a reason. Will you believe me? There is a reason." + +Her hands rested lightly on Philip's arm. Her eyes implored him. + +"I will not ask for confidences which you are not free to give," he said +gently. + +He was rewarded by a soft glow of thankfulness. + +"I cannot make you understand how much that means to me," she cried +tremblingly. "And you will tell us about Peter God? Father--" + +She turned. + +Colonel McCloud had reentered the room. + +With the feeling of one who was not quite sure that he was awake, Philip +paused under a street lamp ten minutes after leaving the McCloud +apartments, and looked at his watch. It was a quarter of two o'clock. A +low whistle of surprise fell from his lips. For three hours he had been +with Colonel McCloud and his daughter. It had seemed like an hour. He +still felt the thrill of the warm, parting pressure of Josephine's hand; +he saw the gratitude in her eyes; he heard her voice, low and tremulous, +asking him to come again to-morrow evening. His brain was in a strange +whirl of excitement, and he laughed--laughed with gladness which he had +not felt before in all the days of his life. + +He had told a great many things about Peter God that night; of the man's +life in the little cabin, his loneliness, his aloofness, and the mystery +of him. Philip had asked no questions of Josephine and her father, and +more than once he had caught that almost tender gratitude in Josephine's +eyes. And at least twice he had seen the swift, haunting fear--the first +time when he told of Peter God's coming and goings at Port MacPherson, +and again when he mentioned a patrol of the Royal Northwest Mounted +Police that had passed Peter God's cabin while Philip was there, laid up +during those weeks of darkness and storm with a fractured leg. + +Philip told how tenderly Peter God nursed him, and how their acquaintance +grew into brotherhood during the long gray nights when the stars gleamed +like pencil-points and the foxes yapped incessantly. He had seen the dewy +shimmer of tears in Josephine's eyes. He had noted the tense lines in +Colonel McCloud's face. But he had asked them no questions, he had made +no effort to unmask the secret which they so evidently desired to keep +from him. + +Now, alone in the cool night, he asked himself a hundred questions, and +yet with a feeling that he understood a great deal of what they had kept +from him. Something had whispered to him then--and whispered to him +now--that Peter God was not Peter God's right name, and that to Josephine +McCloud and her father he was a brother and a son. This thought, so long +as he could think it without a doubt, filled his cup of hope to +overflowing. But the doubt persisted. It was like a spark that refused to +go out. Who was Peter God? What was Peter God, the half-wild fox-hunter, +to Josephine McCloud? Yes--he could be but that one thing! A brother. A +black sheep. A wanderer. A son who had disappeared--and was now found. +But if he was that, only that, why would they not tell him? The doubt +sputtered up again. + +Philip did not go to bed. He was anxious for the day, and the evening +that was to follow. A woman had unsettled his world. His mica mountain +became an unimportant reality. Barrow's greatness no longer loomed up for +him. He walked until he was tired, and it was dawn when he went to his +hotel. He was like a boy living in the anticipation of a great +promise--restless, excited, even feverishly anxious all day. He made +inquiries about Colonel James McCloud at his hotel. No one knew him, or +had even heard of him. His name was not in the city directory or the +telephone directory. Philip made up his mind that Josephine and her +father were practically strangers in the city, and that they had come +from Canada--probably Montreal, for he remembered the stamp on the box of +cigars. + +That night, when he saw Josephine again, he wanted to reach out his arms +to her. He wanted to make her understand how completely his wonderful +love possessed him, and how utterly lost he was without her. She was +dressed in simple white--again with that bank of filmy lace at her +throat. Her hair was done in those lustrous, shimmering coils, so bright +and soft that he would have given a tenth of his mica mountain to touch +them with his hands. And she was glad to see him. Her eagerness shone in +her eyes, in the warm flush of her cheeks, in the joyous tremble of her +voice. + +That night, too, passed like a dream--a dream in paradise for Philip. For +a long time they sat alone, and Josephine herself brought him the box of +cigars, and urged him to smoke. They talked again about the North, about +Fort MacPherson--where it was, what it was, and how one got to it through +a thousand miles or so of wilderness. He told her of his own adventures, +how for many years he had sought for mineral treasure and at last had +found a mica mountain. + +"It's close to Fort MacPherson," he explained. + +"We can work it from the Mackenzie. I expect to start back some time in +August." + +She leaned toward him, last night's strange excitement glowing for the +first time in her eyes. + +"You are going back? You will see Peter God?" + +In her eagerness she laid a hand on his arm. + +"I am going back. It would be possible to see Peter God." + +The touch of her hand did not lighten the weight that was tugging again +at his heart. + +"Peter God's cabin is a hundred miles from Fort MacPherson," he added. +"He will be hunting foxes by the time I get there." + +"You mean--it will be winter." + +"Yes. It is a long journey. And"--he was looking at her closely as he +spoke--"Peter God may not be there when I return. It is possible he may +have gone into another part of the wilderness." + +He saw her quiver as she drew back. + +"He has been there--for seven--years," she said, as if speaking to +herself. "He would not move--now!" + +"No; I don't think he would move now." + +His own voice was low, scarcely above a whisper, and she looked at him +quickly and strangely, a flush in her cheeks. + +It was late when he bade her good-night. Again he felt the warm thrill of +her hand as it lay in his. The next afternoon he was to take her driving. + +The days and weeks that followed these first meetings with Josephine +McCloud were weighted with many things for Philip. Neither she nor her +father enlightened him about Peter God. Several times he believed that +Josephine was on the point of confiding in him, but each time there came +that strange fear in her eyes, and she caught herself. + +Philip did not urge. He asked no questions that might be embarrassing. He +knew, after the third week had passed, that Josephine could no longer be +unconscious of his love, even though the mystery of Peter God restrained +him from making a declaration of it. There was not a day in the week that +they did not see each other. They rode together. The three frequently +dined together. And still more frequently they passed the evenings in the +McCloud apartments. Philip had been correct in his guess--they were from +Montreal. Beyond that fact he learned little. + +As their acquaintance became closer and as Josephine saw in Philip more +and more of that something which he had not spoken, a change developed in +her. At first it puzzled and then alarmed him. At times she seemed almost +frightened. One evening, when his love all but trembled on his lips, she +turned suddenly white. + +It was the middle of July before the words came from him at last. In two +or three weeks he was starting for the North. It was evening, and they +were alone in the big room, with the cool breeze from the lake drifting +in upon them. He made no effort to touch her as he told her of his love, +but when he had done, she knew that a strong man had laid his heart and +his soul at her feet. + +He had never seen her whiter. Her hands were clasped tightly in her lap. +There was a silence in which he did not breathe. Her answer came so low +that he leaned forward to hear. + +"I am sorry," she said. "It is my fault--that you love me. I knew. And +yet I let you come again and again. I have done wrong. It is not +fair--now--for me to tell you to go--without a chance. You--would want +me if I did not love you? You would marry me if I did not love you?" + +His heart pounded. He forgot everything but that he loved this woman with +a love beyond his power to reason. + +"I don't think that I could live without you now, Josephine," he cried in +a low voice. "And I swear to make you love me. It must come. It is +inconceivable that I cannot make you love me--loving you as I do." + +She looked at him clearly now. She seemed suddenly to become tense and +vibrant with a new and wonderful strength. + +"I must be fair with you," she said. "You are a man whose love most women +would be proud to possess. And yet--it is not in my power to accept that +love, or give myself to you. There is another to whom you must go." + +"And that is--" + +"Peter God!" + +It was she who leaned forward now, her eyes burning, her bosom rising and +falling with the quickness of her breath. + +"You must go to Peter God," she said. "You must take a letter to +him--from me. And it will be for him--for Peter God--to say whether I am +to be your wife. You are honorable. You will be fair with me. You will +take the letter to him. And I will be fair with you. I will be your wife, +I will try hard to care for you--if Peter God--says--" + +Her voice broke. She covered her face, and for a moment, too stunned to +speak, Philip looked at her while her slender form trembled with sobs. +She had bowed her head, and for the first time he reached out and laid +his hand upon the soft glory of her hair. Its touch set aflame every +fiber in him. Hope swept through him, crushing his fears like a +juggernaut. It would be a simple task to go to Peter God! He was tempted +to take her in his arms. A moment more, and he would have caught her to +him, but the weight of his hand on her head roused her, and she raised +her face, and drew back. His arms were reaching out. She saw what was in +his eyes. + +"Not now," she said. "Not until you have gone to him. Nothing in the +world will be too great a reward for you if you are fair with me, for you +are taking a chance. In the end you may receive nothing. For if Peter God +says that I cannot be your wife, I cannot. He must be the arbiter. On +those conditions, will you go?" + +"Yes, I will go," said Philip. + +It was early in August when Philip reached Edmonton. From there he took +the new line of rail to Athabasca Landing; it was September when he +arrived at Fort McMurray and found Pierre Gravois, a half-breed, who was +to accompany him by canoe up to Fort MacPherson. Before leaving this +final outpost, whence the real journey into the North began, Philip sent +a long letter to Josephine. + +Two days after he and Pierre had started down the Mackenzie, a letter +came to Fort McMurray for Philip. "Long" La Brie, a special messenger, +brought it from Athabasca Landing. He was too late, and he had no +instructions--and had not been paid--to go farther. + +Day after day Philip continued steadily northward. He carried Josephine's +letter to Peter God in his breast pocket, securely tied in a little +waterproof bag. It was a thick letter, and time and again he held it in +his hand, and wondered why it was that Josephine could have so much to +say to the lonely fox-hunter up on the edge of the Barren. + +One night, as he sat alone by their fire in the chill of September +darkness, he took the letter from its sack and saw that the contents of +the bulging envelope had sprung one end of the flap loose. Before he went +to bed Pierre had set a pail of water on the coals. A cloud of steam was +rising from it. Those two things--the steam and the loosened flap--sent a +thrill through Philip. What was in the letter? What had Josephine McCloud +written to Peter God? + +He looked toward sleeping Pierre; the pail of water began to bubble and +sing--he drew a tense breath, and rose to his feet. In thirty seconds the +steam rising from the pail would free the rest of the flap. He could read +the letter, and reseal it. + +And then, like a shock, came the thought of the few notes Josephine had +written to him. On each of them she had never failed to stamp her seal in +a lavender-colored wax. He had observed that Colonel McCloud always used +a seal, in bright red. On this letter to Peter God there was no seal! She +trusted him. Her faith was implicit. And this was her proof of it. Under +his breath he laughed, and his heart grew warm with new happiness and +hope. "I have faith in you," she had said, at parting; and now, again, +out of the letter her voice seemed to whisper to him, "I have faith in +you." + +He replaced the letter in its sack, and crawled between his blankets +close to Pierre. + +That night had seen the beginning of his struggle with himself. This +year, autumn and winter came early in the North country. It was to be a +winter of terrible cold, of deep snow, of famine and pestilence--the +winter of 1910. The first oppressive gloom of it added to the fear and +suspense that began to grow in Philip. + +For days there was no sign of the sun. The clouds hung low. Bitter winds +came out of the North, and nights these winds wailed desolately through +the tops of the spruce under which they slept. And day after day and +night after night the temptation came upon him more strongly to open the +letter he was carrying to Peter God. + +He was convinced now that the letter--and the letter alone--held his +fate, and that he was acting blindly. Was this justice to himself? He +wanted Josephine. He wanted her above all else in the world. Then why +should he not fight for her--in his own way? And to do that he must read +the letter. To know its contents would mean--Josephine. If there was +nothing in it that would stand between them, he would have done no +wrong, for he would still take it on to Peter God. So he argued. But if +the letter jeopardized his chances of possessing her, his knowledge of +what it contained would give him an opportunity to win in another way. He +could even answer it himself and take back to her false word from Peter +God, for seven frost-biting years along the edge of the Barren had surely +changed Peter God's handwriting. His treachery, if it could be called +that, would never be discovered. And it would give him Josephine. + +This was the temptation. The power that resisted it was the spirit of +that big, clean, fighting North which makes men out of a beginning of +flesh and bone. Ten years of that North had seeped into Philip's being. +He hung on. It was November when he reached Port MacPherson, and he had +not opened the letter. + +Deep snows fell, and fierce blizzards shot like gunblasts from out of the +Arctic. Snow and wind were not what brought the deeper gloom and fear to +Fort MacPherson. La mort rouge, smallpox,--the "red death,"--was +galloping through the wilderness. Rumors were first verified by facts +from the Dog Eib Indians. A quarter of them were down with the scourge of +the Northland. From Hudson's Bay on the east to the Great Bear on the +west, the fur posts were sending out their runners, and a hundred Paul +Reveres of the forests were riding swiftly behind their dogs to spread +the warning. On the afternoon of the day Philip left for the cabin of +Peter God, a patrol of the Royal Mounted came in on snowshoes from the +South, and voluntarily went into quarantine. + +Philip traveled slowly. For three days and nights the air was filled with +the "Arctic dust" snow that was hard as flint and stung like shot; and it +was so cold that he paused frequently and built small fires, over which +he filled his lungs with hot air and smoke. He knew what it meant to have +the lungs "touched"--sloughing away in the spring, blood-spitting, and +certain death. + +On the fourth day the temperature began to rise; the fifth it was clear, +and thirty degrees warmer. His thermometer had gone to sixty below zero. +It was now thirty below. + +It was the morning of the sixth day when he reached the thick fringe of +stunted spruce that sheltered Peter God's cabin. He was half blinded. The +snow-filled blizzards cut his face until it was swollen and purple. +Twenty paces from Peter God's cabin he stopped, and stared, and rubbed +his eyes--and rubbed them again--as though not quite sure his vision was +not playing him a trick. + +A cry broke from his lips then. Over Peter God's door there was nailed a +slender sapling, and at the end of that sapling there floated a tattered, +windbeaten red rag. It was the signal. It was the one voice common to all +the wilderness--a warning to man, woman and child, white or red, that had +come down through the centuries. Peter God was down with the smallpox! + +For a few moments the discovery stunned him. Then he was filled with a +chill, creeping horror. Peter God was sick with the scourge. Perhaps he +was dying. It might be--that he was dead. In spite of the terror of the +thing ahead of him, he thought of Josephine. If Peter God was dead-- + +Above the low moaning of the wind in the spruce tops he cursed himself. +He had thought a crime, and he clenched his mittened hands as he stared +at the one window of the cabin. His eyes shifted upward. In the air was a +filmy, floating gray. It was smoke coming from the chimney. Peter God was +not dead. + +Something kept him from shouting Peter God's name, that the trapper might +come to the door. He went to the window, and looked in. For a few moments +he could see nothing. And then, dimly, he made out the cot against the +wall. And Peter God sat on the cot, hunched forward, his head in his +hands. With a quick breath Philip turned to the door, opened it, and +entered the cabin. Peter God staggered to his feet as the door opened. +His eyes were wild and filled with fever. + +"You--Curtis!" he cried huskily. "My God, didn't you see the flag?" + +"Yes." + +Philip's half-frozen features were smiling, and now he was holding out a +hand from which he had drawn his mitten. + +"Lucky I happened along just now, old man. You've got it, eh?" + +Peter God shrank back from the other's outstretched hand. + +"There's time," he cried, pointing to the door. + +"Don't breathe this air. Get out. I'm not bad yet--but it's smallpox, +Curtis!" + +"I know it," said Philip, beginning to throw off his hood and coat. "I'm +not afraid of it. I had a touch of it three years ago over on the Gray +Buzzard, so I guess I'm immune. Besides, I've come two thousand miles to +see you, Peter God--two thousand miles to bring you a letter from +Josephine McCloud." + +For ten seconds Peter God stood tense and motionless. Then he swayed +forward. + +"A letter--for Peter God--from Josephine McCloud?" he gasped, and held +out his hands. + +An hour later they sat facing each other--Peter God and Curtis. The +beginning of the scourge betrayed itself in the red flush of Peter God's +face, and the fever in his eyes. But he was calm. For many minutes he had +spoken in a quiet, even voice, and Philip Curtis sat with scarcely a +breath and a heart that at times had risen in his throat to choke him. In +his hand Peter God held the pages of the letter he had read. + +Now he went on: + +"So I'm going to tell it all to you, Curtis--because I know that you are +a man. Josephine has left nothing out. She has told me of your love, and +of the reward she has promised you--if Peter God sends back a certain +word. She says frankly that she does not love you, but that she honors +you above all men--except her father, and one other. That other, Curtis, +is myself. Years ago the woman you love--was my wife." + +Peter God put a hand to his head, as if to cool the fire that was +beginning to burn him up. + +"Her name wasn't Mrs. Peter God," he went on, and a smile fought grimly +on his lips. "That's the one thing I won't tell you, Curtis--my name. The +story itself will be enough. + +"Perhaps there were two other people in the world happier than we. I +doubt it. I got into politics. I made an enemy, a deadly enemy. He was a +blackmailer, a thief, the head of a political ring that lived on graft. +Through my efforts he was exposed, And then he laid for me--and he got +me. + +"I must give him credit for doing it cleverly and completely. He set a +trap for me, and a woman helped him. I won't go into details. The trap +sprung, and it caught me. Even Josephine could not be made to believe in +my innocence; so cleverly was the trap set that my best friends among the +newspapers could find no excuse for me. + +"I have never blamed Josephine for what she did after that. To all the +world, and most of all to her, I was caught red-handed. I knew that she +loved me even as she was divorcing me. On the day the divorce was given +to her, my brain went bad. The world turned red, and then black, and then +red again. And I--" + +Peter God paused again, with a hand to his head. + +"You came up here," said Philip, in a low voice. + +"Not--until I had seen the man who ruined me," replied Peter God quietly. +"We were alone in his office. I gave him a fair chance to redeem +himself--to confess what he had done. He laughed at me, exulted over my +fall, taunted me. And so--I killed him." + +He rose from his chair and stood swaying. He was not excited. + +"In his office, with his dead body at my feet, I wrote a note to +Josephine," he finished. "I told her what I had done, and again I swore +my innocence. I wrote her that some day she might hear from me, but not +under my right name, as the law would always be watching for me. It was +ironic that on that human cobra's desk there lay an open Bible, open at +the Book of Peter, and involuntarily I wrote the words to +Josephine--PETER GOD. She has kept my secret, while the law has hunted +for me. And this--" + +He held the pages of the letter out to Philip. + +"Take the letter--go outside--and read what she has written," he said. +"Come back in half an hour. I want to think." + +Back of the cabin, where Peter God had piled his winter's fuel, Philip +read the letter; and at times the soul within him seemed smothered, and +at times it quivered with a strange and joyous emotion. + +At last vindication had come for Peter God, and before he had read a page +of the letter Philip understood why it was that Josephine had sent him +with it into the North. For nearly seven years she had known of Peter +God's innocence of the thing for which she had divorced him. The +woman--the dead man's accomplice--had told her the whole story, as Peter +God a few minutes before had told it to Curtis; and during those seven +years she had traveled the world seeking for him--the man who bore the +name of Peter God. + +Each night she had prayed God that the next day she might find him, and +now that her prayer had been answered, she begged that she might come to +him, and share with him for all time a life away from the world they +knew. + +The woman breathed like life in the pages Philip read; yet with that +wonderful message to Peter God she pilloried herself for those red and +insane hours in which she had lost faith in him. She had no excuse for +herself, except her great love; she crucified herself, even as she held +out her arms to him across that thousand miles of desolation. Frankly she +had written of the great price she was offering for this one chance of +life and happiness. She told of Philip's love, and of the reward she had +offered him should Peter God find that in his heart love had died for +her. Which should it be? + +Twice Philip read that wonderful message he had brought into the North, +and he envied Peter God the outlaw. + +The thirty minutes were gone when he entered the cabin. Peter God was +waiting for him. He motioned him to a seat close to him. + +"You have read it?" he asked. + +Philip nodded. In these moments he did not trust himself to speak. Peter +God understood. The flush was deeper in his face; his eyes burned +brighter with the fever; but of the two he was the calmer, and his voice +was steady. + +"I haven't much time, Curtis," he said, and he smiled faintly as he +folded the pages of the letter, "My head is cracking. But I've thought it +all out, and you've got to go back to her--and tell her that Peter God is +dead." + +A gasp broke from Philip's lips. It was his only answer. + +"It's--best," continued Peter God, and he spoke more slowly, but firmly. +"I love her, Curtis. God knows that it's been only my dreams of her that +have kept me alive all these years. She wants to come to me, but it's +impossible. I'm an outlaw. The law won't excuse my killing of the cobra. +We'd have to hide. All our lives we'd have to hide. And--some day--they +might get me. There's just one thing to do. Go back to her. Tell her +Peter God is dead. And--make her happy--if you can." + +For the first time something rose and overwhelmed the love in Philip's +breast. + +"She wants to come to you," he cried, and he leaned toward Peter God, +white-faced, clenching his hands. "She wants to come!" he repeated. "And +the law won't find you. It's been seven years--and God knows no word will +ever go from me. It won't find you. And if it should, you can fight it +together, you and Josephine." + +Peter God held out his hands. + +"Now I know I need have no fear in sending you back," he said huskily. +"You're a man. And you've got to go. She can't come to me, Curtis. It +would kill her--this life. Think of a winter here--madness--the yapping +of the foxes--" + +He put a hand to his head, and swayed. + +"You've got to go. Tell her Peter God is dead--" + +Philip sprang forward as Peter God crumpled down on his bunk. + +After that came the long dark hours of fever and delirium. They crawled +along into days, and day and night Philip fought to keep life in the body +of the man who had given the world to him, for as the fight continued he +began more and more to accept Josephine as his own. He had come fairly. +He had kept his pledge. And Peter God had spoken. + +"You must go. You must tell her Peter God is dead." + +And Philip began to accept this, not altogether as his joy, but as his +duty. He could not argue with Peter God when he rose from his sick bed. +He would go back to Josephine. + +For many days he and Peter God fought with the "red death" in the little +cabin. It was a fight which he could never forget. One afternoon--to +strengthen himself for the terrible night that was coming--he walked +several miles back into the stunted spruce on his snowshoes. It was +mid-afternoon when he returned with a haunch of caribou meat on his +shoulder. Three hundred yards from the cabin something stopped him like a +shot. He listened. From ahead of him came the whining and snarling of +dogs, the crack of a whip, a shout which he could not understand. He +dropped his burden of meat and sped on. At the southward edge of a level +open he stopped again. Straight ahead of him was the cabin. A hundred +yards to the right of him was a dog team and a driver. Between the team +and the cabin a hooded and coated figure was running in the direction of +the danger signal on the sapling pole. + +With a cry of warning Philip darted in pursuit. He overtook the figure at +the cabin door. His hand caught it by the arm. It turned--and he stared +into the white, terror-stricken face of Josephine McCloud! + +"Good God!" he cried, and that was all. + +She gripped him with both hands. He had never heard her voice as it was +now. She answered the amazement and horror in his face. + +"I sent you a letter," she cried pantingly, "and it didn't overtake you. +As soon as you were gone, I knew that I must come--that I must +follow--that I must speak with my own lips what I had written. I tried to +catch you. But you traveled faster. Will you forgive me--you will forgive +me--" + +She turned to the door. He held her. + +"It is the smallpox," he said, and his voice was dead. + +"I know," she panted. "The man over there--told me what the little flag +means. And I'm glad--glad I came in time to go in to him--as he is. And +you--you--must forgive!" + +She snatched herself free from his grasp. The door opened. It closed +behind her. A moment later he heard through the sapling door a strange +cry--a woman's cry--a man's cry--and he turned and walked heavily back +into the spruce forest. + + + + + +THE MOUSE + +"Why, you ornery little cuss," said Falkner, pausing with a forkful of +beans half way to his mouth. "Where in God A'mighty's name did YOU come +from?" + +It was against all of Jim's crude but honest ethics of the big wilderness +to take the Lord's name in vain, and the words he uttered were filled +more with the softness of a prayer than the harshness of profanity. He +was big, and his hands were hard and knotted, and his face was covered +with a coarse red scrub of beard. But his hair was blond, and his eyes +were blue, and just now they were filled with unbounded amazement. Slowly +the fork loaded with beans descended to his plate, and he said again, +barely above a whisper: + +"Where in God A'mighty's name DID you come from?" + +There was nothing human in the one room of his wilderness cabin to speak +of. At the first glance there was nothing alive in the room, with the +exception of Jim Falkner himself. There was not even a dog, for Jim had +lost his one dog weeks before. And yet he spoke, and his eyes glistened, +and for a full minute after that he sat as motionless as a rock. Then +something moved--at the farther end of the rough board table. It was a +mouse--a soft, brown, bright-eyed little mouse, not as large as his +thumb. It was not like the mice Jim had been accustomed to see in the +North woods, the larger, sharp-nosed, rat-like creatures which sprung his +traps now and then, and he gave a sort of gasp through his beard. + +"I'm as crazy as a loon if it isn't a sure-enough down-home mouse, just +like we used to catch in the kitchen down in Ohio," he told himself. And +for the third time he asked. "Now where in God A'mighty's name DID YOU +come from?" + +The mouse made no answer. It had humped itself up into a little ball, and +was eyeing Jim with the keenest of suspicion. + +"You're a thousand miles from home, old man," Falkner addressed it, still +without a movement. "You're a clean thousand miles straight north of the +kind o' civilization you was born in, and I want to know how you got +here. By George--is it possible--you got mixed up in that box of stuff +SHE sent up? Did you come from HER?" + +He made a sudden movement, as if he expected an answer, and in a flash +the mouse had scurried off the table and had disappeared under his bunk. + +"The little cuss!" said Falkner. "He's sure got his nerve!" + +He went on eating his beans, and when he had done he lighted a lamp, for +the half Arctic darkness was falling early, and began to clear away the +dishes. When he had done he put a scrap of bannock and a few beans on the +corner of the table. + +"I'll bet he's hungry, the little cuss," he said. "A thousand miles--in +that box!" + +He sat down close to the sheet-iron box stove, which was glowing red-hot, +and filled his pipe. Kerosene was a precious commodity, and he had turned +down the lamp wick until he was mostly in gloom. Outside a storm was +wailing down across the Barrens from the North. He could hear the swish +of the spruce-boughs overhead, and those moaning, half-shrieking sounds +that always came with storm from out of the North, and sometimes fooled +even him into thinking they were human cries. They had seemed more and +more human to him during the past three days, and he was growing afraid. +Once or twice strange thoughts had come into his head, and he had tried +to fight them down. He had known of men whom loneliness had driven +mad--and he was terribly lonely. He shivered as a piercing blast of wind +filled with a mourning wail swept over the cabin. + +And that day, too, he had been taken with a touch of fever. It burned +more hotly in his blood to-night, and he knew that it was the +loneliness--the emptiness of the world about him, the despair and black +foreboding that came to him with the first early twilights of the Long +Night. For he was in the edge of that Long Night. For weeks he would only +now and then catch a glimpse of the sun. He shuddered. + +A hundred and fifty miles to the south and east there was a Hudson's Bay +post. Eighty miles south was the nearest trapper's cabin he knew of. Two +months before he had gone down to the post, with a thick beard to cover +his face, and had brought back supplies--and the box. His wife had sent +up the box to him, only it had come to him as "John Blake" instead of Jim +Falkner, his right name. There were things in it for him to wear, and +pictures of the sweet-faced wife who was still filled with prayer and +hope for him, and of the kid, their boy. "He is walking now," she had +written to him, "and a dozen times a day he goes to your picture and says +'Pa-pa--Pa-pa'--and every night we talk about you before we go to bed, +and pray God to send you back to us soon." + +"God bless 'em!" breathed Jim. + +He had not lighted his pipe, and there was something in his eyes that +shimmered and glistened in the dull light. And then, as he sat silent, +his eyes clearing, he saw that the little mouse had climbed back to the +edge of the table. It did not eat the food he had placed there for it, +but humped itself up in a tiny ball again, and its tiny shining eyes +looked in his direction. + +"You're not hungry," said Jim, and he spoke aloud. "YOU'RE lonely, +too--that's it!" + +A strange thrill shot through him at the thought, and he wondered again +if he was mad at the longing that filled him--the desire to reach out and +snuggle the little creature in his hand, and hold it close up to his +bearded face, and TALK TO IT! He laughed, and drew his stool a little +more into the light. The mouse did not run. He edged nearer and nearer, +until his elbows rested on the table, and a curious feeling of pleasure +took the place of his loneliness when he saw that the mouse was looking +at him, and yet seemed unafraid. + +"Don't be scairt," he said softly, speaking directly to it. "I won't hurt +you. No, siree, I'd--I'd cut off a hand before I'd do that. I ain't had +any company but you for two months. I ain't seen a human face, or heard a +human voice--nothing--nothing but them shrieks 'n' wails 'n' baby-cryings +out there in the wind. I won't hurt you--" His voice was almost pleading +in its gentleness. And for the tenth time that day he felt, with his +fever, a sickening dizziness in his head. For a moment or two his vision +was blurred, but he could still see the mouse--farther away, it seemed to +him. + +"I don't s'pose you've killed anyone--or anything," he said, and his +voice seemed thick and distant to him. "Mice don't kill, do they? They +live on--cheese. But I have--I've killed. I killed a man. That's why I'm +here." + +His dizziness almost overcame him, and he leaned heavily against the +table. Still the little mouse did not move. Still he could see it through +the strange gauze veil before his eyes. + +"I killed--a man," he repeated, and now he was wondering why the mouse +did not say something at that remarkable confession. "I killed him, old +man, an' you'd have done the same if you'd been in my place. I didn't +mean to. I struck too hard. But I found 'im in my cabin, an' SHE was +fighting--fighting him until her face was scratched an' her clothes +torn,--God bless her dear heart!--fighting him to the last breath, an' I +come just in time! He didn't think I'd be back for a day--a black-hearted +devil we'd fed when he came to our door hungry. I killed him. And they've +hunted me ever since. They'll put a rope round my neck, an' choke me to +death if they catch me--because I came in time to save her! That's law! + +"But they won't find me. I've been up here a year now, and in the spring +I'm going down there --where you come from--back to the Girl and the Kid. +The policemen won't be looking for me then. An' we're going to some other +part of the world, an' live happy. She's waitin' for me, she an' the kid, +an' they know I'm coming in the spring. Yessir, I killed a man. An' they +want to kill me for it. That's the law--Canadian law--the law that wants +an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, an' where there ain't no +extenuatin' circumstance. They call it murder. But it wasn't--was it?" + +He waited for an answer. The mouse seemed going farther and farther away +from him. He leaned more heavily on the table. + +"It wasn't--was it?" he persisted. + +His arms reached out; his head dropped forward, and the little mouse +scurried to the floor. But Falkner did not know that it had gone. + +"I killed him, an' I guess I'd do it again," he said, and his words were +only a whisper. "An' to-night they're prayin' for me down there--she 'n +the kid--an' he's sayin', 'Pa-pa--Pa-pa'; an' they sent you up--to keep +me comp'ny--" + +His head dropped wearily upon his arms. The red stove crackled, and +turned slowly black. In the cabin it grew darker, except where the dim +light burned on the table. Outside the storm wailed and screeched down +across the Barren. And after a time the mouse came back. It looked at Jim +Falkner. It came nearer, until it touched the unconscious man's sleeve. +More daringly it ran over his arm. It smelled of his fingers. + +Then the mouse returned to the corner of the table, and began eating the +food that Falkner had placed there for it. + +The wick of the lamp had burned low when Falkner raised his head. The +stove was black and cold. Outside, the storm still raged, and it was the +shivering shriek of it over the cabin that Falkner first heard. He felt +terribly dizzy, and there was a sharp, knife-like pain just back of his +eyes. By the gray light that came through the one window he knew that +what was left of Arctic day had come. He rose to his feet, and staggered +about like a drunken man as he rebuilt the fire, and he tried to laugh as +the truth dawned upon him that he had been sick, and that he had rested +for hours with his head on the table. His back seemed broken. His legs +were numb, and hurt when he stepped on them. He swung his arms a little +to bring back circulation, and rubbed his hands over the fire that began +to crackle in the stove. + +It was the sickness that had overcome him--he knew that. But the thought +of it did not appall him as it had yesterday, and the day before. There +seemed to be something in the cabin now that comforted and soothed him, +something that took away a part of the loneliness that was driving him +mad. Even as he searched about him, peering into the dark corners and at +the bare walls, a word formed on his lips, and he half smiled. It was a +woman's name--Hester. And a warmth entered into him. The pain left his +head. For the first time in weeks he felt DIFFERENT. And slowly he began +to realize what had wrought the change. He was not alone. A message had +come to him from the one who was waiting for him miles away; something +that lived, and breathed, and was as lonely as himself. It was the little +mouse. + +He looked about eagerly, his eyes brightening, but the mouse was gone. He +could not hear it. There seemed nothing unusual to him in the words he +spoke aloud to himself. + +"I'm going to call it after the Kid," he chuckled, "I'm goin' to call it +Little Jim. I wonder if it's a girl mouse--or a boy mouse?" + +He placed a pan of snow-water on the stove and began making his simple +preparations for breakfast. For the first time in many days he felt +actually hungry. And then all at once he stopped, and a low cry that was +half joy and half wonder broke from his lips. With tensely gripped hands +and eyes that shone with a strange light he stared straight at the blank +surface of the log wall--through it--and a thousand miles away. He +remembered THAT day--years ago--the scenes of which came to him now as +though they had been but yesterday. It was afternoon, in the glorious +summer, and he had gone to Hester's home. Only the day before Hester had +promised to be his wife, and he remembered how fidgety and uneasy and yet +wondrously happy he was as he sat out on the big white veranda, waiting +for her to put on her pink muslin dress, which went go well with the gold +of her hair and the blue of her eyes. And as he sat there, Hester's +maltese pet came up the steps, bringing in its jaws a tiny, quivering +brown mouse. It was playing with the almost lifeless little creature when +Hester came through the door. + +He heard again the low cry that came from her lips then. In an instant +she had snatched the tiny, limp thing from between the cat's paws, and +had faced him. He was laughing at her, but the glow in her blue eyes +sobered him. "I didn't think you--would take pleasure in that, Jim," she +said. "It's only a mouse, but it's alive, and I can feel its poor little +heart beating!" + +They had saved it, and he, a little ashamed at the smallness of the act, +had gone with Hester to the barn and made a nest for it in the hay. But +the wonderful words that he remembered were these: "Perhaps some day a +little mouse will help you, Jim!" Hester had spoken laughingly. And her +words had come true! + +All the time that Falkner was preparing and eating his breakfast he +watched for the mouse, but it did not appear. Then he went to the door. +It swung outward, and it took all his weight to force it open. On one +side of the cabin the snow was drifted almost to the roof. Ahead of him +he could barely make out the dark shadow of the scrub spruce forest +beyond the little clearing he had made. He could hear the spruce-tops +wailing and twisting in the storm, and the snow and wind stung his face, +and half blinded him. + +It was dark--dark with that gray and maddening gloom that yesterday would +have driven him still nearer to the merge of madness. But this morning he +laughed as he listened to the wailings in the air and stared out into the +ghostly chaos. It was not the thought of his loneliness that come to him +now, but the thought that he was safe. The Law could not reach him now, +even if it knew where he was. And before it began its hunt for him again +in the spring he would be hiking southward, to the Girl and the Baby, and +it would still be hunting for him when they three would be making a new +home for themselves in some other part of the world. For the first time +in months he was almost happy. He closed and bolted the door, and began +to WHISTLE. He was amazed at the change in himself, and wonderingly he +stared at his reflection in the cracked bit of mirror against the wall. +He grinned, and addressed himself aloud. + +"You need a shave," he told himself. "You'd scare fits out of anything +alive! Now that we've got company we've got to spruce up, an' look +civilized." + +It took him an hour to get rid of his heavy beard. His face looked almost +boyish again. He was inspecting himself in the mirror when he heard a +sound that turned him slowly toward the table. The little mouse was +nosing about his tin plate. For a few moments Falkner watched it, fearing +to move. Then he cautiously began to approach the table. "Hello there, +old chap," he said, trying to make his voice soft and ingratiating. +"Pretty late for breakfast, ain't you?" + +At his approach the mouse humped itself into a motionless ball and +watched him. To Falkner's delight it did not run away when he reached the +table and sat down. He laughed softly. + +"You ain't afraid, are you?" he asked. "We're goin' to be chums, ain't +we? Yessir, we're goin' to be chums!" + +For a full minute the mouse and the man looked steadily at each other. +Then the mouse moved deliberately to a crumb of bannock and began +nibbling at its breakfast. + +For ten days there was only an occasional lull in the storm that came +from out of the North. Before those ten days were half over, Jim and the +mouse understood each other. The little mouse itself solved the problem +of their nearer acquaintance by running up Falkner's leg one morning +while he was at breakfast, and coolly investigating him from the strings +of his moccasin to the collar of his blue shirt. After that it showed no +fear of him, and a few days later would nestle in the hollow of his big +hand and nibble fearlessly at the bannock which Falkner would offer it. +Then Jim took to carrying it about with him in his coat pocket. That +seemed to suit the mouse immensely, and when Jim went to bed nights, or +it grew too warm for him in the cabin, he would hang the coat over his +bunk, with the mouse still in it, so that it was not long before the +little creature made up its mind to take full possession of the pocket. +It intimated as much to Falkner on the tenth and last day of the storm, +when it began very business-like operations of building a nest of paper +and rabbits' fur in the coat pocket. Jim's heart gave a big and sudden +jump of delight when he saw the work going on. + +"Bless my soul, I wonder if it's a girl mouse an' we're goin' to have +BABIES!" he gasped. + +After that he did not wear the coat, through fear of disturbing the nest. +The two became more and more friendly, until finally the mouse would sit +on Jim's shoulder at meal time, and nibble at bannock. What little +trouble the mouse caused only added to Falkner's love for it. + +"He's a human little cuss," he told himself one day, as he watched the +mouse busy at work caching away scraps of food, which it carried through +a crack in the sapling floor. "He's that human I've got to put all my +grab in the tin cans or we'll go short before spring!" His chief trouble +was to keep his snowshoes out of his tiny companion's reach. The mouse +had developed an unholy passion for babiche, the caribou skin thongs used +in the webs of his shoes, and one of the webs was half eaten away before +Falkner discovered what was going on. At last he was compelled to suspend +the shoes from a nail driven in one of the roof-beams. + +In the evening, when the stove glowed hot, and a cotton wick sputtered in +a pan of caribou grease on the table, Falkner's chief diversion was to +tell the mouse all about his plans, and hopes, and what had happened in +the past. He took an almost boyish pleasure in these one-sided +entertainments--and yet, after all, they were not entirely one-sided, for +the mouse would keep its bright, serious-looking little eyes on Falkner's +face; it seemed to understand, if it could not talk. + +Falkner loved to tell the little fellow of the wonderful days of four or +five years ago away down in the sunny Ohio valley where he had courted +the Girl and where they lived before they moved to the farm in Canada. He +tried to impress upon Little Jim's mind what it meant for a great big, +unhandsome fellow like himself to be loved by a tender slip of a girl +whose hair was like gold and whose eyes were as blue as the wood-violets. +One evening he fumbled for a minute under his bunk and came back to the +table with a worn and finger-marked manila envelope, from which he drew +tenderly and with almost trembling care a long, shining tress of golden +hair. + +"That HERS," he said proudly, placing it on the table close to the mouse. +"An' she's got so much of it you can't see her to the hips when she takes +it down; an' out in the sun it shines like--like--glory!" + +The stove door crashed open, and a number of coals fell out upon the +floor. For a few minutes Falkner was busy, and when he returned to the +table he gave a gasp of astonishment. The curl and the mouse were gone! +Little Jim had almost reached its nest with its lovely burden when +Falkner captured it. + +"You little cuss!" he breathed revently. "Now I know you come from her! I +know it!" + +In the weeks that followed the storm Falkner again followed his +trap-lines, and scattered poison-baits for the white foxes on the Barren. +Early in January the second great storm of that year came from out of the +North. It gave no warning, and Falkner was caught ten miles from camp. He +was making a struggle for life before he reached the shack. He was +exhausted, and half blinded. He could hardly stand on his feet when he +staggered up against his own door. He could see nothing when he entered. +He stumbled over a stool, and fell to the floor. Before he could rise a +strange weight was upon him. He made no resistance, for the storm had +driven the last ounce of strength from his body. + +"It's been a long chase, but I've got you now, Falkner," he heard a +triumphant voice say. And then came the dreaded formula, feared to the +uttermost limits of the great Northern wilderness: "I warn you! You are +my prisoner, in the name of His Majesty, the King!" + +Corporal Carr, of the Royal Mounted of the Northwest, was a man without +human sympathies. He was thin faced, with a square, bony jaw, and lips +that formed a straight line. His eyes were greenish, like a cat's, and +were constantly shifting. He was a beast of prey, as much as the wolf, +the lynx, or the fox--and his prey was men. Only such a man as Carr, +alone would have braved the treacherous snows and the intense cold of the +Arctic winter to run him down. Falkner knew that, as an hour later he +looked over the roaring stove at his captor. About Carr there was +something of the unpleasant quickness, the sinuous movement, of the +little white ermine--the outlaw of the wilderness. His eyes were as +merciless. At times Falkner caught the same red glint in them. And above +his despair, the utter hopelessness of his situation, there rose in him +an intense hatred and loathing of the man. + +Falkner's hands were then securely tied behind him. + +"I'd put the irons on you," Carr had explained a hard, emotionless voice, +"only I lost them somewhere back there." + +Beyond that he had not said a dozen words. He had built up the fire, +thawed himself out, and helped himself to food. Now, for the first time, +he loosened up a bit. + +"I've had a devil of a chase," he said bitterly, a cold glitter in his +eyes as he looked at Falkner. "I've been after you three months, and now +that I've got you this accursed storm is going to hold me up! And I left +my dogs and outfit a mile back in the scrub." + +"Better go after 'em," replied Falkner. "If you don't there won't be any +dogs an' outfit by morning." + +Corporal Carr rose to his feet and went to the window. In a moment he +turned. + +"I'll do that," he said. "Stretch yourself out on the bunk. I'll have to +lace you down pretty tight to keep you from playing a trick on me." + +There was something so merciless and brutal in his eyes and voice that +Falkner felt like leaping upon him, even with his hands tied behind his +back. + +He was glad, however, that Carr had decided to go. He was, filled with an +overwhelming desire to be rid of him, if only for an hour. + +He went to the bunk and lay down. Corporal Carr approached, pulling a +roll of babiche cord from his pocket. + +"If you don't mind you might tie my hands in front instead of behind," +suggested Falkner. "It's goin' to be mighty unpleasant to have 'em under +me, if I've got to lay here for an hour or two." + +"Not on your life I won't tie 'em in front!" snapped Carr, his little +eyes glittering. And then he gave a cackling laugh, and his eyes were as +green as a cat's. "An' it won't be half so unpleasant as having something +'round your NECK!" he joked. + +"I wish I was free," breathed Falkner, his chest heaving. "I wish we +could fight, man t' man. I'd be willing to hang then, just to have the +chance to break your neck. You ain't a man of the Law. You're a devil." + +Carr laughed the sort of laugh that sends a chill up one's back, and drew +the caribou-skin cord tight about Falkner's ankles. + +"Can't blame me for being a little careful," he said in his revolting +way. "By your hanging I become a Sergeant. That's my reward for running +you down." + +He lighted the lamp and filled the stove before he left the cabin. From +the door he looked back at Falkner, and his face was not like a man's, +but like that of some terrible death-spirit, ghostly, and thin, and +exultant in the dim glow of the lamp. As he opened the door the roar of +the blizzard and a gust of snow filled the cabin. Then it closed, and a +groaning curse fell from Falkner's lips. He strained fiercely at the +thongs that bound him, but after the first few minutes he lay still +breathing hard, knowing that every effort he made only tightened the +caribou-skin cord that bound him. + +On his back, he listened to the storm. It was filled with the same +strange cries and moaning sound that had almost driven him to madness, +and now they sent through him a shivering chill that he had not felt +before, even in the darkest and most hopeless hours of his loneliness and +despair. A breath that was almost a sob broke from his lips as a vision +of the Girl and the Kid came to shut out from his ears the moaning tumult +of the wind. A few hours before he had been filled with hope--almost +happiness, and now he was lost. From such a man as Carr there was no hope +for mercy, or of escape. Flat on his back, he closed his eyes, and tried +to think--to scheme something that might happen in his favor, to foresee +an opportunity that might give him one last chance. And then, suddenly, +he heard a sound. It traveled over the blanket that formed a pillow for +his head. A cool, soft little nose touched his ear, and then tiny feet +ran swiftly over his shoulder, and halted on his breast. He opened his +eyes, and stared. + +"You little cuss!" he breathed. A hundred times he had spoken those +words, and each time they were of increasing wonder and adoration. "You +little cuss!" he whispered again, and he chuckled aloud. + +The mouse was humped on his breast in that curious little ball that it +made of itself, and was eyeing him, Jim thought, in a questioning sort of +way, "What's the matter with you?" it seemed to ask. "Where are your +hands?" + +And Jim answered: + +"They've got me, old man. Now what the dickens are we going to do?" + +The mouse began investigating. It examined his shoulder, the end of his +chin, and ran along his arm, as far as it could go. + +"Now what do you think of that!" Falkner exclaimed softly. "The little +cuss is wondering where my hands are!" Gently he rolled over on his side. + +"There they are," he said, "hitched tighter 'n bark to a tree!" + +He wiggled his fingers, and in a moment he felt the mouse. The little +creature ran across the opened palm of his hand to his wrist, and then +every muscle in Falkner's body grew tense, and one of the strangest cries +that ever fell from human lips came from his. The mouse had found once +more the dried hide-flesh of which the snowshoe webs were made. It had +found babiche. And it had begun TO GNAW! + +In the minutes that followed Falkner scarcely breathed. He could feel the +mouse when it worked. Above the stifled beating of his heart he could +hear its tiny jaws. In those moments he knew that his last hope of life +hung in the balance. Five, ten minutes passed, and not until then did he +strain at the thongs that bound his wrists. Was that the bed that had +snapped? Or was it the breaking of one of the babiche cords? He strained +harder. The thongs were loosening; his wrists were freer; with a cry that +sent the mouse scurrying to the floor he doubled himself half erect, and +fought like a madman. Five minutes later and he was free. + +He staggered to his feet, and looked at his wrists. They were torn and +bleeding. His second thought was of Corporal Carr--and a weapon. The +man-hunter had taken the precaution to empty the chambers of Falkner's +revolver and rifle and throw his cartridges out in the snow. But his +skinning-knife was still in its sheath and belt, and he buckled it about +his waist. He had no thought of killing Carr, though he hated the man +almost to the point of murder. But his lips set in a grim smile as he +thought of what he WOULD do. + +He knew that when Carr returned he would not enter at once into the +cabin. He was the sort of man who would never take an unnecessary chance. +He would go first to the little window--and look in. Falkner turned the +lamp-wick lower, and placed the lamp on the table directly between the +window and the bunk. Then he rolled his blankets into something like a +human form, and went to the window to see the effect. The bunk was in +deep shadow. From the window Corporal Carr could not see beyond the lamp. +Then Falkner waited, out of range of the window, and close to the door. + +It was not long before he heard something above the wailing of the storm. +It was the whine of a dog, and he knew that a moment later the Corporal's +ghostly face was peering in at the window. Then there came the sudden, +swift opening of the door, and Carr sprang in like a cat, his hand on the +butt of his revolver, still obeying that first governing law of his +merciless life--caution, Falkner was so near that he could reach out and +touch Carr, and in an instant he was at his enemy's throat. Not a cry +fell from Carr's lips. There was death in the terrible grip of Falkner's +hands, and like one whose neck had been broken Carr sank to the floor. +Falkner's grip tightened, and he did not loosen it until Carr was black +in the face and his jaw fell open. Then Falkner bound him hand and foot +with the babiche thongs, and dragged him to the bunk. + +Through the open door one of the sledge-dogs had thrust his head and +shoulders. It was a Barracks team, accustomed to warmth and shelter, and +Falkner had no difficulty in getting the leader and his three mates +inside. To make friends with them he fed them chunks of raw caribou meat, +and when Carr opened his eyes he was busy packing. He laughed joyously +when he saw that the man-hunter had regained consciousness, and was +staring at him with evident malice. + +"Hello, Carr," he greeted affably. "Feeling better? Tables sort of +turned, ain't they?" + +Carr made no answer. His white lips were set like thin bands of steel. + +"I'm getting ready to leave you," Falkner explained, as he rolled up a +blanket and shoved it into his rubber pack-pouch. "And you're going to +stay here--until spring. Do you get onto that? You've GOT to stay. I'm +going to leave you marooned, so to speak. You couldn't travel a hundred +yards out there without snowshoes, and I'm goin' to take your snowshoes. +And I'm goin' to take your guns, and burn your pack, your coat, mittens, +cap, an' moccasins. Catch on? I'm not goin' to kill you, and I'm going to +leave you enough grub to last until spring, but you won't dare risk +yourself out in the cold and snow. If you do, you'll freeze off your +tootsies, and make your lungs sick. Don't you feel sort of +pleasant--you--you--devil!" + +Six hours later Falkner stood outside the cabin. The dogs were in their +traces, and the sledge was packed. The storm had blown itself out, and a +warmer temperature had followed in the path of the blizzard. He wore his +coat now, and gently he felt of the bulging pocket, and laughed joyously +as he faced the South. + +"It's goin' to be a long hike, you little cuss," he said softly. "It's +goin' to be a darned long hike. But we'll make it. Yessir, we'll make it. +And won't they be s'prised when we fall in on 'em, six months ahead of +time?" + +He examined the pocket carefully, making sure that he had buttoned down +the flap. + +"I wouldn't want to lose you," he chuckled. "Next to her, an' the kid, I +wouldn't want to lose you!" + +Then, slowly, a strange smile passed over his face, and he gazed +questioningly for a moment at the pocket which he held in his hand. + +"You nervy little cuss!" he grinned. "I wonder if you're a girl mouse, +an' if we're goin' to have a fam'ly on the way home! An'--an'--what the +dickens do you feed baby mice?" + +He lowered the pocket, and with a sharp command to the waiting dogs +turned his face into the South. + +THE END + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg Etext of Back to God's Country and Other Stories +by James Oliver Curwood + diff --git a/old/btgdc10.zip b/old/btgdc10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..ca83371 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/btgdc10.zip |